She arched an amused eyebrow at him. “Aren’t titles within the gift of the King?”

“And in this land I exercise his Word. How does First Counsel to the North Tower sound?”

She laughed then sobered when she saw his serious intent. “You want me to stay?”

“I’m sure the people of these Reaches would greatly appreciate it. As indeed, would I.”

She rode on his silence for a time, brows drawn in thought. “Ask me again when you’ve seen the mine,” she said, then spurred on ahead.

? ? ?

The mine was a gaping wood-braced maw torn into the side of a squat mountain, around which a number of wooden buildings were clustered. The miners were mostly stocky, pale-skinned men with candles pressed into leather straps worn about their heads. They offered cursory bows to Vaelin and deeper ones to Dahrena, ignoring a barked command from the mine foreman to gather in ranks to properly greet the Tower Lord.

“Insolent hill-born dogs!” he shouted at them, although Vaelin had a sense his anger was a little forced. The foreman was somewhat taller than his charges, with a cleaner face and a thick Renfaelin brogue. “Ye’ll have to forgive them, m’lord,” he said. “Don’t know no better.” He raised his voice. “Been shagging goats and smoking five-leaf their whole lives, the scum!”

“Oh, fuck a rock ape, Ultin,” called a tired voice of unseen origin.

Ultin flushed and bit down on his anger. “My own fault, m’lord. I’m too soft on ’em. Anyhow, welcome to Reaver’s Gulch.”

“Lord Vaelin would like to see the workings,” Dahrena told him.

“Of course, my lady, of course.”

He lit a lamp and led them to the mine entrance. Alornis gave the inky blackness of the shaft a brief glance and promptly announced she would prefer to remain above ground, taking her ever-present parchment and charcoal off to find something interesting to draw. Dahrena and Vaelin followed Ultin along the shaft, the damp walls shining in the lamplight. They passed a pair of miners pushing a wheeled barrow laden with rock to the surface. The descent couldn’t have covered more than two hundred yards but the rising heat and musty air stirred a sense that they were descending to the very bowels of the earth. Vaelin was starting to wish he had followed Alornis’s example by the time they came to a halt.

“Here we are, m’lord.” Ultin lifted his lamp, illuminating a cavernous space where a dozen or so miners were chipping at the walls with picks, others roaming the cavern floor to heave the hewn rock into barrows. “The richest seam in the Reaches. Finest quality stone too. Despite what that liar at Myrna’s Mount might tell you.”

Vaelin moved closer to the wall. He was surprised how clearly the bluestone stood out in the rock, small azure beads shining in the grey stone. “I once owned one as big as my fist,” he murmured. “I used it to hire a ship.”

“And the other matter, Ultin,” Dahrena said. “Lord Vaelin needs to see that too.”

Vaelin turned to find him giving her a questioning glance. She responded with a nod and he led them towards a small side tunnel leading off from the cavern. They followed him along the increasingly narrow passage for a good quarter hour, eventually coming to the end where Ultin’s lamp revealed a sloping length of rock about twenty yards long. At the foreman’s expectant look Vaelin moved closer to the slope, seeing something there besides bare stone, a thick yellowish vein running through it from end to end. He turned to Dahrena with a questioning glance. “Is it . . . ?”

“Gold,” she confirmed. “And Master Ultin assures me, for well he knows such things, it’s of the purest quality.”

“That it is, m’lord.” Ultin ran a hand along the yellow vein. “Grew up working the gold seams in west Renfael, and I’ve never seen so much of it in one place, nor so pure.”

Vaelin squinted at the seam. “Doesn’t look like so much.”

“You misunderstand me, m’lord. When I say one place, I mean the Reaches, not just this mine.”

“There’s more?”

Dahrena touched the foreman on the arm. “Master Ultin, if you could give me a moment with the Tower Lord.”

He nodded, lighting the candle in his head-strap and handing her the lamp before making his way back along the passage.

“We’ve found many such seams,” she told him when Ultin’s footsteps had faded. “These past four years, the deeper we dig the more we find.”

“Then I must confess my surprise King Malcius failed to mention such good fortune.”

