King of Thorns Read online

  Four years earlier

  I took my uncle’s throne in my fourteenth year and found it to my liking. I had a castle, and staff of serving maids, to explore, a court of nobles to suppress, or at least what counted as nobles in the Highlands, and a treasury to ransack. For the first three months I confined myself to these activities.

  I woke soaked with sweat. I normally wake suddenly with a clear head, but I felt as though I were drowning.

  “Too hot…”

  I rolled and fell from the bed, landing heavy.

  Smoke.

  Shouting in the distance.

  I uncovered the bed-lamp and turned up the wick. The smoke came from the doors, not seeping under or between but lifting from every inch of the charred wood and rising like a rippled curtain.

  “Shit—” Burning to death has always been a worry of mine. Call it a personal foible. Some people are scared of spiders. I’m scared of immolation. Also spiders.

  “Gog!” I bellowed.

  He’d been out there in the antechamber when I retired. I moved toward the doors, coming at them from the side. An awful heat came off them. I could leave by the doorway or try to fit myself through the bars on any of three windows before negotiating the ninety-foot drop.

  I took an axe from the wall display and stood with my back to the stone, next to the doors. My lungs hurt and I couldn’t see straight. Swinging the axe felt like swinging a full-grown man. The blade bit and the doors exploded. Orange-white fire roared into the room, furnace-hot, in a thick tongue forking time and again. And, almost as suddenly, it died away like a cough ending, leaving nothing but scorched floor and a burning bed.

  The antechamber felt hotter than my bedchamber, char-black from floor to ceiling, with a huge glowing coal at its centre. I staggered back toward my bed. The heat took the water from my eyes and for a moment my vision cleared. The coal was Gog, curled like a new-born, pulsing with flame.

  Something vast broke from the doorway leading to the guards’ room beyond. Gorgoth! He scooped the boy up in one three-fingered hand and slapped him with the other. Gog woke with a sharp cry and the fire went out of him in an instant, leaving nothing but a limp child, skin stippled red and black, and the stink of burned meat.

  Without words I stumbled past them and let my guards help me away.

  They practically had to drag me to the throne-room before I found my strength. “Water,” I managed. And when I’d drunk and used my knife to trim away the burned ends of my hair, I coughed out, “Bring the monsters.”

  Makin clattered into the hall still pulling on a gauntlet. “Again?” he asked. “Another fire?”

  “Bad this time. An inferno,” I said. “At least I won’t have to look at my uncle’s furniture any more.”

  “You can’t let him sleep in the castle,” Makin said.

  “I know that,” I said. “Now.”

  “Put a quick end to it, Jorg.” Makin pulled the gauntlet off. We weren’t under attack after all.

  “You can’t let him go.” Coddin arrived, dark circles under his eyes. “He’s too dangerous. Someone will use him.”

  And there it hung. Gog had to die.

  Three clashes on the main doors and they swung open. Gorgoth entered the throne-room with Gog, flanked by four of my table-knights, who looked like children beside him. Seen in amongst men the leucrota looked every bit as monstrous as the day I found them under Mount Honas. Gorgoth’s cat-eyes slitted despite the gloom, blood-red hide almost black, as if infected with the night.

  “What are you, Gog, eight years now? And busy trying to burn down my castle.” I felt Gorgoth’s eyes upon me. The great spars of his ribcage flexed back and forth with each breath.

  “The big one will fight,” Coddin murmured at my shoulder. “He will be hard to put down.”

  “Eight years,” Gog repeated. He didn’t know but he liked to agree with me. His voice had been high and sweet when we met beneath Mount Honas. Now it came raw and carried the crackle of flame behind it as if he might start breathing the stuff out like a damned dragon.

  “I will take him away,” Gorgoth said, almost too deep to hear. “Far.”

  Play your pieces, Jorg. A silence stretched out.

  I wouldn’t be sitting in this throne if Gorgoth hadn’t held the gate. Or sitting here if Gog hadn’t burned the Count’s men. The skin on my face still clung tight, my lungs still hurt, and the stink of burnt hair still filled my nostrils.

  “I’m sorry about your bed, Brother Jorg,” Gog said. Gorgoth flicked his shoulder, one thick finger, enough to stagger him. “King Jorg,” Gog corrected.

