Cythera blushed. Then she put her hands in front of her, a few inches apart. Bright sparks burst between them.
The king nodded eagerly. “Good, good—keep doing that! It’s almost impressive. Now, you four—your job in the next few minutes is to stand there, looking menacing. That is all. I don’t want you to speak. I don’t want you to move at all. Just look dangerous. Can you do that?”
“Certainly, Majesty,” Croy said, “but for what purpose?”
“I have a guest I need to entertain.” It was the only explanation the king would give. He hurried to the door again and nodded to someone outside. “Send her in, now. I haven’t got all day.” Then he hurried back inside and took a seat in one of the room’s chairs.
A herald in bright green livery strode into the room and made an elaborate flourishing bow. “Your majesty,” he announced, “I must present the lady Mörgain, princess of the eastern steppes!”
The woman who came through the door wore very little other than a cloak of wolf fur. She stood taller than anyone in the room and broader through the shoulders than anyone but Croy or Hew. Her face was painted to look as if the flesh had been stripped from her skull, and her hair was hacked short and stuck out in wild bunches. If she was the daughter of Mörg the Wise then that made her the brother of Mörget, whom Croy had once called brother. Mörget was dead now, a fact that made him secretly breathe easier—he had no desire to test his prowess in a fight against Mörget. But by the look of her Mörgain would be nearly as deadly.
In her hand she held an iron axe, and she brought it round in a powerful swing that struck the herald in the small of the back. The small man went flying and crashed against the side of the hearth.
“No man calls me princess,” Mörgain said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Instantly Ghostcutter came to Croy’s hand. Beside him he saw Chillbrand appear in Sir Hew’s grip. Croy glanced over at Malden and nodded at the thief’s belt. Malden made a rather clumsy draw of it, but he got Acidtongue into the air.
Cythera drew her hands apart, and light jumped between her fingers.
Yet even before Croy could take a step toward the barbarian, Mörgain had drawn her own sword and dropped into a defensive crouch. The sight of the blade was enough to make even a disciplined knight take pause.
Croy had seen longer swords, but never any so massive. It was longer than Ghostcutter by a good six inches and the blade was broader than his palm. The sword had no quillions, nor needed any, for the blade was far wider than the grip, and only tapered near its point. It looked not so much like a sword as a grotesquely large kitchen knife. The iron had a perfect fibrous grain that spoke of master craftsmanship, but no matter how well balanced it might be Croy knew most men would never have been able to hold its weight in both hands.
Mörgain held it in one of her own, and the muscles in her bare arm showed little strain.
Sir Hew spoke the name that echoed inside Croy’s own skull.
“That’s Fangbreaker.”
Fangbreaker—one of the seven Ancient Blades. Made eight hundred years ago, at the same time as Ghostcutter, or Chillbrand, or Acidtongue, and sworn as they were to slay demons and defend humanity. Fangbreaker and another Ancient Blade called Dawnbringer had been lost to the people of Skrae centuries before in the final terrible battle they’d fought against the barbarians—the battle that had pushed the horde back beyond the Whitewall. The knights who wielded the blades perished in the fighting up in the mountains, and their swords were lost to Skrae. It had long been conjectured that they had ended up in the hands of the barbarians. Croy had confirmed the truth of that—he had seen Dawnbringer in the hand of Mörget, and now Mörgain held Fangbreaker. He wondered if Mörgain was as untrustworthy—and as unworthy of carrying an Ancient Blade—as her brother.
Maybe it was time to take the sword back for Skrae. He lunged forward, bringing Ghostcutter up from a low quarter. Mörgain moved faster than Croy expected and swept down with Fangbreaker so the two swords rang and grated along each others’ edge. Croy sensed Sir Hew coming up from behind him on his left, his weak side. Together they could make short work of this defiler—
Except that just then the king called, “Hold! Hold, all of you.”
Croy leapt back and shot a quick glance toward his liege. Ulfram V was crouching by the hearth, one hand pressed against the neck of the fallen herald.
“This man’s not dead. Just stunned. I will not have blood shed in my privy chamber. Not in this room, where my father died. And you, Malden—put that blasted thing away. You’re spilling acid on my good parquet floor.”
Croy kept his eyes on Mörgain. Her painted face showed nothing, though her eyes were on fire with bloodlust. If he or Hew wanted to continue the conversation, she would be happy to oblige, he was certain.
“Stop. Put away your weapons. All of you!” Ulfram demanded again.
Croy met Mörgain’s eyes, then slowly nodded. She nodded in return. They both sheathed their swords at the same time. Croy knew he could count on Sir Hew to do the same.
