Author's Note
Thanks to everyone from the old team, the new group, and the Redux forum that chipped in with advice, ideas, or support for this project. We couldn't have gotten it started without your help. Hope you enjoy.
Three Crowns, One King
Three crowns had the First King of the stags. One for the sun, a crown of baleful gold. One for the moon, a crown of mournful silver. And one for the earth, a crown of fateful bronze. Three crowns shall the Last King have, too.
—A forgotten Caribou prophecy
Dainn’s sleep was haunted by a familiar dream.
It began the way it always began. He was standing alone, in the center of a lavishly furnished bedroom. Ornate floral patterns wrought in gold filigree papered the walls, a set of rich tapestries hung from the ceilings, and a wide feather bed hewn from dark mahogany and heaped high with plush silks and satins was set against the wall. He recognized it immediately, of course. My old bedroom. This was the august chamber in which Dainn had dressed, studied, dined, and slept during his tenure in the royal court. In the waking world, this room had long ago been reduced to smoldering cinders by the cataclysmic Cycle, along with the entire castle to which it had belonged. But in dreams, Dainn knew from experience, long gone things had a nasty habit of returning.
In the day, bathed in warm sunlight, he recalled his quarters looking dignified and regal. But in the night, raked by merciless moonlight, they took on a decidedly different character. The pale, sickly white rays streaming through the short, polished glass window on the far wall made the parade of pomp and finery seem hollow and empty, like a cheap, dirty veneer that might peel away any moment to reveal the rotting, termite-eaten foundation underneath.
Dainn vaguely recalled a snippet of counsel Lord Sindri had once given him: Men fear the dark not because it blinds them but because it makes them see too much. Most times, we look at a thing and see what we like. In the dark, we look and are compelled to see what is truly there. He had never known his old mentor to be wrong, and this would seem to be no exception. In the daylight, he might lie to himself that this opulent place had been a token of appreciation for the service of Dainn the beloved pupil, Dainn the valorous soldier, Dainn the favorite heir. But in the dark he was forced to see it for what it was... the gilded cage of Dainn the prized whore.
The faint click of the bolt sliding in the door behind him fractured his thoughts into a thousand pieces and sent a sharp chill down his spine. He heard the raspy creak of old hinges as the door swung open, and the room was abruptly bathed in a deep, baleful orange glow from the burning sconce in the hallway. Dainn did not turn around to greet his midnight visitor. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on the wall, where the flickering torchlight had conjured a pair of mismatched shadows. The first shadow was Dainn’s, slight and stocky, with a pair of fledgling antlers that hadn’t even grown to full size yet. The shadow of a boy, he thought. I was only nineteen. Only a boy. The second shadow was that of his guest, and it towered two heads above his own. It was huge, with broad shoulders, a massive chest bulging with muscle, and a pair of long, majestic antlers that nearly scraped the ceiling. The shadow of a man? No. The shadow of a monster.
“Hello, boy.”
The hulking stag standing behind him spoke with a deep, strong, sonorous voice like a thunder clap that sent tremors through Dainn’s shoulders. From the small slur that crept into his enunciation of the word “boy,” Dainn could tell he was drunk. Another of Sindri’s thousand scraps of useless wisdom crept unbidden into his mind: Drink makes kind men a little kinder, and cruel men much crueler. It made no difference either way. His visitor was plenty cruel sober; drink merely made him a bit clumsier in exercising that cruelty.
Just then, Dainn wanted to do a million things. He wanted to run, to duck under his captor’s mighty arms, dash out the door and keep running, until the castle and the city and the crown and the country were all tiny blots in the distance. He wanted to fight, to go retrieve his broadsword from its scabbard propped against the wall and slash his way out, or at least die trying. He wanted to scream, cry, shout. But he did none of those things. Instead, he merely stood frozen to the floor, staring straight ahead as that large shadow on the wall grew larger and larger. Then, without turning, he replied in a soft, broken voice.