  I wouldn’t be sitting on the throne but for a lot of people, a stack of chances, some improbable, some stolen, but for the sacrifice of many men, some better, some worse. A man cannot take on new burdens of debt at every turn or he will buckle beneath the weight and be unable to move.

  “You were ready to give this child to the necromancers, Gorgoth,” I said. “Him and his brother both.” I didn’t ask if he would die to protect Gog. That much was written in him.

  “Things change,” Gorgoth said.

  “Better they find a quick death, you said.” I stood. “The changes will come too fast in these ones. Too fast to be borne. The changes will turn them inside out, you said.”

  “Let him take his chance,” Gorgoth said.

  “I nearly died in my bed tonight.” I stepped down from the dais, Makin at my shoulder now. “The royal chambers are in ashes. And dying abed was never my plan. Unless t’were as emperor in my dotage beneath an over-energetic young concubine.”

  “It cannot be helped.” Gorgoth’s hands closed into massive fists. “It’s in his dena.”

  “His dinner?” My hand rested on the hilt of my sword. I remembered how Gog had fought to save his little brother. How pure that fury had been. I missed that purity in myself. Only yesterday every choice came easy. Black or white. Stab Gemt in the neck or don’t. And now? Shades of grey. A man can drown in shades of grey.

  “His dena. The story of every man, written at his core, what he is, what he will be, written in a coil in the core of us all,” Gorgoth said.

  I’d never heard the monster say so many words in a row. “I’ve opened up a lot of men, Gorgoth, and if anything is written there then it’s written red on red and smells bad.”

  “The centre of a man isn’t found by your geometry, Highness.” He held me with those cat’s eyes. He’d never called me Highness before either. Probably the closest to begging he would ever come.

  I stared at Gog, crouched now, looking from me to Gorgoth and back. I liked the boy. Plain and simple. Both of us with a dead brother that we couldn’t save, both of us with something burning in us, some elemental force of destruction wanting out every moment of every day.

  “Sire,” Coddin said, knowing my mind for once. “These matters need not occupy the king. Take my chambers and we’ll speak again in the morning.”

  Leave and we’ll do your dirty work for you. The message was clear enough. And Coddin didn’t want to do it. If he could read me I surely could read him. He didn’t want to slit his horse’s throat when a loose rock lamed it. But he did. And he would now. The game of kings was never a clean game.

  Play your pieces.

  “It can’t be helped, Jorg,” Makin set a hand to my shoulder, voice soft. “He’s too dangerous. There’s no knowing what he’ll become.”

  Play your pieces. Win the game. Take the hardest line.

  “Gog,” I said. He stood slowly, eyes on mine. “They’re telling me you’re too dangerous. That I can’t keep you. Or let you go. That you are a chance that can’t be taken. A weapon that can’t be wielded.” I turned, taking in the throne-room, the high vaults, dark windows, and faced Coddin, Makin, the knights of my table. “I woke a Builders’ Sun beneath Gelleth, and this child is too much for me?”

  “Those were desperate times, Jorg,” Makin said, studying the floor.

  “All times are desperate,” I said. “You think w
e’re safe here, on our mountainside? This castle might look big from the inside. From a mile off you can cover it with your thumb.”

  I looked at Gorgoth. “Maybe I need a new geometry. Maybe we need to find this dena and see if the story can’t be rewritten.”

  “The child’s power is out of control, Jorg,” Coddin said, a brave man to interject when I’m in full flow. The kind of man I needed. “It will only grow more wild.”

  “I’m taking him to Heimrift,” I said. Gog is a weapon and I will forge him there.

  “Heimrift?” Gorgoth relaxed his fists, knuckles cracking with loud retorts.

  “A place of demons and fire,” Makin muttered.

  “A volcano,” I said. “Four volcanoes actually. And a fire-mage. Or so my tutor told me. So let’s put the benefits of a royal education to the test, shall we? At least Gog will like it there. Everything burns.”

  5

  Four years earlier

  “This is a bad idea, Jorg.”

  “It’s a dangerous idea, Coddin, but that doesn’t have to mean it’s bad.” I laid my knife on the map to stop it rolling up again.

