Lythian saw Sir Storos standing with what remained of his men. That number had once been much greater, though now only Sir Oswin Cole still lived, along with a pair of non-Bladeborn men-at-arms called Tucker and Marsh, good stout soldiers both. Sir Nathaniel Oloran was there as well, to his surprise. And two others in ragged red cloaks. Agarathi, clearly. Men taken from the prisoner camp, Lythian thought.
He hailed them as he approached, Elyon and the others turning. A quick smile broadened on the prince’s lips as he saw his old mentor appear. “I hear congratulations are in order, Lythian,” he called out, stepping over. “The First Blade of Vandar. I always thought you’d make a good one.”
“Congratulations for a curse,” Lythian said, though with a smile. He shrugged. “You know I never wanted the honour, Elyon.”
They locked forearms, shaking. “The best rarely do, Lord Lythian. You know, it rather suits you.”
“As prince does you.” Lythian looked his old squire in the eye. He needed to hear it at once. “Tell me of Varinar, Elyon. How bad is it?” He braced for the worst.
“Bad,” Elyon said. “Though perhaps not as bad as we had feared. Parts of the city are salvageable, at least. But the inner city…” He shook his head. “The Ten Hills are largely in ruin. The palace, the greathouse keeps…”
“Keep Daecar?” Lythian asked.
“A husk,” Elyon said. “Burned out, blackened, but standing.” He turned to Sir Storos Pentar. “Keep Pentar is similar, and Keep Oloran,” he said to Nathaniel. “Only Keeps Taynar and Amadar are entirely destroyed, that I saw. The rest can be restored. Keep Kanabar was untouched, that I saw.”
Lythian pondered that, wondering if there was some omen in it all. Some would remark that the fate of the greathouse keeps might mimic the fate of the greathouses themselves, but Lythian preferred not to put so much stock in signs and portents. “What of the palace,” he asked Elyon.
“Rubble,” the prince said. “Drulgar shattered it himself with his bulk. It is chaos there, as you would expect. Fires still burning. Turmoil across the Lowers. Soldiers deserting. The cost of life…unfathomable.” He breathed out, sounding exhausted, and turned to look north, into the Wandering Wood. “Sir Storos tells me my father isn’t here, Lyth. That he left this morning, with Rogen Strand and an individual he described as ‘more beast than man’. I take it that Vilmar the Black has returned?”
“Late last night,” Lythian said. “Your father told me at dawn that Vilmar had something to show him. He took Whitebeard with him and left.”
“Just the three of them? Did he say why?”
“The grulok. At least, that would be my best guess. Your father was quite tight-lipped about it. He didn’t say much, in truth.”
“The…grulok,” Elyon repeated, flatly.
“Yes. The grulok,” Lythian confirmed, nodding.
Elyon Daecar shook his head, looking bemused and weary in equal parts. “I must have missed something. I remember there was some talk of Vilmar hunting a grulok a while ago, but…why? Why would Father care to go and see it, except through some morbid fascination? Is Drulgar the Dread not enough to satisfy his need for monsters?”
Lythian had no good answer for that. “Amron assured me it was worth his time. Or, rather Vilmar did. Your father seemed rather reluctant to go when I spoke with him.”
“They’re soldiers,” Walter Selleck put in. He had a little smile on his face, as though he was one step ahead of the rest of them. “Come on, you all know that. The grulok was one of Vandar’s earliest creations in life. He made them to fight against Agarath in his wars.”
“So Vilmar thinks that this grulok is going to fight for us?” Elyon asked.
“I would imagine so, yes. I can’t think why else he would usher the king away from his army at such a time as this.”
“And do we know when he’ll be back?”
“Soon,” said Lythian. “He left early this morning.”
Elyon gave another tired shake of the head. “I’d expected a reprimand for being gone so long. Now I come back to find he’s off on some misbegotten monster hunt. It beggars belief. And this…” He gestured to the traps that Sir Storos had set up, the pits and chains and shelters in which the men would hide, the rotting corpses laid out as bait. “Apparently Lythian Lindar has turned dragon-catcher. Or dragon-tamer, even. The world’s gone bloody mad.”
Walter Selleck grinned. “Something I think we can all agree on,” he said.
There was muted laughter all round, except from the two Agarathi, standing aside with frowns on their faces. One wore a cloak of deep red over plain padded underclothes, the sort a dragonknight would wear under his armour, which had been stripped from him after the battle, along with his dragonsteel sword. He had stern eyes, a triangular jaw, a braided black beard on his chin. The other man was a common soldier, toad-faced and physically stout. He did not seem to have any grasp of the common tongue of the north, it seemed. The dragonknight had been whispering in translation as they spoke.
Lythian recognised the dragonknight from the prisoner camp. “Your name is Sir Hahkesh, is that right?” he said.
The man nodded. He had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head from a blow he’d taken during the battle. It had been that blow that had incapacitated him, rendering him their prisoner.
“He claims to have fire in his blood,” Sir Storos Pentar said. “That one as well.” He gestured to the other man, whose name Lythian did not know. “I thought it wise to bring them out here overnight, my lord, should we catch some prey.”
Lythian had expected to spearhead this endeavour himself, though as soon as Amron declared him the new First Blade, he had to pass that responsibly to another. Sir Storos had already been helping him set up the traps, so seemed well-placed to take on the duty.
“Have you scoured the camp for others?” Lythian asked.
“Every Agarathi has been questioned, my lord,” said Sir Nathaniel Oloran. “These were the only two willing to try.”
Lythian frowned. “I did not know you were helping in this venture, Nathaniel.”
“Sir Storos asked that I do so, my lord. He is short on numbers, and I have full plate armour. If we should find ourselves in a fight…” The rest needed no explanation.
“Well and good, then. So long as the king has not given you any other duty, that is? This project is somewhat…speculative, shall we say?”
Oloran smiled, his face pleasant, youthful, open. Each day it became easier to forget that he had stood by and let King Ellis be thrown from Janilah’s balcony, murdered before his very eyes. He works hard to restore his honour, Lythian thought. He could at least commend that, treacherous as his crime had been. “I took part in the watch last night, my lord,” Nathaniel said. “But this evening I find myself at a loose end, so am more than happy to help.”
“He speaks a bit of Agarathi too,” Sir Storos added. “That’s been useful, with some of them. Not many speak the common tongue well.”
Lythian pursed his lips. “You have some hidden talents, Nathaniel.”
“Not so hidden, my lord,” the knight smiled. “I studied the language as a younger man so I might be more useful as a Greycloak. Should the king ever have need of an interpreter, or…” He trailed off, remembering what he’d done, eyes dropping at once to the ground. As a Greycloak, the ability to speak with foreign dignitaries, and interpret for a king was no more than an auxiliary duty. The main duty, the one single oath they swore above all, was to protect their liege, defending them with their very lives. In that single directive, Nathaniel Oloran had failed.
“A useful skill,” Lythian said, with a certain bluntness to his tone. At any other time he would have been executed for his crimes. Suffering hard manners and cold stares would be his penance for a time yet. He looked back at Sir Storos. “So these two were the only Fireborn you found?” He had expected more than that.
“The only ones with any courage,” Storos said.
