A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

Glorian lay on her pallet, breathing slow and deep. She could hear echoes and voices from the other chambers, mutterings just outside. Once there was a howl of grief, and she knew a body had been saved from Cenning Moor. Julain held her hand and prayed for deliverance.

Still there was no child.

Some hours into her labour, hundreds of fighters had arrived from Paupers’ Henge, answering Lord Ordan. That was the last news she had heard. No one would tell her more of the battle.

‘Helly,’ Glorian breathed, ‘what time is it?’

Helisent pressed a kiss to her forehead. ‘I’ll try to find out.’

She left, passing Bourn and a gaunt Marian. Julain and Adela had been sent to fetch boiled water and cloths. Glorian touched the brink of sleep again, the earthen smell of unbirth in her nose.

Bourn had explained that her labour had stalled. She was supposed to feel calm and safe, but she knew there was no safety here, and her body had locked in the face of that truth, refusing to relinquish Sabran. How could she send a child towards a world on fire?

I’m sorry. Her legs gave a tremor. I can’t help you . . .

When Helisent returned, she said, ‘It’s almost dawn, Glorian. Happy birthday.’

Glorian opened her eyes. At the stroke of midnight, she had turned eighteen, ending her minority.

Now she was truly Queen of Inys.

‘Remember your fourteenth birthday?’ Helisent whispered. ‘We spent the whole day under the sun, running through the wildflowers.’ Glorian smiled. ‘We swam in the lake and ate on its shore – honey cakes and gingerloaf, apples so crisp you could cut them like snow.’

‘I remember.’ A tear leaked into her hair. ‘I wish we could go back there, Helly.’

‘We will, Glorian. I promise.’

‘Lady Protector, they’re overwhelming our forces,’ Sir Bramel shouted from the chamber beyond. ‘Too many have died on the moor. Even with the swords from Paupers’ Henge—’

‘Join them now, Sir Bramel. Take all the guards,’ Marian ordered. ‘Do whatever you must.’

They were coming, and Glorian was helpless, as trapped in suffocating darkness as her child. Inys could have had one more sword, if only she could have been free to fight.

Bourn appeared at her side. ‘Queen Glorian,’ they said, their tone calming, ‘Your Grace, I need you to push, just once more. The princess has been long in coming, but she’s almost here.’

Julain hurried into the room, her apron smudged with blood, and set down a ewer of boiled water. ‘They’re back at the entrance,’ a voice cried. ‘Oh, Saint save us—’

‘Sir Bramel will drive them out,’ Marian barked at the guard. ‘Help him, now. Your queen is labouring.’

Glorian took hold of her belly with both hands. I see now, she thought. I see now, Papa. All those who give life are warriors.

She felt a sudden, desperate fury. Her heart pounded not only with fear, but overwhelming frustration. If she could do this, the price to Inys would be paid. Her body would be hers at last, as it had never been. She moved from the pallet to the floor, lifeward.

‘Glorian, what are you doing?’ Florell asked as she shifted on to her knees, hands braced on the floor.

‘I am Queen of Inys,’ Glorian ground out. ‘Even I kneel before the Saint.’ She reached back, panting. ‘Hold me. Helisent, Florell, help me.’

A warrior possesses her own body, she had once told her father. Inys has mine. She had to possess her own body in this moment – for Sabran, and for Inys.

Helisent and Florell flanked her. She hooked her arms around their shoulders, and they grasped her waist, holding her up, and Bourn crouched in front of her, a mantle at the ready. She drew a huge breath, then strained with all her might. The child forged down.

The one duty she could never refuse. This had been her only purpose, from the cradle – to yield more life, even though she was alive. To give more than herself, because she alone was not enough. She saw the cruel truth of it now. The relentless, violent circle of monarchy.

One day, you will sit across a table from your own daughter and tell her who she will wed for the realm, her mother called from her memory, and you will remember this night.

