A Recall to Arms

A Recall to Arms

Jerry Carpenter

Published by Jerry Carpenter at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Jerry Carpenter

Chapter One

Prince Ravian, Hero of the Great Sea War and, once upon a time, Defender of the Nation, watched as the small group of riders wound their way along the dangerous, narrow trail that clung to the cliffs of the Southeast Coast. The rain that had lashed the area all day had finally moved on out to sea, yet the clouds still lingered, filtering the sunset into an indistinct, yellow glow that reflected off the wet volcanic rock. It would be slippery, treacherous going for the horsemen, the prince knew, and they would be torn between the need for caution and the desire to make it to their destination before dark.

Ravian’s vantage point was the beacon room, the wide, open-sided chamber at the very top of the Dark Tower where, once upon a time, the soldiers of the Land’s End garrison had tended an oil-fed fire that burned day and night. The lighthouse had been badly sited however, invisible to any vessels that strayed close in to the treacherous Weather Shore. Thus, a hundred years before Ravian had been born, his ancestor, King Kombula, had finally swallowed the medicine that had been too bitter for his predecessors, and ordered the construction of a new navigation mark. On the completion of the White Tower, sited further east along the curved peninsula that sheltered the fishing village of Karomar, the constant fire and its attendant watch had moved to the new spire and, for almost a century, the Dark Tower had stood empty. Now though, it was home to Ravian’s family and the beacon room was their living room.

It had been almost nine years ago that he had come to Land’s End from the White City, Ravian reflected. Nine years since he had chosen to exile himself and his kin to one the most isolated spots in the kingdom. He had never regretted his decision to turn his back on the Tarcun capital however, and, on the rare occasions that he had been compelled to return there, he had invariably encountered the same blend of politics, greed and social decay that had been a part of his reason for leaving.

Things were simpler out here at Land’s End and, once the simple folk of Karomar and the hard-bitten veterans of the garrison had accepted that he and his family had come to stay for good, they had taken them into their hearts. His children were particularly popular with the local people, and they had grown up roaming the wild countryside with the sons and daughters of fishermen and soldiers, far away from the selfish and dissolute lifestyles that were increasingly becoming the hallmark of their privileged peers back in the White City.

They were happy here.

They had healed here.

And yet, Ravian knew, the approaching delegation intended to end his blissfully reclusive existence. He knew, because a messenger from one of his informants in the palace had already ridden in that morning with the news that the king intended to recall him to the post of Defender of the Nation.

His brother had let the Nine Houses have their own way for too long and, even though the kingdom’s economy had boomed in recent times, its defence forces had been allowed to slide into disuse and decay. Ravian had observed the developing state of affairs years ago, and had warned Jeniel of the imbalance on several occasions, but to no avail. In the last few months however, the prince had received intelligence that he and his brother were not the only ones aware of their country’s woeful state of preparedness.

The North was rising again.

The sons whose fathers had never returned from the Great Sea War were now, themselves, warriors grown. Their code had always demanded revenge for that crushing defeat, and their hatred of Tarcus had been fanned white-hot by the draconian trading taxes that Jeniel had insisted on maintaining on the former members of the Northern Alliance. The Northerners had needed only a leader to bring them together – and now they had one.

Groinya, son of Bordwar – the very same Bordwar who had launched his massed Northerner fleet against Tarcus in the Great Sea War – now sought to re-forge his father’s old alliances and Ravian knew that the Dekanian king had already turned his eyes southward and seen that Tarcus’s defensive strength had been allowed to ebb away. There could only be one outcome, the prince was certain – another war was only a matter of time.

As soon as he had received the first disturbing reports from the North, Ravian had ensured that the information had been discretely forwarded to Jeniel’s attention. Even as he did so however, the prince had known full well that, once his brother heeded the warning signs, his first act would be to recall his sibling as Defender of the Nation, to task him with repairing the wreckage of their army and navy in time to meet the inevitable conflict.

Ravian clenched his fists in anger as he stared out into the deepening twilight.

Well, Jeniel could sort out his own mess!

It was his brother’s fault that he had let his forces go to seed – and it was because the king had taxed the Northerners so harshly that they hated Tarcus now more than they ever had!

Ravian was just about to turn away from the window when the first of the approaching riders rounded the final bend in the trail and, even in the fading light, the mass of blond curls that danced about her head drew his eye like a waving flag.