  “Whatever the chances of success, you’ll leave your kingdom without a king.” He set a fingertip to the map, resting on the Haunt as if to show me my place. “It’s only been three months, Jorg. The people aren’t sure of you yet, the nobles will start to plot the moment you leave, and how many men-at-arms will you take with you? With an empty throne the Renar Highlands might look like an easy prize. Your royal father might even choose to call with the Army of the Gate. If it comes to defending this place I don’t know how many of your uncle’s troops will rally to your cry.”

  “My father didn’t send the Gate when my mother and brother were murdered.” My fingers closed around the knife hilt of their own accord. “He’s unlikely to move against the Haunt now. Especially when his armies are busy acquiring what’s left of Gelleth.”

  “So how many soldiers will you take?” Coddin asked. “The Watch will not be enough.”

  “I’m not going to take any,” I said. “I could take the whole damn army and it would just get me into a war on somebody else’s lands.” Coddin made to protest. I cut him off. “I’ll take my Brothers. They’ll appreciate a spell on the road and we managed to traipse to and fro happily enough not so many years ago with nobody giving us much pause.”

  Makin returned with several large map scrolls under his arm. “In disguise is it?” he said and grinned. “Good. Truth be told, this place has given me itchy feet.”

  “You’re staying, Brother Makin,” I told him. “I’ll take Red Kent, Row, Grumlow, Young Sim…and Maical, why not? He may be a half-wit but he’s hard to kill. And of course Little Rike—”

  “Not him,” Coddin said, face cold. “There’s no loyalty in that one. He’ll leave you dead in a hedgerow.”

  “I need him,” I said.

  Coddin frowned. “He might be handy in a fight, but there’s no subtlety in him, no discipline, he’s not clever, he—”

  “The way I’d put it,” said Makin, “is that Rike can’t make an omelette without wading thigh deep in the blood of chickens and wearing their entrails as a necklace.”

  “He’s a survivor,” I said. “And I need survivors.”

  “You need me,” said Makin.

  “You can’t trust him.” Coddin rubbed his forehead as he always did when the worry got in him.

  “I need you here, Makin,” I said. “I want to have a kingdom to come back to. And I know I can’t trust Rike, but four years on the road taught me that he’s the right tool for the job.”

  I lifted my knife and the map sprung back into its roll. “I’ve seen enough.”

  Makin raised his eyes and tipped his maps unopened onto the table.

  “Mark me out a decent route will you, Coddin, and have that scribe lad copy it down.” I stood straight and stretched. I’d need to find something to wear. One of the maids had burned my old rags and velvet’s no good for the road. It’s like a magnet for dust.

  * * *

  Father Gomst met Makin, Kent and me on our way to the stables. He’d hurried from chapel, red in the face, the heaviest bible under one arm and the altar cross in his other hand.

  “Jorg—” He stopped to catch his breath. “King Jorg.”

  “You’re going to join us, Father Gomst?” The way he paled made me smile.

  “The blessing,” he said, still short of wind.

  “Ah, well bless away.”

  Kent went to his knees in an instant, as pious a killer as I ever knew. Makin followed with unseemly haste for a man who’d sacked a cathedral in his time. Since Gomst had walked out of Gelleth by the light of a Builders’ Sun, without so much as a tan to show for it, the Brothers seemed to think him touched by God. The fact we had all done the same with far less time at our disposal didn’t register with them.

  For my own part, for all the evils of the Roma church, I could no longer bring myself to despise Gomst as I once had. His only true crime was to be a weak and impotent man, unable to deliver the promise of his lord, the love of his saviour, or even to put the yoke of Roma about the necks of his flock with any conviction.

  I bowed my head and listened to the prayer. It never hurts to cover your bases.

  In the west yard my motley band were assembled, checking over their gear. Rike had the biggest horse I’d ever seen.

  “I could run faster than this monster, Rike.” I made a show of checking behind it. “You didn’t take the plough when you stole it, then?”

  “It’ll do,” he said. “Big enough for loot.”

  “Maical’s not bringing the head-cart?” I looked around. “Where is he anyway?”