A scream ripped up her throat, hot as wyrmfire, like the place where Sabran crowned. She broke open the very last store of her strength and poured it into that one blind command and then her child was out, and it was done. All Glorian saw was a blur of purple before Bourn wrapped the child, and she folded over herself, heaving. Helisent and Florell embraced her and kissed her, shaking so hard that Glorian rattled, too.

At last, a wail came. ‘She’s here,’ Marian called, her voice hoarse with relief. ‘Princess Sabran is here!’

Other voices took up the tidings. Glorian slumped against Helisent. Red smeared her inner thighs, her calves.

There, now, Numun, she thought. Here is the sacred blood of the Saint, blood you never had to spill. Tears mingled with the sweat on her face. You were right, and you are dead.

Bourn returned to her, their hands washed clean. ‘My baby,’ Glorian murmured. ‘Is she all right?’

‘She’s perfect, Your Grace.’

‘They’ll smell the blood.’ Her lashes fluttered. ‘I want to hold her.’

It took so long for them to prepare her. Every moment of waiting hurt. When Glorian thought she could bear it no more, they placed the child in her arms. Sabran was rumpled from the birth, with wisps of black hair.

Now I am free, and she is bound.

Marian came to sit beside Glorian, kissing her on the temple before she beheld the child. ‘Oh, there she is.’ She traced the sign of the sword on her forehead. ‘Bless you, Sabran.’

Sabran lay quiet and fragile. A tiny nose and tiny lips. Tiny fingers, each with a tiny fingernail.

Another perfect sacrifice, chained to her legacy.

‘Lady Marian.’ Sir Bramel had come back, bloodied. ‘My lady, the Dukes Spiritual would see you.’

Marian nodded and kissed Glorian once more, on the top of her head. ‘Brave, brave girl,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Rest, now, Glorian. We’ll keep you safe for as long as we can.’

When she was gone, Glorian gazed at her daughter. The others kept a respectful distance.

‘Sabran,’ she said, too soft for them to hear. ‘You are Sabran Berethnet, seventh of that name. Your grandmother was sixth. She was a great queen, who healed a queendom, as you must.’ She pressed a tearstained kiss to her brow. ‘And all the while, I will love you. I love you. You are perfect and complete, exactly as you are – and you are enough, now and always. Even if Inys never tells you so, you are already enough to me.’

Sabran peered towards her face. Though she had been bathed, her eyes were still sticky with wax. Glorian used a gentle fingertip to clear them, finding them already green as spring.

Bourn severed the slick cord between them. If this were any other time, a milk nurse would be called, but instead, Glorian fed her daughter herself. When the afterbirth came, she hardly noticed, wrapped up in the quiet wonder of her newborn, the life she had knitted with Wulf. In that gloom, she could imagine there was no one else.

It was Julain who broke the illusion. She came to sit with Glorian.

‘The sun has risen.’ Her voice was bereft of hope. ‘The wyverns can see the moor clearly now. I don’t think it will be long before our soldiers are dead.’

‘Even with the ones who came from Paupers’ Henge?’

‘It’s not enough, Glorian. They’re so tired.’ Tears streaked her cheeks. ‘I feel just as I did when you fell off your horse. You’re in danger again, and I can’t save you. I can’t save Sabran.’

‘It’s my fault. I should not have insisted on coming here.’

‘You did it for Inys.’

Adela brought fresh candles. Glorian slipped into a weary doze, Sabran gathered to her heart. She skimmed a strange and terrible dream, a sandpiper wetting her wings on the sea. She flew over a burning isle, and a need pounded her chest, hers and not hers: save her, save her.

When she woke, she knew where she would go.

Sabran grizzled at her breast. Glorian held her close, breathed in her sweet milky smell. ‘You and I have something to do,’ Glorian told her. Then she looked at Florell. ‘Ready a horse.’

‘A horse.’ Florell shook her head. ‘Glorian, you just gave birth – what do you mean?’

‘I am Queen of Inys,’ Glorian reminded her, ‘and I no longer require a regent. With my Saint-given authority, I charge you to bring me a horse, and a cloak.’