‘That scheming, manipulating turd!’ the prince growled aloud.

Of course Jeniel had known that he would refuse his summons – and so his brother had sent as his messenger the one person that he knew Ravian would never refuse.

It was dark outside by the time the time his children brought their visitor to the beacon room.

‘Father,’ his daughter Lusia announced, ‘it’s Abien!’

Her cousin, Princess Abien, heir to the Tarcun throne, followed Lusia into the living room, her mass of blond curls capturing the light from the recently-lit torches and radiating it back with a golden glow. Despite her smile however, Ravian noted the dark smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes and knew that, even without the recent storm, the two-day ride on the Southeast Coast would have taken its toll on the child princess.

For a moment, he felt his anger at his brother well up again – how could Jeniel use his own daughter so ruthlessly? What was she…barely thirteen years old?

Then he stood and spread his arms wide in welcome.

It wasn’t Abien’s fault that her father had become such a calculating schemer and, perhaps, it wasn’t even Jeniel’s. His older brother had already had to fight off one invasion attempt in his lifetime and now it looked as though he would have to do so again. Indeed, during Jeniel’s rule, the Tarcun crown had assumed a weight that no member of the royal family had ever had to bear before, and Ravian could see how such a crushing pressure might temper a man into someone colder and harder than his forebears.

Abien almost ran to his embrace and, as she threw her own arms around him and pressed her head against his chest, he thought that he felt her body convulse with a single sob.

She kept her head down, her face hidden beneath her curls as Lusia confirmed, ‘She’s ridden all the way here in two days! The poor thing must be exhausted!’

His daughter’s appearance was so different to that of her royal cousin, Ravian could not help but think. Abien was almost mythically fair in the way of the royal line, but Lusia had inherited the dark hair and features of her mother.

The prince’s heart twisted at the memory of Lefia – born Princess Karalla of Bolstenia – and that day, long ago, when her arrow had thudded into a tree close by his head as he rode into the Valley of Trebedan. The shaft that buried itself in the wooden trunk beside him might just as well have plunged into his heart, Ravian thought sadly. It was almost nine years since Lefia had died, yet he still thought of her every day and, sometimes – but only in moments when he was sure that he was absolutely alone – he still shed tears for her. By Delikas, he had loved her – and he loved her still.

‘I’ve sent Abien’s escort on to the garrison for the night,’ Aranu, his son said. ‘They were just about ready to fall out of their saddles.’

‘Aranu had a little set to with their senior officer,’ Lusia said, with the mischievous smile of a child telling tales on her sibling.

Ravian raised a quizzical eyebrow at his son.

Unlike his sister, Aranu had the fair features of the Noble House and, at almost twenty years’ old, he closely resembled Ravian at the same age. He had a nature all of his own though and, although the young prince was usually quiet and reserved, when provoked, he could display a cold and ruthless temper. It was small wonder, Ravian thought, considering what the boy had gone through before he had reached even his tenth year.

‘He came to the door showing a naked sword,’ Aranu said, in response to his father’s look.

‘He was probably just doing his job, Aranu,’ his father reproached him gently.

‘Who was he expecting to open the door?’ Aranu replied. ‘Bordwar’s ghost? Everybody in the kingdom knows that this is where we live. That Delanion is a moron!’

‘Delanion?’ Ravian queried.

Delanion was the colonel who commanded of the palace guard, and Ravian knew that he was soon to be promoted to overall command of the army.

Abien looked up at him for the first time and, although her eyes were red-rimmed, Ravian saw that they were clear of any tears.

‘Father insisted that he command my escort,’ she said. ‘I don’t like him much either, but his majesty thinks that Delanion is a good soldier.’

Ravian had his own reasons to dislike the guard’s commander.

Delanion had been his training officer when, as a boy, he had begun his military training at the Academy. Resentful of anybody who he perceived had had a privileged upbringing, the surly youth had taken every opportunity to make his royal recruit’s life a misery. Still, the prince thought, that was a lifetime ago now, and he was reliably informed that Delanion’s forth-coming promotion had been well-earned. Tarcus was going need its best soldiers over the next couple of years, whether they owned pleasant dispositions or not.

‘So,’ Ravian said to Abien, ‘your father has listened, at last, to the warning sounds from the North.’

It was a statement, not a question.

