A Crown Imperilled. Raymond E. Feist

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      Arkan rode for more than an hour, circling the vast array of camps outside the walls of Sar-Sargoth. A thousand fires or more burned as the main host of the moredhel nation had gathered outside the walls of the massive city.

      Despite being the closest thing to a moredhel capital, the city was deserted for most of the year. Delekhan, the last moredhel chieftain who had attempted to occupy the city as a symbol of his supremacy, had been killed by Arkan’s father, Gorath, during the second abortive attempt to seize the Kingdom city of Sethanon.

      Since then, Narab had occasionally moved his clans into the vicinity, but had avoided the vanity of occupying any of the palaces scattered through the city. Today, it appeared, was to be the day he decided to advance his claim to pre-eminence, if only symbolically.

      And so Arkan rode through the night, seeking the one leader among the moredhel with enough power to baulk Narab’s ambition for a crown that no moredhel in history had dared to wear. The Ardanien chief hoped what he saw tonight was just another tribal conflict, one quickly resolved, rather than the beginning of a true dynastic struggle. For in the first instant he had seen them, Arkan knew that the true threat came from the elves from the distant stars.

      Their presence beside Narab told the chieftain all he needed to know: Narab would rather stand in good stead with them than confront them as enemies, so they were powerful and very dangerous. Arkan knew it was Narab’s nature to plot, but he was clearly overmatched if he thought he could court them and make them serve his ends, or even count them as true allies. The taredhel might be content to allow those living north of the Teeth of the World to think themselves free, but eventually they would seek to put their boot on the necks of the moredhel. The strange elves wanted to claim all of Midkemia as their own: of that, he was certain.

      Not for the first time in his life, Arkan wondered if his people weren’t their own worst enemies. Beyond the constant bickering and occasional bloodshed, there was an underlying drive for supremacy between rival clans … but for what? It was as if struggle itself was the point of existence, rather than as a means to achieving some higher goal.

      Not usually reflective by nature, Arkan had been forced by the exigency of leading his clan on more than one occasion to weigh what he felt was an obvious truth against a more ambiguous, less easily understood reality. The world was not a simple place and life was never effortless, especially when most of one’s day was filled with the struggle merely to survive, but few of his people considered the world beyond their daily needs: hunting, eating, defending their lands and raising their families. Peace had made that so much more probable, yet his people still had an appetite for bloodshed that ran counter to their own best interests.

      Why was that? Arkan wondered. Struggle as he might, he had never come close to an answer. Every time he pondered it, he was left to concede he lacked the mental gift of someone like Cetswaya, his shaman. In the end he shrugged off the question, accepting that it was simply their nature.

      Still, this was not the time for abstract musing. He had a real problem to confront and his experience told him there were two things he must now do quickly. The first was to get his people back into the high mountains to the north. Almost two generations before, his father had been the first to lead the tribe into the vast frozen peaks and the glaciers beyond. In doing so he had saved the Ardanien from obliteration at the hands of their ancient enemies, and had given them their new name, the Ice Bears. Part of the once-powerful Clan Bear, most of their kin had been obliterated by the mad prophet, the false Murmandamus, during his war against the humans to the south.

      His second task was to seek out the one person who could be termed an ally, albeit loosely. She might make the difference between his people’s survival and their obliteration.

      Arkan eased his horse down a dark trail. His night vision was better than the horse’s, so he had to carefully manoeuvre his mount to keep them both from stumbling.

      At last, in the distance he saw the campfires that marked his destination. As he neared the edge of the encampment a voice called out his name. Slowing his horse, he approached the fire’s glow. ‘Greetings, Helmon.’ He glanced around the sentry camp and said, ‘Are the Snow Leopards ready for war?’

      ‘No more than usual,’ said the warrior in charge of the post with a wry chuckle. He extended his hand. ‘Good to see you, cousin.’

      ‘Let’s hope our aunt feels the same,’ answered Arkan, taking his arm. Each gripped the other’s wrist.

      ‘She’s expecting you.’

      Arkan didn’t try to hide his surprise. ‘Really?’

      With a slight smile the broad-shouldered fighter nodded once. ‘Head straight to the split in the trail, then right to the small clearing above the main camp. You’ll have no trouble finding it.’

      Helmon was correct: Arkan found the pavilion he sought with ease. A great tent had been erected on a plateau overlooking the largest encampment in the area. A guard signalled for Arkan to leave his horse with him. The Chieftain of the Ardanien dismounted, tossed the reins to him, then paused for a moment, looking down at the massive encampment below.

      The Snow Leopards.

      The most significant single clan among the moredhel, they had grown steadily in size and power over the last century. Their leader was Arkan’s aunt, Liallan, widow of the notorious Delekhan. It had been Delekhan who had tried to invade the human Kingdom of the Isles; an invasion based on the lie that the humans had imprisoned Murmandamus during the moredhels’ first invasion of the south years before. Delekhan had been second among those who had served Murmandamus, only surpassed by Murad, the shaman-chief of Clan Raven. Delekhan had also been among the maddest of those servants. Much of the truth about that struggle was hidden, but Arkan knew that his father, Gorath, had killed Delekhan. And it had been Narab who had killed Delekhan’s son, Moraeulf, seeking to gain control of Delekhan’s Clan Badger and the rest of his alliances. That would have made him king a century ago.

      But Delekhan’s widow, Liallan, had kept control of the Snow Leopards and Badgers. Their clans had never merged while her husband lived, but with Delekhan’s death she had deftly integrated the Badgers into the Snow Leopards. She was now the only force among the moredhel with enough power to thwart Narab.

      A warrior motioned for him to dismount as he reached his aunt’s tent, a sprawling thing divided into several segments by cleverly hung curtains.

      Inside, across an expanse of fine wool rugs, Liallan reclined on a pile of furs wearing travel garb made from the costliest of materials. No tanned leather breeches and home-spun tunic for the mistress of the Snow Leopards; her riding trousers were cut from the best woollen weave, dyed a midnight blue, and her open-collared shirt was white silk laced with loops and frogs carved from ivory over which she sported a dyed red leather vest with a soft sheepskin lining. Arkan had hunted the massive ice walruses and so had some sense of what those buttons alone had cost her.

      He bowed slightly. ‘Aunt, are you well?’

      Liallan’s appearance had changed little throughout Arkan’s entire life. Her hair was still dark, though shot through with grey streaks, and there were now fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Years of riding horseback in the sun had given her whipcord toughness and her movement was lithe as she stood to greet her great-nephew.

      ‘Well enough, Arkan.’

      ‘Regal’ was the only term to sum up her carriage and manner. If the moredhel were ever to have a queen, she would be the perfect exemplar. Arkan was always struck by her vicious combination СКАЧАТЬ