“Hello, my king.”
King Svarndagr, fearsome sovereign of the Caribou, slammed the door shut, throwing the room back into darkness. Dainn felt a harsh shove from a rough, calloused hand behind him that sent him tumbling artlessly forward, landing on his stomach on the feather bed. Before he could even cry out in surprise, a massive weight like a ton of bricks pounced on his back, crushing the air out of his lungs and pinning him helplessly to the soft satin sheets. He was unable to see his assailant, but he could feel meaty hands fumbling with the laces of his breeches. In a few moments they were pulled off, leaving him bare from the waist down. The brutish paws migrated upwards and fumbled with his tunic for a few moments before seeming to give up on taking it off properly, instead grabbing hold of the cloth at his shoulders and ripping the garment clean off him.
Dainn whimpered as the chill night air rolled over his naked body, prickling his shoulders and legs, but he infinitely preferred the cold to the throbbing warmth emanating from the mammoth frame pressing down on his back. He could hear his own heart pounding like a war drum in his hears, and his vision was all of a sudden blurred by a veil of fearful tears. No matter how many times he relived this moment, it never became any easier.
He heard the foreboding click of a belt buckle being undone, and then he felt something impossibly thick and rigid and fleshy press against his backside. Some final unconscious spasm of rebellion seized him for an instant and he involuntarily flailed an arm behind him against his attacker. It was swiftly, viciously wrenched behind his back, sending spikes of pure agony racing up his shoulder. Even as he squealed in pain and felt a few shameful tears pour freely down his cheeks, he heard a low, rumbling laugh behind him. The king found his pathetic attempt to defend himself amusing.
“Still got some fire in you, boy?” came that booming voice behind him again. Dainn gave no reply, still gritting his teeth and whining softly at his hurt arm.
“Look at your king when he speaks to you.” Without warning Dainn’s left antler was grabbed and his head was twisted violently over his shoulder, bring him finally face-to-face with his tormentor.
Sindri had been right, after all. The revealing dark showed everything for what it truly was—in the ebbing moonlight, daylight’s regal king looked every bit a monster. Svarndagr’s long, jagged yellow teeth were bared, set in a perverse grin that would not have been out of place on a child who found amusement in pulling the wings off birds. His distinctive deep orange eyes, which were often described by court poets and playwrights as wise and reassuring, gleamed malignly like a pair of molten embers. And his bright, spiky crown with its intricate inlays of gold and steel, which in the sunlight looked so pure and benevolent, seemed now like a twisted parody of an angel’s halo. In the morning, those teeth, those eyes, that crown would all resume the facade. The king would rise as normal and sign his treaties, make his speeches, hear his appeals. Dainn would do the same, and neither stag would speak of tonight. But the morning was far, far away.
“Ready to serve, boy?”
Svarndagr stared right into Dainn’s own wet blue eyes as he said it. Dainn did not know what the elder stag was looking for. Fear? Shame? Submissiveness? Whatever it was, after a few intense moments he seemed to find it, giving one final taunting laugh before releasing his grip on Dainn’s antler, letting his ward’s head loll like a ragdoll on the sheets. Satin filled Dainn’s open mouth, and he bit down on it hard to steel himself for what came next. He found his eyeline once more level with the window, and in those last few moments of lucidity he thought for a second that he could see a silhouette hovering just beyond the glass. That was impossible, they were twelve stories above ground, and yet he saw it all the same. Its body was ethereal, like a spirit, and seemed to shift and shimmer in the moonlight. It was… a pale cow in a silver daisy crown. And she was smiling.
His last thought was: Who are you?
And then his world evaporated in a blur of pain.
SOMEWHERE IN THE OCEAN
Dainn woke abruptly in the dark, to the soft, wet hiss of raindrops streaking down his windowsill.
