Throne of Dragons

The man fell to his knees, head bowed. “An hour or less, Majesty.”

It was a wonder to Ravin that his men could chart these things so precisely. Not because the skills seemed impossible, but because his men had learned them so quickly and so well. He had built a body of sailors willing to go beyond the sight of land, just as he had built all the rest of it.

He had planned for this, planned for all of it, almost since the moment when he had taken the throne.

He could still hear the whisper of his father’s last breath, caught in surprise, a dagger plunging into him that was so thin it barely left a mark. Another dozen daggers had risen and fallen that night, killing the others his father had sired, and their mothers, and those who might support them.

Ravin turned to the sailor. “Do you know what the most powerful weapon for a king is?”

The man looked shocked that his king would ask such a question. “No, Majesty.”

“It is the ability to plan more than his enemies, to know more than them, to set things in motion knowing how they will turn out.”

The sailor stared, but then, such men probably had little experience talking to their betters. King Ravin didn’t mind; it was still better than talking to the courtiers who prattled round him, promising this or that, flattering and scheming.

“I have been planning this since… well, since before I became king,” Ravin said. “Becoming king was only a part of it, and that took enough planning. It is not enough to kill those who stand in your way, of course. One must arrange things to have control afterwards, forge alliances, or at least the appearance of alliances.”

Ravin drew the man to his feet. He looked up into the tangle of lines and sails above. Men clambered among it, swaying with the rest of the ship as it rolled from side to side. “Consider the… rigging, I believe it is called?”

“Yes, Majesty?” the man said.

“Such a complex web of ropes, each with a purpose, each moving in a specific way. If they tangle wrong, the progress of the ship is impeded. Disaster might follow.”

“Yes, Majesty,” the sailor agreed, although Ravin could see that he didn’t understand the point.

“Now imagine that it was a thousand times more complex, and that any slip among it would result in disaster, not just for a single ship, but for an entire nation,” Ravin said. “That has been my life. Do you know that I was not initially meant to be a king? That I was least among my father’s children, destined for little more than death when another ascended?”

The sailor nodded. “I… have heard the stories, Majesty.”

Ravin laughed. “Stories. I had the stories written. A king must look a certain way, be a certain way, and I took care to be all of it. I found which friends to make, and which to offer the appearance of friendship for as long as they could be useful. I learned when to be generous, and when to be cruel. I became king.”

The sailor had settled into step beside him now, close as a confidant on a tour of a garden, except that they were walking the deck of a ship, among an armada of them, the promise of their foes’ land somewhere in the distance.

“From the moment I became king, I knew that it was not enough,” Ravin said. “My father thought it was, was content with his hunting and his gaming and his drinking. Oh, I affected to enjoy these things, of course; a king must appear as people expect, but I knew that people need more: they need purpose.”

“Purpose, Majesty?” the sailor asked.

“Without it, they fall into bickering, into conflict, although they do that well enough anyway,” King Ravin said with a laugh. “But give them a common goal, and they will work together. In this case, to reunite the kingdom that once was, north and south together. I have known that it was my purpose for almost as long as I have known that I was destined to be king.”

“As you say, Majesty,” the sailor said. It was as close to a disagreement as men dared around him.

“You don’t agree? Speak freely.”

“Just that you speak of all of this as if it is set by fate.”

“It is set by my will,” King Ravin said. “And by the care that I have taken. Can you imagine what it took to build up my Quiet Men and send them across the river over years? To create a navy in a kingdom that has never known the need? To lure my foes’ forces south by daring to take their princess in the one time she would be vulnerable?”

“I cannot, Majesty,” the sailor admitted.

“Of course you cannot,” King Ravin said, but it was not cruel. It was simply the way that things were. “Just as I am sure that there are things of the sea that you must know, and I have never heard.”

“Your Majesty is too kind,” the sailor said.

“I have rarely been accused of that,” King Ravin said. “You became a sailor when you were young, didn’t you?”

The sailor looked at him in surprise that he might know that. Ravin always found it amusing that small people would think that he wouldn’t know more than them.

“Your parents were killed as my army moved to put down rebels. They were not traitors, but they were there, and violent men strike as they wish.” Ravin watched the man’s eyes, saw the shock there, and the anger rising underneath it. “That is why, a year ago, you contacted certain people within my capital city. You believe them to be rebels. In fact, they are the puppets of a certain nobleman who even now resides in my dungeons.”

The sailor started to move away, taking a hesitant step back.

“It is why you have a knife in the small of your back, ready to reach for,” the king said. He looked levelly at the sailor. “Well, what are you waiting for, Togan Marr? I thought you said that you were prepared to die to rid the world of me?”

The sailor hesitated again, and King Ravin was bored with him now, so he nodded to two of the soldiers there. They grabbed the sailor, exactly as Ravin had ordered them to an hour ago. They lifted him, and with a lack of ceremony, flung him over the side of the ship, to be consumed by the waters below.

Ravin stood at the prow, now, waiting as the fleet grew close to the Isle of Leveros. It was beautiful in its way, the monastery spreading out over it rich with weathering and the patina of age. The fleet came close, not stopping, but slowing a little so that the boats that had taken the island for him could come out with supplies, reports, news. Flickers of light came, reflected from mirrors, in codes Ravin had devised himself for the purpose. Even so, he waited for a servant to approach, bowing low before he gave the king the news.

“The island is secure, my king,” the man said.

“I know that,” King Ravin said. “And with the island taken, the way is clear. What else?”

“News from the mainland,” the man said. “Our people brought messages across. The enemy’s forces have taken the bait and headed south.”

Ravin waited in silence for the man to tell him something else, something useful.

“Prince Rodry is dead,” the man said. “As is King Godwin.”

“You’re certain?”

“The prince crossed the bridge and succeeded in rescuing his sister, but was slain. King Godwin fell in battle at the bridge.”

King Ravin allowed himself a smile. All was going as planned.

He continued to stand there, watching as the fleet around him progressed toward the Northern Kingdom. He stood there watching, planning, working out every one of the steps to follow as clearly as he might have done when crouched over a gaming board.

It was nearly sundown when he saw it in the distance: a thin sliver of land appearing on the horizon. It grew, the land of the Northern Kingdom becoming closer by the second. King Ravin stared at it hungrily.

Soon, it would be his.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Renard stood partway up a volcano, in front of a sheer rock wall that had to be fifty feet high, surrounded by the masked forms of the Hidden. Ahead lay the wall, and somewhere beyond that, an item that was both valuable and dangerous enough to draw him into all of this. He suspected that a more self-aware man might have seen that as some kind of metaphor for his life, but Renard had always made a point of dodging self-awareness the way he dodged watchmen’s arrows.

The volcano itself was probably only a small one as such things went, but even so, it towered over Renard, stabbing up into the sky like a broken dagger thrust at the heavens. Around him, there were pools that steamed with water that stayed hot with the place’s heat, while thin slivers of burning orange high above said that this was not the sleeping giant that he might have wished for.

“The mausoleum sits above,” Void said. “There were stairs once, but now a man must climb to the entrance. Within, there will be defenses to prevent grave robbers.”

“And I’m to get past them and get to the item you want,” Renard said.