‘Queen Glorian.’ Bourn looked speechless, but managed to say, ‘Your child needs her mother.’

‘Fear not.’ Her legs trembled, but she stood. ‘Sabran is coming with me.’

****

Cenning Moor glistened as the sunrise touched it. Wulf fought on, Thrit at his side, over bodies and lost weapons.

Deep in the night, an army in the hundreds had arrived from Paupers’ Henge. That had strengthened them, for a time, but most had come on foot from their shelter, leaving them exhausted before they had even joined the fray. Hours later, there was no sign of a reprieve.

Thrice the wyverns’ forces had breached Hollow Crag. Thrice they had been forced out. When the new fighters arrived, the Duke of Courage had led a foray from inside, scything down beasts and driving them back to the drystack wall that crossed the eastern stretch of the moor. The Duchess of Temperance had come next, with Lord Edrick at her side, and then Sir Bramel and the Royal Guard.

All that had been when they had darkness to obscure their movements. Now the sun was laying their position bare.

Wulf had stopped trying to keep count of the creatures. Each time he thought their ranks had thinned, they thickened anew. The wyverns must be calling them from all over the queendom. Each time they soared overhead, they somehow found more ground to burn.

He tried to surrender to the flow of the fight, using skills he had learned in both Hróth and Lasia. The Kumengan spear was the perfect weapon for fighting the creatures – its long reach kept him out of theirs, and its head could pierce the weak points in their armour. Tunuva had made it strong.

But he was not a spear. His body trembled with fatigue; his sight darkened with it. His movements were slowing, and had been for hours. Even killing one creature took sweat and blood.

No one was meant to fight so long. The Inysh troops were flesh and bone, and what they faced was iron.

Hollow Crag had been lost from the start.

‘Nock,’ Lady Gladwin commanded. From the shelter of an outcrop, her archers aimed at the sky. ‘Draw!’ Wulf plunged his spear through a lindworm and wrenched it back out. ‘Release!’

Scores of arrows flew at a wyvern. Bristling with wood and steel, it crashed headfirst into the moor, its scream deafening. Its kin flocked above, breathing fire at the lancers who rode to finish it off.

Wulf had fought with his brother all night, trying to protect him. Roland had only received the paltry instruction of most Inysh nobles – some lessons from a local knight, odd friendly spars with friends. He had done his best, but exhaustion had forced him back to Hollow Crag. Most soldiers had withdrawn from the moor at least once, then returned to fight again, but without food, they could only recover so much of their strength.

Thrit had stayed, determined to help the Inysh forces hold the line. Now, at last, he crumpled.

‘Get up,’ Wulf wheezed, gripping him by his chainmail. Thrit shook his head. ‘Come on, man, up.’

‘Leave me.’

‘We’ll get you inside—’

‘I’m finished, Wulf. Can’t make it.’

Wulf was too weak to carry him to the entrance. The battle had drawn them too far away. Instead, he hauled Thrit under an isolated boulder, where several men had collapsed, and a woman bled from a grave wound to her side.

‘I wish I’d had the backbone to tell you earlier,’ Thrit said, panting. ‘I suppose I hoped you’d see.’

Wulf dashed the sweat from his upper lip. ‘I think I did,’ he rasped. ‘I just couldn’t—’ His throat burned. ‘I was scared, Thrit.’

Thrit swallowed. Wulf grasped his hair and kissed him on the lips, and Thrit slung both arms around him and dropped his head on his shoulder, each heavy breath nearing a sob.

‘Queen Glorian,’ a voice bawled. ‘The queen!’

Wulf looked towards it. Over the clash of blades and teeth, the inhuman screeches and yawps of the enemy, he heard shouts as Glorian Berethnet rode out from the caves, war horns sounding in her wake, a red cloak wrapped around her.

What is she doing?

‘Warriors of Inys.’ Glorian held her sword aloft. ‘Hearken to me!’

Somehow, she made herself heard. Wulf struck out from the shelter, staring towards his childhood friend.

