Fall of Thanes by Brian Ruckley Read Free Book Online Page B

Inkallim said. "A shortage of food, an excess of foul tempers and ready blades. The dead go unburied and unburned. Some of the Gyre levies have taken to Tarbain customs, by all accounts: making cups from the skulls of dead Kilkry farmers and suchlike. I am not surprised you took your leave."
    "There's a sickness abroad. Everything is falling into ruin. I want no part of it. Anyway, nothing will come of the siege."
    Cannek nodded. "Kolkyre can't be starved into submission, since we've not got the ships to close their harbour. And it can't be stormed. Not unless Shraeve recalled every spear that's gone off south beyond Donnish."
    "Would they come?" Kanin asked darkly, pushing aside his plate. "If Shraeve summoned them?"
    Cannek scratched the side of his nose. "Probably. The issue of command remains a little... unclear. There are plenty of companies from Gyre and the other Bloods milling about now, trying to assert themselves. Not wanting to miss out on all the glory to be won. But the Battle dominates, on the whole; and Shraeve is their Banner-captain. So yes, the armies might come and go at her call. Or that of Aeglyss, which amounts to the same thing. The masses seem willing to put a good deal of trust in him."
    "You are remarkably at ease with the thought."
    "I find our faith a great comfort in troubled times." Cannek smiled again, sharp and fleeting. "Things are as they are. If there's one thing the creed teaches us, it's that a man gains nothing by worrying about it. Not even when he hopes to be the agent of change." The Inkallim looked pointedly around the empty room. "I'd heard you'd developed a liking for solitude. Are we truly alone? No prying ears?"
    "None," said Kanin. He insisted that his meals and his rest were undisturbed these days. Barring immediate need, not even his Shield were permitted to attend him. He and his thoughts occupied a world that every day seemed more distant from that inhabited by others; the two domains, he found, did not mix well.
    Cannek nodded, satisfied. "There's a council called at Hommen. The Battle, the Lore, some of the Captains from the Bloods. Aeglyss is coming down from Kan Avor."
    Kanin grimaced in surprise. "I'd not heard."
    "You were not invited, Thane. You're thought to have... what's the phrase? Retired from the fray, I suppose. You've shown no great interest in the broad course of events. And it's Shraeve who is calling us together; she--or the halfbreed, I suppose we should say--is no great admirer of your talents. Or your preoccupations."
    "You're going?" Kanin asked.
    "I, and one or two of my fellows."
    "You'll kill him?" said Kanin. The excitement he felt was not an elevating sentiment; there was nothing bright or warming about it.
    "The opportunity may arise. It seems likely." Cannek shrugged. "What the outcome will be, I cannot say. That's for forces greater than you or I to determine."
    "How will you do it?" Kanin asked.
    "Oh, best not to enquire too deeply into such things for now. We must preserve your innocence in these matters as far as we can, don't you think? Half the point of this is to protect you, and your Blood, from the consequences of what is happening. Comfort yourself with the thought that our reach was long enough to put an end to a Thane in his own feasting hall. Aeglyss is a good deal nearer at hand than Lheanor ever was."
    There was a dull thump from outside one of the shuttered windows. Cannek's eyes were drawn by the sound. His hand went to one of his knives, and had it halfway out of its sheath before Kanin could even draw breath.
    "Snow," the Thane said. "It falls from the roof."
    "Of course." Cannek relaxed a trifle, though his hand remained on the knife.
    Kanin pushed back the bench on which he sat from the table, and rose. He began to stride back and forth. A rare vigour, such as he seldom felt now except when in battle, had taken hold of him.
    "It's as well you came to tell me. I could not have waited much longer, whatever promises you dangled