‘You know my father, Uncle Ravian,’ Abien said, releasing her hold on him and stepping back a pace. ‘He had to make sure, so he sent his own spies to the Grimspot Gris.’

Ravian smiled grimly.

‘I know your father, all right. He’s so concerned about preserving the peace for the Golden Way that I thought he’d wait until he could see Northerners’ sails on the horizon before he mobilised.’

‘He knew it was you that sent those first warning to him and he thanks you,’ Abien said, in an obvious attempt to sidestep her uncle’s uncharitable comment.

‘Surely he didn’t send the heir to the throne all the way to Land’s End just to thank me?’ Ravian said.

Abien looked around at her cousins.

‘You can say whatever you want in front of Lusia and Aranu,’ Ravian reassured her, ‘and there’s no one else in the tower tonight.’

‘Well then, Uncle Ravian,’ Abien said, ‘Father requests that you return to the White City to help prepare its defences.’

‘Requests?’

Abien nodded.

‘In what capacity?’ Ravian asked her.

‘As Defender of the Nation, of course,’ his niece replied.

‘That’ll upset a few people, won’t it?’ Ravian chuckled.

‘It won’t upset us, Uncle Ravian,’ Abien told him, ‘and we really do need you back.’

Ravian hesitated, tempted to draw the discussion out but knowing that to do so would only be to take his frustrations with his brother out on the blameless child standing before him.

‘Very well,’ he finally said. ‘I’m not happy that this day has arrived, but it’s been obvious for a long time that it was coming. From what I’ve seen on my last few visits to the White City, there’s a massive job to do if we are going to get Tarcus’s defences back into order, and I have no doubt that we will have to fight the Citizen’s Council every step of the way. Still, I’ve been moping around these dark shores for too long now – and it’s about time that your cousins learned the cultured ways of the city instead of clambering around these cliffs like scruffy mountain goats.’

Aranu scowled and Ravian knew that his son would have been quite happy to stay at Land’s End. Lusia too, looked downcast for a moment, but then she smiled radiantly.

‘That’s lovely, Abien,’ she said. ‘We’ll be able to see each other every day.’

Abien returned her smile – despite the distance they lived from each other, they had always seemed to enjoy a close bond.

‘It won’t just be the physical state of the defences we’ll have to attend to,’ Ravian growled, half to himself. ‘There’s something rotten going on in the White City.’

‘What do you mean, Father?’ Aranu wanted to know.

‘It doesn’t take a spy network the size of either your uncle’s or mine to know that the young men of the city have developed a strong resistance towards the usual military training – especially the sons of the Nine Houses. Those families have provided this country with some of its best leaders in the past but, now, the Citizen’s Council has granted so many exemptions from service due to the booming economy that the army and the navy have been starved of both manpower and leadership.’

‘Which is all the more reason we need you home again,’ Abien interjected.

Ravian shot her a sharp look, wondering if his niece had begun to develop some of her father’s manipulative ways, but he saw only openness and honesty in her face.

‘I trust that the king will be making the Admiral’s Residence available?’ he asked her.

‘I’m sure that Father knows your requirements, Uncle Ravian.’

‘Very well, then,’ Ravian said. ‘We’ll give you and your men a day to rest, and then we’ll set off for the White City.’

‘Uncle Ravian, Father said that, if you were to consent to return, we should lose no time at all in getting back to the capital,’ Abien replied immediately.

Ravian stared at her in disbelief. He knew that Abien was close to exhaustion, and he was about to insist that she take the day’s rest, but the look in her eyes stopped him.

‘You mean you want to start the ride back again tomorrow morning?’ he asked her.

‘If you and my cousins can be ready – yes.’

Regardless of how tired she may have been, Ravian realised, the young queen-to-be wasn’t going to admit human frailty to anyone, not even to her own family. Despite his concern for her wellbeing, his heart lifted – there was a metal in the lass that the kingdom would have need of in the future.

‘As you wish, Abien,’ he said, ‘but you’ll join us for our meal straight away and then it’s off to bed with you – Aranu, Lusia and I can pack while you are catching up on some sleep. We’ll be off at dawn, so I’ll send Aranu down to let your guard know straight after we’ve eaten.’

‘Don’t bother, Aranu,’ Abien said, turning to her cousin. ‘I’ve already told them to be here and ready to ride at first light.’

