I coughed. “The pirates no doubt recognised her value for ransom.”

“Except they asked for no ransom. Only for me to come and fight their champion.” His mouth twitched and I realised I was being baited.

I recalled Emeren’s bitter audience with the Emperor after the Northman’s trial where she had begged for his sentence to be changed. “A death demands a death,” she had railed, her fine features contorted with rage. “The gods demand it. The people demand it. My fatherless son demands it. And I demand it, Sire, as widow to the murdered Hope of this Empire.”

In the chill silence that followed her tirade the Emperor sat silent and unmoving on his throne, the attending guards and courtiers shocked and stiff with trepidation, their eyes fixed firmly on the floor. When the Emperor finally spoke his voice was toneless and devoid of anger as he decreed the Lady Emeren had offended his person and was banished from court until further notice. As far as I knew they hadn’t exchanged a single word since.

“Suspect what you wish,” I told Al Sorna. “But know the Emperor does not scheme, he would never indulge in revenge. His every action is in service to the Empire.”

He laughed. “Your emperor has sent me to the islands to die, my lord. So the Meldeneans can have their revenge on my father and the lady can witness the death of the man who killed her husband. I wonder if it was her idea or theirs.”

I couldn’t fault his reasoning. He was, of course, expected to die. The Hope Killer’s end would be the final act in the trauma of our war with his people, the epilogue to the epic of conflict. Whether this had been in the Emperor’s mind when he agreed to the Meldeneans’ offer I truly don’t know. In any case Al Sorna seemed free of fear and resigned to his fate. I wondered if he actually expected to survive his duel with the Shield, reputedly the finest swordsman ever to wield a blade. The Hope Killer’s story had left me in little doubt as to his own deadly abilities but they were sure to have been dulled by his years of captivity. Even if he did prevail the Meldeneans were unlikely to simply allow the son of the City Burner to sail away unmolested. He was a man going to his doom. I knew it, and so, apparently, did he.

“When did King Janus tell you of his plans to attack the Empire?” I asked, keen to extract as much of his story as possible before we made landfall.

“About a year before the Realm Guard embarked for Alpiran shores. For three years the regiment had roamed the Realm putting down rebels and outlaws. Smugglers on the southern shore, bands of cut-throats in Nilsael, ever more fanatics in Cumbrael. We spent a winter in the north fighting the Lonak when they decided it was time for another round of raiding. The regiment grew larger, adding two companies to the roster. After our Cumbraelin adventure the King had given us a banner of our own, a wolf running above the High Keep. And so the men began calling themselves the Wolfrunners. I always thought it sounded silly but they seemed to like it. For some reason young men flocked to our banner, not all of them poor either and we had no further reason to recruit from the dungeons. So many turned up at the Order House the Aspect was forced to instigate a series of tests, mainly tests of strength and speed, but tests in the Faith as well. Only those with the soundest Faith and the strongest bodies were taken. By the time we came to board the fleet for the invasion I had command of twelve hundred men, probably the best trained and most experienced soldiers in the Realm.” He looked down at the blue-white froth of the ocean as it collided with the hull, his expression sombre. “When the war ended less than two thirds were left. For the Realm Guard it was even worse, maybe one man in ten made it back to the Realm.”

Deservedly so, I thought but didn’t say. “What did he tell you?” I asked instead. “What reason did Janus give for the invasion?”

He lifted his head, staring at the teeth of Moesis as they faded toward the dim horizon. “Bluestone, spices and silk,” he said, his tone faintly bitter. “Bluestone, spices and silk.”

Chapter 1

The bluestone sat in Vaelin’s palm, a king’s gift, the dim light from the crescent moon gleaming on its smooth surface, a thin vein of silver-grey marking the otherwise flawless blue. It was the largest bluestone ever found, most were little bigger than a grape, and Barkus had informed him, with barely concealed greed, that it would fetch enough gold to buy most of Renfael.

“Can you hear that?” Dentos’s voice was steady but Vaelin saw the twitch below his eye. It had begun a year ago, when they cornered a large Lonak raiding party in a box canyon in the north. As ever the Lonak had refused to surrender and charged straight for their line, screaming death songs. It had been a brief but ugly fight, Dentos in the thick of it, emerging unscathed but for the twitch. It tended to flare up just before a battle. “Sounds like thunder.” He grinned, still twitching.

Vaelin pocketed the bluestone and looked out over the broad plain stretching away from the beach, sparse grass and scrub barely visible in the gloom. It seemed the northern coast of the Alpiran empire was not overly blessed with vegetation. Behind him the din of thousands of Realm Guard assembling on the beach mingled with the roar of the surf and the creek of countless oars as their fleet of Meldenean hirelings ferried ever more to the shoreline. Despite the noise he could hear it clearly; distant thunder, out in the darkness.

“Didn’t take them long,” Barkus observed. “Maybe they knew we were coming.”

“Meldenean bastards,” Dentos hawked and spat on the sand. “Never trust ‘em.”

“Perhaps they simply saw the fleet coming,” Caenis suggested. “Eight hundred ships would be hard to miss. It’s barely a couple of hours ride from here to the garrison at Untesh.”

“It scarcely matters how they know,” Vaelin said. “What matters is that they do and we have a busy night ahead of us. Brothers, to your companies. Dentos I want the archers on that rise.” He turned to Janril Norin, one time failed minstrel and now regimental bugler and standard bearer. “Form ranks by company.”

Janril nodded, bringing the bugle to his lips and sounding the urgent call to arms. The men responded instantly, rising from their resting places amidst the dunes and hurrying into their ranks, twelve hundred men forming into neat ranks in barely five minutes, the rapid unconscious actions of professional soldiers. There was little talk and no panic. Most had done this many times before and the new recruits took their lead from the veterans.

Vaelin waited until the men had assembled then walked the length of the regiment, checking for gaps, nodding encouragement or berating those he found with loose mail or poorly strapped helmets. The Wolfrunners were the least armoured soldiers in the Realm Guard, eschewing the usual steel breastplate and wide-brimmed helm for mail shirts and caps of leather lined with iron plates. The light armour befitted a force usually employed to pursue small bands of Lonak raiders or outlaws across rough country or thick forest.

Vaelin’s inspection was really Sergeant Krelnik’s job but had become something of a pre-battle ritual, giving the men a chance to see their commander before the chaos started, a distraction from the impending bloodshed, and it spared him the chore of making a rousing speech as other commanders were apt to do. He knew the men’s loyalty to him was mostly born of fear and a wary respect for his ever growing reputation. They didn’t love him, but he never doubted they would follow him, speech or not.