He felt a bead of cold sweat dripping down his cheek, a parting kiss from a vile, persistent suitor to tide him over until it invariably returned, some night soon. He wiped it away roughly, angrily. It was only a memory, and memories had no power in the waking world. Let the old bastard reign in his dreams, Dainn wore the crown now. The new king grit his teeth and resolved to think no more of it. There was no time to dwell on the past.
Slowly, he heaved himself upright in bed and threw open the curtains, flooding his dark cabin with sickly white moonlight. In the starless night sky beyond the rain-streaked glass, the waxing moon glittered vainly behind a sheet of frothing grey storm clouds, painting the black sea beneath with lurid zebra stripes of pale light. In a few days, the new moon would take its place, marking the end of his fleet's second month at sea.
Two months, he thought. A year ago, I expected to go to my grave without seeing the deck of a ship. Today, we are two months at sea. Sitting up in bed, squinting in the moonlight, Dainn reflected soberly for the thousandth time on the ill strokes of fortune that had brought him to this unlikely place.
It had been just over seven weeks since the golden age of the Caribou was unceremoniously ended by catastrophe. Seven weeks since the fiery, ruinous Cycle had laid waste to their proud homeland and claimed the lives of most of its inhabitants, including their mighty ruler. Seven weeks since Dainn had taken up the mantle of king himself, assembled a fleet of ships, and lead a mass exodus of the survivors from that scorched, ravaged place. Seven weeks at sea—but it felt like years.
The first few weeks had been spent dribbling their fleet down the Pygmy Isles—the stony, godless archipelago west of the homeland—alternately bartering with and pillaging from the savage natives. Every so often they had lost a stag here to battle or a cow there to sickness, but overall they had fared well in those early days. But they had left the Isles behind for the open sea long ago, and their luck now was not so favorable. As the days marched on, food became increasingly scarcer, death increasingly more frequent, and morale increasingly weaker. For over a month they had been sweeping blindly westward in search of the storied lands beyond the edge of the maps—storied lands that were beginning to seem more and more like merely the stuff of stories as every new morning came and went with no sign of shore in sight. Still, they went onward. There was nothing to go back to.
Dainn’s grim contemplation was cut mercifully short by a stirring in the bed next to him. Roused by the light, a small, lithe cow with pale skin sat up next to him and stretched her arms, yawning. She had a small brown button nose like a rabbit's and big, green childlike eyes. “Sleep well, master?” she asked in a playful voice.
Her name was Daena, and she had become Dainn’s favorite bedslave over the course of this journey. She had first come to his attention three or four weeks ago, when she appeared one day in the company of Mero, captain of Dainn's personal guard. Dainn did not usually inquire into the identities of his guards' carnal companions—so long as their diversions did not distract them from their duties, the details were neither his business nor his curiosity—but something about her ditzy, credulous mannerisms intrigued him enough to ask after her. Mero explained that he found her wandering around the deck one night, lost, cold, and confused. He had shown her around the barracks, asking for her master, but no one was able to recognize or claim her, so he elected to take her for himself. The name she had given him when he asked was "Daena."
That name intrigued Dainn more—it meant her master had named her after Daen the Daywalker, the mythic first king of the Caribou, who had led their people out of the dark forests millennia ago... and who, it happened, was also Dainn's own namesake. Dainn had known stags to name their cows after all manner of unusual things, but celebrated ancient heroes were not among them. Mero recognized the oddity of her name as well; he explained, chuckling, that he and the other guards often joked that the doe's name must have meant she was "long lost royalty," and sometimes they liked to give her mocking "titles befitting of her high birth." "This week," he had said with a snort of derision, "her highness is Daena the Dunce."