Aranu’s normally serious features lit up with a grin.

‘I hope that your men will be able to keep up with you, Cousin,’ he said.

‘By the way, Abien,’ Ravian said, ‘the captain of the garrison here, a young chap by the name of Tabor, has completed his two-year posting and is due for replacement in the next week or so. If you don’t mind, I’d like him to return to the White City with us.’

‘I’m sure that that will be fine, Uncle Ravian,’ Abien replied.

‘Excellent. Aranu, can you please ride down and inform Captain Tabor after you’ve eaten?’

‘Of course, Father.’

Ravian smiled to himself – Captain Tabor thought that he had two secrets, but the prince knew both of them.

The first, Ravian knew, was that he was a secret informant for King Beneen. Thus, the Ezrenian king would be one of the first to know of his return to the White City and the reason why. Ravian was comfortable with that – Beneen was an adopted cousin, a close personal friend and the strongest trading partner of Tarcus and, anyway, it wasn’t as if Ravian didn’t have his own spies in the Ezrenian palace. Still, it had occasionally suited the Tarcun prince to feed Beneen’s spy both information and misinformation, and he intended to keep that facility available.

Tabor’s other secret, he knew, was that, during the time he had been stationed at Land’s End, the dapper young officer had fallen in love with Lusia – and from his daughter’s sudden, irrepressible smile of delight at the news they would not be leaving him behind at Land’s End, Ravian could see that the soldier’s feelings were reciprocated.

Later in the beacon room, after his children and his exhausted niece had gone to bed, Ravian stared out into the darkness as he performed the evening ritual of cleaning and sharpening his sword, Skull-Biter. The strange, white-metal blade showed the scars of old battles, its sheen dulled by the blood of many enemies. The rare and valuable weapon had come from the far-off mountain kingdom of Trebedan almost twenty years ago, a gift from Lefia’s brother, Pinnius, who now ruled that land.

Out in the blackness, a faint light marked a ship running for the White City.

At least the trading vessels still felt safe enough to sail at night without darkening ship, Ravian consoled himself. For the moment anyway, Tarcus still controlled and guarded the Sapphire Sea.

The prince’s jaw clenched and his knuckles whitened about the worn contours of Skull-Biter’s grip.

Tarcus, he thought angrily, faced more enemies than even Jeniel realised.

Shaking off the dark mood that threatened to consume him, he stood up and walked to the edge of the lookout from where, seemingly miles below, a few lights still showed in Karomar. He was tempted to go to bed – it was already late and they had an early start in the morning – but he knew that he also had a goodbye to make in the small fishing village. They had both known that this day would come, but he couldn’t bring himself to just ride out of Land’s End without a goodbye and some words of explanation.

With a sigh, Ravian pulled on his boots, and then headed down the stairs and out of the tower.

The next day dawned calm, crisp and clear as the travellers assembled outside the Dark Tower. Below them, the surface of Karomar’s harbour, a well-protected cove formed by the curving arm of an ancient lava flow, was a glassy, inky blue, and the white sails of the village’s fishing boats, finally freed after two days sheltering from the storm, gleamed as they crept towards the open sea in the almost windless conditions. The sun had yet to reach the small village they left behind, tucked away the crook of the natural breakwater, but it caught the smoke from its chimneys as it curled lazily skyward and imbued the diaphanous columns with a golden glow.

Delanion, Tabor and the three troopers rode up to join the royal party and Ravian acknowledged their salutes.

The palace guard’s commander had changed surprisingly little over the years, the prince saw. He was still lean and muscular, and still possessed of the same surly aura that Ravian remembered from the Academy.

Delanion, the son of a centurion who had clawed his way up through the ranks and a mother who had been a cleaner in the barracks, seemed to be a shining example of the egalitarian opportunities available in the Tarcun armed forces, but Ravian knew that the career soldier deeply resented anyone whom he considered advantaged by birth. Now he saw the familiar, almost impertinent, anger burning in the man’s dark eyes and, observing the poisonous look the colonel shot in Aranu’s direction, he could well guess at the tone of the previous evening’s confrontation.