‘You have fought through a night of fire and terror. There has been no greater courage since the Saint vanquished the Nameless One,’ Glorian declared. She was white as a bedsheet, hair stuck to the sweat on her face. ‘It is the first morning of spring. The Saint told me in dreams that there would be a holy sign this day. I vow to you, it will be soon!’

Iron teeth, scorching eyes. Wulf sensed the beast before he felt the hot snort of its breath. He slewed through the mud and carved its belly with a knife, blood and guts soaking the grass.

‘There are sixteen thousand people inside Hollow Crag. You are all that stands between them and death. You held these vile wretches at bay while I gave birth,’ Glorian cried. ‘Behold – this is Sabran, Princess of Inys and Yscalin, who shields you from the Nameless One!’

That was when Wulf saw. Tucked into the crook of her arm was a swaddled bundle.

Glorian threw off her cloak, to a great clamour from her people, heard even over the ring of steel and the garbled shrieks. Beneath it, she was still wearing a bloodstained shift.

‘Here is the heir I promised you, the chain upon the Nameless One. Here is our first victory,’ Glorian roared. ‘The Saint has delivered me of a daughter!’

Her hair was still lank from the childbed. Thousands of stricken faces gaped at her, while the creatures bayed.

‘All through the night, I have bled for this queendom. See here, the sweat of my labour, the blood of the birthing bed,’ Glorian called over them. ‘Now I charge you to protect the child I have borne, as she protects you! Hold the entrance. Defend my family and yours!’

Sabran, Sabran, Sabran.

‘Fight for our queendom, warriors of Inys!’

Shieldheart, Shieldheart, Shieldheart.

She had shocked or shamed them well enough. The cry went up across the moor. Thrit joined his voice to it; so did Wulf. He felt the change in the air: resurrection, rage, resolve. This might be the end of the world, but if the heir died, so would all that remained.

He saw bone-weary soldiers rise. Spears were wielded, blades retrieved from the mud, axes raised to hew at wing and horn and scale. War horns resounded. Arrows soared high as song.

‘Go to her.’ Thrit gripped Wulf by the shoulder. ‘Wulf, get her inside.’

‘Don’t die on this moor. Swear it, Thrit.’

‘Sworn.’ Thrit gave him a shove. ‘Go, Wulf, now.’

Wulf ran. The world was a blur. Halfway there, he grabbed the reins of a riderless horse and threw himself across its saddle.

‘Glorian!’

She heard. Across the bloody, smoking battlefield, their gazes clapped.

That was when Glorian Shieldheart did something even her father might have thought was a tad reckless. Wulf saw the decision on her face – and then she spurred her own mount.

Her mare came galloping towards him, clearing a line of fire with a whinny. Panic erupted in her wake, and Lady Gladwin bellowed new orders at the archers. Wulf rode all the faster, heart almost pounding out of his chest, his only thought to reach her side.

When they met, Glorian pressed their child into his arms. ‘What are you doing?’ Wulf asked over the din. ‘Glorian—’

‘Take her. Take her away from here,’ Glorian cut in, breathing hard. ‘Go south over the river. Follow the drovers’ path until you find the hill like an upended bowl, the tomb of the Inyscan princess. Take her to it, Wulf, to the barrow. Wait inside until it’s safe.’

‘Glorian.’ Wulf stared from her to their wailing bairn. ‘I can’t.’

‘Hollow Crag is lost. Fýredel will come for me. See her safe, Wulf. Someone will find you both.’ She bent to kiss the child, and Sabran screamed. ‘She is the chain upon him now.’

Cupping her with one hand, Wulf reached for Glorian with the other, grasping her arm. ‘Come with us,’ he urged. She shook her head. ‘Glorian, you’ll die here. Everyone will die on Cenning Moor.’

‘So be it. I have done my duty. I would gladly give my life in battle, as my father would have. I am free to do as I choose. I choose to die with courage.’ She held his cheek and smiled, looking straight into his eyes. ‘Live, Wulfert Glenn, my dearest friend. I will see you in Halgalant.’

She wheeled her horse, and charged to war.