His curiosity sufficiently piqued, Dainn had called her to his chambers for a night. Though he found that the snide nicknames Mero had given her largely rang true—she was far from the most beautiful doe ("Daena the Drudge"), or the most entertaining ("Daena the Dullard"), and certainly not the smartest ("Daena the Dimwit")—it was an immeasurably pleasurable night. Most of the cows Dainn had spent nights at sea with before then were either beautiful, painstakingly coached and trained courtesans who did their job with unmatched skill but no passion, or clueless, frightened common does who laid there in mute terror while he took them, struck dumb by fear of displeasing the king. Neither experience lacked in pleasure, but pleasure was not what Dainn needed; what he needed was distraction. With Daena, though she was unintelligent, thoroughly inexperienced, and awkward, Dainn felt for once that he could forget himself. Listening to her naive, oblivious interjections as they undressed, feeling her happy, aimless fingers on him as she innocently explored his body, looking into her guileless green eyes as she writhed beneath him, Dainn felt the weights and worries of the day ebb away into the background. He was sold. He "appointed" her to his harem that night. Mero was not upset to see her go; to carefree souls like him and the guards, she was just a plain, ditzy amusement. It took a stag with the weight of the world to really appreciate her. He came to think of her, privately, as "Daena the Drug." Every great man needed a vice, right?
His vice reminded him of her presence by repeating her question, probably thinking he hadn't heard her. "Sleep well?" She wobbled from side-to-side slightly, shaking the little silver bells attached to her white collar (a present from her master) and creating a soft tinkling sound, trying to get his attention. He ignored her, instead turning his gaze to the window again. Judging by the height of the moon it was a few hours shy of ten. He had not woken from his sleep without purpose—he had a meeting of his king’s Council of Twelve to attend, and likely very little time to spare.
“Dress me,” he commanded flatly. Daena’s ears perked up and without a word she jumped out of bed, scampered over to his wardrobe, and began withdrawing his clothes. She wasn't smart, but she was reasonably good at learning menial tasks when they were demonstrated for her once or twice. He rose to join her and stretched his limbs slowly, shaking feeling back into his neglected joints. He held out his arms as the doe slipped his robe over him, standing on the tips of her toes to reach his height. She retrieved his wool cloak as well, and placed it over his shoulders. Finally, she held up his crown, a simple bronze circlet pilfered from who-knows-where that had become his badge of office. He took it from her hand and placed it on his head.
Dainn examined himself candidly in the dark glass of his wardrobe mirror. The stag staring back at him looked like a pale shadow of the sturdy, youthful young soldier who had won fame and fortune in the field of battle not so many years ago. His once-manicured beard was wild and unkempt from lack of grooming, his eyes were sunken and bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his face was bony and sallow from lack of a proper diet. On the head of that ragged, fatigued ghost in the mirror, the stately crown seemed more like a joke than an honor. He turned away in disgust.
Dismissing Daena with a wave of his hand, he walked to his bedchamber door and stepped out into the pouring rain.
The Council of Twelve was already assembled and waiting when Dainn arrived.
The ship they were aboard, the Astringent, had been the king’s flagship in the homeland. As such, it boasted a large, opulent meeting chamber for the king’s Council which, to Dainn’s knowledge, Svardagr’s Council had never used. A mammoth mahogany table occupied the center of the room; painted in careful detail on its glossy face was an intricate map of the homeland they might never see again. Five ornate high-back chairs were lined up along each of the table’s broad edges, and a pair of larger chairs sat opposite one another at its ends. Altogether, the furniture certainly looked the part. The occupants were a different story.
The old Council of Twelve had been like a prized antique chess set, each piece perfectly crafted according to its purpose. Its ranks counted ten eminent scholars, each a venerated authority in their respective domain, hand-selected for their office over the course of Svardagr’s long and prosperous reign. Most had been wizened greybeards far past fighting age, with a lifetime of prestige written on their face in wrinkles, pockmarks, and scars. Almost all of them died in the Cycle, of course—all their wit and wisdom had not, apparently, made them fireproof.