Tabor, the garrison commander, was also dark-eyed, but there the similarities with his senior officer ended. Allegedly a man of no family who had come to Tarcus as a penniless immigrant from Karaal, the young captain’s plebeian background should have been acceptable to Delanion, but Ravian could tell from both men’s body language that their relationship was already strained. He was not really surprised – Tabor was intelligent, witty and cultured – all things that Delanion despised. Indeed, it was these same traits that had aroused Ravian’s initial suspicions soon after the young officer had arrived to take command of the garrison at Land’s End, although, from the very beginning, he had found Tabor pleasant and refreshing company. Not long afterwards, when they had begun practicing their swordsmanship together, the new commander had further, but unwittingly, betrayed himself by revealing a considerably higher level of skill than the prince knew he would ever have gained from normal military schooling. Thus, Ravian had set his own spies discretely to work and, eventually, they had uncovered Tabor’s secret.

Had Tabor turned out to be a traitor, a mercenary soul prepared to betray his own country for monetary reward, Ravian’s reaction would have been swift and summary, regardless of the friendship that had begun to form between them. As the prince learned though, the new garrison commander was an Ezrenian secret agent whose mission had been to gain the posting to Land’s End and, thereby, report on Ravian and his family to King Beneen. Now, as they prepared to leave together, Ravian wondered what Tabor’s path would have been now that his posting to Land’s End – and his mission – were at an end. Would he have been ordered to stay on, deeply lodged in the Tarcun army and perhaps rising to positions of increasing rank and importance, or would he have quietly disappeared and returned to Ezreen?

Whatever the future had held for Beneen’s informer, the prince decided, for now, keeping the young Ezrenian close by suited him for a number of reasons.

‘We had better get moving,’ he announced. ‘It’s going to be hot today and we’ll probably want to stop for an hour or two around noon.’

As they set out, Delanion despatched two of his men ahead as scouts, then ordered his third trooper to a position a thousand paces behind them as a rear-guard. The narrow, precipitous trail forced the main party to proceed in single file so that, normal conversation impossible, they rode in a silence broken only by the ringing of their horses’ hooves on the volcanic rock in the still-cool air.

Ravian and his family had ridden this way many times and they travelled light, eschewing any armour or courtly attire in favour of rough, practical apparel. Each of them was armed with a rare, white-metal sword however – Ravian wearing his at his waist, while Lusia and Aranu had theirs slung over their shoulders, Survenese-style.

As the morning wore on, the sun began to beat down harshly and the black rocks radiated its heat up into the riders’ faces as they bowed their heads beneath their capes. By midday, their world had become distilled down to four elements – the merciless sun, the harsh dome of blue sky, the shimmering black cliffs and the sparkling, blue sea far below. Then, as the sun reached its highest point – and just as Ravian noticed that Abien, riding ahead of him, had begun to sway dangerously in her saddle – they came to a roughly level area some thirty paces across.

‘We’ll stop here for two hours,’ Ravian announced, swinging down off his mount. ‘Colonel Delanion, please go and call your scouts back before their brains fry.’

By the time Delanion and the advance scouts had returned, the remainder of the party had erected several sheets of light cloth sunshades, held in place by string stays and cane uprights. A meal and water had been laid out and Ravian invited the colonel and his men to eat with them.

‘Excuse me, Your Highness,’ Delanion responded stiffly, ‘but common soldiers shouldn’t eat with royalty.’

The man who had been detailed as rear-guard, having already taken his place among the royal party, staggered stiffly to his feet at his commander’s words, his cheeks crimson with embarrassment.

Tabor looked at Delanion levelly.

‘Colonel, this trail is too harsh a place for the niceties of the royal court,’ he said, ‘and, when we travel in such an arid climate, we should take some lessons from our eastern friends and rest, under cover, during the midday heat. I insist that you and your men join us and I ask that you feel comfortable doing so.’

Hesitantly, the soldiers did as they were invited – although it was clear that Delanion most certainly did not feel comfortable about it. Ravian saw the poisonous look of disapproval that the colonel shot in the direction of Tabor, who was completely at ease with the royal family, and decided that he had better ensure that the young captain did not wind up directly under the bully’s command.

Once they had finished eating and had slaked their thirsts, the party lay down to rest and wait out the midday heat. Delanion wanted to send his men out to guard the trail in both directions but, once again, Ravian calmly overruled him, declaring that no one would be moving on the road until some heat had gone out of the sun. Delanion had insisted that he was going to stay awake and on guard anyway, to which Ravian had responded that, if that was his choice, he was most