Dahrena pursed her lips. “Good fortune for him could mean ruin for this land,” she said.

“Did your father know of this?”

“It was at his order that no word of it was sent to the Realm. To this day it’s known only to the Miners Guild, Brother Kehlan and myself.”

“An entire guild knows of this but says nothing?”

“The hill people are very serious in the oaths they give. They were here long before the first Asraelin ship appeared on the horizon. They know what will happen if word of this spreads to the wider Realm.”

“The wider Realm is greatly troubled at present. Such riches could alleviate considerable suffering, not to mention fund our King’s many ambitions.”

“That may be, my lord. But it will also bring the Realm down on us like a plague. Bluestone is one thing, gold is another. Nothing so inflames men to lust and folly like the yellow metal we find with every shaft we sink. Everything will change, and believe me, this land and its people are worth preserving.”

“Oath or no. A secret like this holds too much value to be kept forever. By accident or betrayal it will become known.”

“I am not suggesting we strive to keep it concealed for all the ages. Just the scale of it. The King can have his gold, build all the bridges and schools he likes with it, just not all at once.”

She was suggesting treason, and, judging by the intensity of her gaze, she knew it.

“You show great trust in me,” he said.

She shrugged. “You . . . were not what I expected. Besides, as you say, it was a secret you would have learned soon enough.”

He turned back to the seam, looking at the dull gleam of the yellow metal in the lamp’s glow. Greed had never been a preoccupation for him and he had always found its power difficult to understand, but it was an undeniable power nonetheless. He searched for the blood-song but found no music, no notes of either warning or acceptance. This decision, seemingly of such import, may in fact be irrelevant.

“Lady Dahrena Al Myrna,” he said, turning back to her. “I ask you formerly to accept the title of First Counsel to the North Tower.”

She gave a slow nod. “I gladly accept, my lord.”

“Good.” He began to work his way back along the narrow passage. “When we return to the tower, I shall require your assistance in composing a suitably restrained letter to the King advising him of our good fortune in finding a new supply of gold, albeit of relatively small quantity.”

? ? ?

They emerged blinking in the sunlight, finding Captain Adal waiting with a scroll in hand. Nearby a newly arrived North Guard was removing the saddle from an exhausted horse. The captain’s face was grave as he handed Vaelin the scroll. “From our northernmost outpost, my lord. The news is three days old.”

Vaelin looked down at the scroll and the meaningless scrawl it contained. “Perhaps you could just . . .”

“I agree, my lord, this lettering is appalling,” Dahrena said, reading the scroll over his shoulder, her eyes widening at the contents. “This is confirmed?”

Adal gestured at the new arrival. “Sergeant Lemu witnessed their transit himself. He’s not a man prone to excessive flights of imagination.”

“Transit?” Vaelin asked.

Dahrena took the scroll and read it through again. He was disturbed to note her hands shook as she held it. “The Horde,” she said in a soft murmur. “They came back.”

CHAPTER TWO

Lyrna

She awoke to find a little girl sitting on her bed, staring at her with wide blue eyes. Her head felt as if it were being pummelled from within by a tiny man with a large mallet and her mouth was so dry she could only croak a hello in Lonak at the girl. She angled her head and kept staring.

“It’s your hair, Queen.” Davoka was sitting on a neighbouring bed, naked save for a loincloth. “No Lonak with gold hair.”

Lyrna pulled back the furs that covered her and swung her legs off the bed, sitting up with a groan provoked by the multiple aches rippling from her back to her toes. Davoka rose and poured water into a wooden cup, holding it to Lyrna’s lips. Shorn of clothing, Davoka was an even more impressive sight, her body an epic of muscle, scars and tattooed flesh. She put the cup aside when Lyrna had drained it, holding a hand to her forehead. “Fever gone. Good.”

“How long have we been here?”

“Three days.”

Lyrna cast her gaze about the room, seeing walls of stone covered in decorated goatskins and complex hangings fashioned from strips of leather and wood carvings, some depictions of animals and men, others so unfamiliar as to be abstract.