“As long as you do not use that filthy word again,” Mörgain announced, “I will remain at peace. I am no princess. Princesses are vain, idle things, good only for sitting in towers waiting to be married off to the richest man their fathers can find. I am a chieftess of the eastern clans. Thousands of men obey my command.”
The king stood up to his full height. The king might be overly familiar with his inferiors and he might fail to understand the value of the Ancient Blades, but Croy knew that Ulfram V did not lack for courage. “You’re in my land, now. I don’t see these thousands of men in this room. You’ve already given me offense. Did you come all this way to insult me? It’s a long voyage from the eastern steppes.”
“Not anymore,” Mörgain said, and smiled to show her teeth. Matched with the painted teeth on her lips, they looked like vicious fangs. “I rode here, driving my horse to the point of death by exhaustion. It took me two days. My clansmen are coming on foot. It will take them a little longer. But only a little.”
“So it’s true, what my scouts have told me,” Ulfram said, his voice hollow. “When Cloudblade fell, it cleared a new pass through the mountains.”
“One near as flat as the plains of my birth,” Mörgain agreed.
“And you’ll cross that pass to invade Skrae. For conquest.”
“As is our right. We are stronger than you. We’ve always been stronger than you,” Mörgain said, “and the strong should rule the weak. For centuries now you’ve hidden behind those mountains, just as you hide behind the walls of your cities. It seems even mountains can fall. Where will you hide now, little king?”
Ulfram bristled but he was enough of a statesman not to rise to an obvious taunt. Mörgain might be bigger than him but he didn’t have to fight her himself. “This is an act of aggression. A bald-faced move of conquest.”
Mörgain shrugged. “I am to let you know we were provoked.” She reached inside her wolf-fur cloak and took out something round and coated in tar. She turned it around and Croy saw it had a face on one side. A human head, hacked off and preserved in gruesome fashion.
It was enough to churn his guts. Even worse, he recognized the face. It belonged to a holy man who had once lived in an old fort just west of the Whitewall. Herward was his name, and he was one of the gentlest souls Croy had ever met.
“This one crossed the new pass a week ago. He came to where we were camped for the autumn and spread lies amongst my people. The Great Chieftain of the clans considers this an act of invasion on the part of Skrae.”
“Herward? An invader?” Croy cried out in disbelief. “He was a devotee of the Lady! Perhaps he was not entirely sane.” In fact the hermit had been driven mad by visions and black mead. Still—“He was no threat to you.”
“He spread lies,” Mörgain said again. “He spoke of a god called the Lady. He demanded we give her our worship. In the east we have only one deity—Death, mother of us all. We will not be converted to your decadent religion.”
The king went and took the head from her. He looked down into the distorted features. “This is base rationalization and you know it, Mörgain. One crazed preacher is not an invasion force.”
“I have come for two reasons only,” Mörgain said, “and they are both now achieved. I came to give you warning, for among my people, only base cowards attack without warning. We are coming. You have been warned.”
“And the other reason?” Ulfram asked.
“To prove I have more courage in my heart than any man.”
The king nodded sadly. “I imagine you must. Because you would make an excellent hostage. I could seize you right now and force your clansmen to return to their steppes in exchange for your safety.”
Mörgain laughed.
Croy knew that laugh. He’d heard a deeper, slightly louder version before. Mörget had laughed like that. It was the laugh of one who found violent death to be the ultimate jest.
“Any man who touches me will die. Perhaps some man will kill me, or even take me alive,” she said. “But he will still die. I will be avenged, even if it takes fifty thousand warriors. If it takes every clan of the east, their bodies piled up outside these walls to make siege towers. If it takes the last drop of blood in the last vein of my people, the man who touches me will die. Now. Dare you take me hostage?”
Croy turned to watch the king’s face. There was no fear there. He refused to be intimidated—or at least he refused to let Mörgain see that her threats had worked. Croy felt a certain pride at that. This was the man he served.
“Not when I have a better use for you. Go from here in peace,” Ulfram said, “and take word to your Great Chieftain. I’ll meet with him under the flag of parley, in a place and time of his choosing. Go. I will not stay you. Frankly I don’t want you in my home another second.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After Mörgain left, no one spoke for some while. Croy grew uneasy, standing against the wall with his hand on his sword hilt. The king, his liege, was clearly distressed—Ulfram sat in his chair, chin in hand, deep in thought.
“It’s far worse than I thought,” the king said, at last. “I thought they would give us a chance to pay tribute in exchange for peace.” He shook his head. “Croy—Sir Croy. You were there. You saw the mountain come down. How wide is this pass? How many men can march abreast through it?”