  “Gone for the grey,” Kent said. “Idiot won’t ride any other horse. Says he doesn’t know how.”

  “Now that’s loyalty for you.” I shot Rike a look. “So where’s this new wife of yours, Brother Rikey? Not coming to see you off?”

  “Busy ploughing.” He slapped his horse. “Got a job of it now.”

  Gorgoth came through the kitchen gate, looming behind Rike. It’s unsettling to see something on two legs that’s taller and wider than Rike. Gog popped out from behind him. He took my hand and I let him lead me. There’s not many that will take my hand since the necromancy took root in me. There’s a touch of death in my fingers, not just the coldness. Flowers wilt and die.

  “Where we going, Brother Jorg?” Still a child’s voice despite the crackle in it.

  “To find us a fire-mage. Put an end to this bed-burning,” I told him.

  “Will it hurt?” He watched me with big eyes, pools of black.

  I shrugged. “Might do.”

  “Scared,” he said, clutching my hand tighter. I could feel heat rising from his fingers. Maybe it cancelled the cold from mine. “Scared.”

  “Well then,” I said. “We’re headed the right way.”

  He frowned.

  “You’ve got to hunt your fears, Gog. Beat them. They’re your only true enemies.”

  “You’re not scared of anything, Brother Jorg,” he said. “King J—”

  “I’m scared of burning,” I said. “Especially in my bed.” I looked back to the brothers, stowing weapons and supplies. “I had a cousin who liked to burn people up, did I not, Brother Row?”

  “Ayuh.” He nodded.

  “My cousin Marclos,” I said. “Tell Gog what happened to him.”

  Row tested the point of an arrow with his thumb. “Went up to him all on your ownself, Jorg, and killed him in the middle of a hundred of his soldiers.”

  I looked down at Gog. “I’m scared of spiders too. It’s the way that they move. And the way that they’re still. It’s that scurry.” I mimicked it with my hand.

  I called back to Row. “How am I with spiders, Row?”

  “Weird.” Row spat and secured his last arrow. “You’ll like this tale, Gog, what with being a godless monster and all.” He spat again. Brother Row liked to spit. “Spent a week holed up
in some grain barns one time. Hiding. We didn’t go hungry. Grain and rats make for a good stew. Only Jorg here wasn’t having any of that. Place was stuffed full of spiders see. Big hairy fellows.” He spread his fingers until the knuckles cracked. “For a whole week Jorg hunted them. Didn’t eat nothing but spider for a week. And not cooked mind. Not even dead.”

  “And rat stew always tasted good after that week,” I said.

  Gog frowned, then his eyes caught the glitter on my wrist. “What’s this?” He pointed.

  I pulled my sleeve back and held it up for all to see. “Two things I found in my uncle’s treasury that were worth more than the gold around them. Thought I’d bring them along in case of need.” I made sure Rike caught sight of the silver on my wrist. “No need to be going through my saddlebags at night now, Little Rikey. The treasure’s here and if you think you can take it, try now.”

  He sneered and tied off another strap.

  “Wossit?” Gog stared entranced.

  “The Builders made it,” I said. “It’s a thousand years old.”

  Row and Red Kent came over to see.

  “I’m told they call it a watch,” I said. “And you can see why.”

  In truth, I’d been watching it a lot myself. It had a face on it behind crystal, with twelve hours marked and sixty minutes, and two black arms that moved, one slow, one slower still, to point out the time. Entranced, I had opened it up at the back with the point of my knife and gazed into the guts of the thing. The hatch popped back on a minute hinge as if the Builders had known I would want to see inside. Wheels within wheels, tiny, toothed, and turning. How they made such things so small and so precise I cannot guess but to me it is a wonder past any man-made sun or glow-light.

  “What else you got, Jorg?” Rike asked.

  “This.” I took it from the deep pocket on my hip and set it down on the flagstones. A battered metal clown with traces of paint clinging to his jerkin, hair and nose.

  Kent took a step back. “It looks evil.”

  I knelt and released a catch behind the clown’s head. With a jerk and a whir he started to stamp his metal feet and bring his metal hands together, clashing the cymbals he held. He jittered in a loose circle, stamping and clashing, going nowhere.