“You keep a knife in your bodice and another at the small of your back. I assume the pin in your hair is fairly sharp too.”

“I have served King Janus loyally and well for five years - ”

“He doesn’t care. The knowledge you possess is too dangerous.”

“I have money…”

“I have no need of riches.” The bag holding the bluestone was heavy on his belt. “No need at all.”

“Well.” She leaned back from the table, letting her hands fall to her side, lifting her skirts to show her parted knees, another half-smile playing on her lips, no more genuine than the first. “At least show me the courtesy of fucking me before rather than after.”

A laugh died on his lips. He looked away, clasping his hands together on the table top. “You’re safe from me but not from him. You should leave the city, the Realm if you can. Don’t ever come back.”

She rose slowly, moving cautiously to the door, reaching for the handle, her other hand behind her back, no doubt clutching her knife. Turning the handle, she paused, “Your father is fortunate in his son, my lord.” And she was gone, the door swinging closed on poorly oiled hinges.

“I have no father,” he said softly to the empty room.

Chapter 3

Away from the Alpiran coast scrubland gave way to broad trackless desert, swept by a stiff southerly wind that stirred the sands into funnels of dust, drifting over the dunes like wraiths. The army kept to the fringes of the desert, advancing towards Untesh in a column more than two miles long. Watching the army Vaelin was reminded of a great snake he had once seen slip from a cage on a ship from the Far West, it had stretched across the width of the deck, scales glittering in the sun like the spears of the Realm Guard now.

He was perched on a rock studded rise a few miles ahead of the main column, drinking from his canteen whilst Spit chewed at the meagre leaves of a desert shrub nearby. Frentis and his scout troop, what was left of them after the battle near the beach, were encamped about the rise, keeping watch on the eastern horizon.

He thought of the battle two days ago, of the white-clad man and the party that came to ask for his body, four stern faced men of the Imperial Guard who appeared out of the desert and demanded to see the Battle Lord. Al Hestian rode out to greet them with the luminaries of the army in tow, making a show of formal etiquette which the Alpirans ignored by staying in their saddles. He was reading out the king’s proclamation of formal annexation of the three cities of Untesh, Linesh and Marbellis when one of the guardsmen cut him off in mid-sentence, a well-built man with ash-grey hair, speaking near perfect Realm tongue: “Save your prattle, Northman. We come for the Eruhin’s body. Give it to us or kill us, we won’t leave without it.”

Al Hestian’s composure faltered, his face flushing with anger. “What is this Eruhin?”

“The man in white,” Vaelin said. He hadn’t been asked to join the parley but had reined in on the fringes anyway, knowing the Battle Lord wouldn’t wish to make a scene by sending him away, not at such an auspicious moment as his first meeting with the enemy. “The Eruhin, yes?” he asked the guardsman.

The guardsman’s eyes locked on to him, scanning him from head to toe, searching his face. “It was you? You slew him?”

Vaelin nodded. Snarling, one of the other guardsmen half-drew his sabre before the grey-haired man restrained him with a harsh order.

“Who was he?” Vaelin asked.

“His name was Seliesen Maxtor Aluran,” the guardsman replied. “The Eruhin, the Hope in your language. Chosen heir of the Emperor.”

“Our commiserations to your Emperor,” the Battle Lord broke in smoothly. “Such a grievous loss is to be regretted but we come only for what it rightfully…”

“You come for conquest and plunder, Northman,” the grey haired man told him. “You will find only death in these lands. There will be no further parleys, no more talk, we will kill you all as you have killed our Hope. Expect no quarter. Now give us his body.”

Lord Darnel drank from a flask and swilled wine around his mouth before spitting it on the hooves of the guardsman’s horse. “He breaks the rules of parley with his discourtesies, my lord,” he observed to Al Hestian. “His life is clearly forfeit.”

“No it isn’t.” Vaelin spurred between the two parties, addressing the guardsman. “I’ll escort you to the body.”

He could feel the Battle Lord’s fury as they rode over to the corpse, sensing Lord Darnel’s hate, remembering something Aspect Arlyn had told him, Men who love themselves hate those who would dim their glory.

The guardsmen dismounted and lifted the body of their Hope onto a pack-horse. The grey haired guardsman tightened the straps securing the body to the horse and turned to Vaelin, his eyes shining with tears. “What is your name?” he demanded hoarsely.

He could think of no reason not to tell him. “Vaelin Al Sorna.”

“Your consideration does not dim my hate, Vaelin Al Sorna, Eruhin Mahktar, Hope Killer. My honour tells me I should take my own life, but my hate will keep me alive. From now on my every breath will be drawn with but one purpose, to see your end. My name is Neliesen Nester Hevren, Captain of the Tenth Cohort of the Imperial Guard. Do not forget it.”

With that he and his comrades had mounted and ridden away.

Sometimes the Faith requires all we have. The Aspect’s words again, spoken that day last winter when he walked with Vaelin on the snow covered practice field listening to what he had to say about the king’s plans. It had been cold that day, colder than usual even for Weslin, the novice brothers stumbling in the snow as they ran and fought and bore the sting of their masters’ canes.

“This will be a war unlike any we have known,” the Aspect had said, his breath steaming the air. “A great sacrifice will be made. Many of our brothers will not return. You understand this?”

Vaelin nodded, he had listened to the Aspect for a long time and found he had no more words.

“But you must return, Vaelin. Fight as hard as you have to, kill as much as you have to. No matter how many of your men and your brothers fall, you will return to this Realm.”

Vaelin nodded again and the Aspect smiled, the only time Vaelin had seen him do so since that first day at the Order House gate all those years ago. Somehow it made him seem old, the way it creased the lines around his eyes and his thin lips. He had never seemed old before.

“Sometimes, you remind me so much of your mother,” the Aspect said sadly, then turned and walked away, his tall form moving through the snow without the slightest misstep.

Scratch came loping up the rise, a cloud of dust ascending in his wake, a hare dangling from his mouth. Large, wide-footed hares seemed to proliferate in the scrub lands and, like Scratch, the Realm Guard had been quick to take advantage of easy game. The slave-hound dropped the hare at Vaelin’s feet and gave one of his short, rasping barks.

“Thanks, daft dog,” Vaelin scratched at his neck. “But you can have it.” He lifted the hare and threw it down the hill, Scratch scampering after with a joyful yelp.

“You usually leave him behind when we go on campaign,” Frentis said, sitting down and unstoppering his flask.

“Thought he would appreciate a new hunting ground.”

“So he was their emperor’s son, was he?” Frentis asked. “The man in the white armour.”