The new Council of Twelve was more like the makeshift chess set Dainn had owned during his boyhood in the slums of the capital, an odd patchwork of mismatched pieces cobbled together from rubbish found scavenging. The men assembled before him had little in common, save for the fact that they had all been awarded their offices over the course of the previous weeks. Some had been associates and friends of Dainn in the homeland, some were strangers. Some were well-known, some obscure. Some were young, some were old. In any case, they were no group of eminent scholars, but they were each useful in their own ways, and for Dainn’s present purposes that sufficed.
The idle chatter in the room quieted and the sitting men rose to attention as Dainn made his way to the king’s chair. He raised a fist to his chest in salute, and they each returned the gesture before taking their seats again. “Apologies for the delay, my lords,” said Dainn. “Let us begin with haste. Lord Thror, your report?” He directed his gaze to the chair two down from his right, where a wiry stag in a pair of half-moon eyeglasses was busily shuffling through a stack of yellowing notes. At the sound of Dainn’s voice, the stag’s ears pricked up and he pushed his drooping glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a finger.
“The situation is growing dire, your majesty,” said Lord Thror in his bookish, nasal voice. In the homeland, Thror had been Dainn’s personal bookkeeper and accountant. His unnatural proficiency for managing inventories and ledgers had saved his employer a pretty penny more than once, and that very same proficiency had lead Dainn to appoint him the new Master of Stocks. In the old days, that office would have entitled Thror to dominion over the vast provincial networks of trade and commerce that criss-crossed their homeland, but for the time being he seemed content to serve as the humble manager of their fleet’s dwindling inventory of supplies.
“The stores we embarked with are nearly exhausted,” continued Thror, his eyes flitting nervously across one of his sheafs of paper. “At this rate, by new moon we will be entirely reliant on the yield of the fish-catchers.” Dainn grimaced. The fleet’s sole supplement to the rations they had left home with were the catches of their fish-catchers, who were known to go days without a catch between them as their ships trawled seemingly endless stretches of lifeless water. Today, those catches were only supplements, but if they became their only meal... Things would become considerably worse. “We can stem the bleeding, of course,” added Thror, seeing the worried look on Dainn’s face. “But only if you would consent to—”
“Lower the rations.” Dainn finished his sentence with a heavy sigh. This was far from the first time they had had this particular discussion, and each time it happened he held out faint hope circumstances would improve enough soon that it might not come again. Each time he was disappointed. Clearly, this difficult decision could be put off no longer. He furrowed his brow.
“Do not despair, Dainn,” said a hoarse and throaty but unmistakably warm voice. Dainn felt a comforting hand on his shoulder and looked to his right, where the tall, sallow old stag to whom it belonged to sat stroking his snowy beard. In the homeland, Sindri had been Dainn’s perennial benefactor, mentor, and friend. During his tenure as Svardagr’s Master of Lore, Sindri was the one who had plucked Dainn from squalor, trained and bred him, and brought him to the court of a king. A sage historian and scholar with seemingly infinite patience and null temper, he had always been there for counsel in Dainn’s hour of need.
“Your people love you, Dainn. They will understand if you must lower the rations. They will sacrifice for their king.” Dainn said nothing, mulling over the words. Sindri was right, of course, his people would suffer for their king. They would die for him, maybe. But a good king, he thought, would not ask them to.
“Your majesty,” interjected the tall, narrow-eyed stag on Sindri’s right, interrupting Dainn's reflective pause. “If you plan to lower the rations, I must warn you, the cows are already chafing under the current meal quotas. Prolonged malnourishment has made them easy prey for sickness.”
The stag speaking was Anvari—in the homeland, he had been a semi-famous cow breeder and clinician, renowned in certain circles for the impeccable pedigrees of his stock and the uncanny effectiveness of his special female training regimens. His reputation had made him an easy choice for the office of Master of Breeds, steward of their domestic cow population. His former profession was reflected in his voice—he spoke in the cold, clipped monotone of a physician, as though every conversational partner were a patient and every sentence a diagnosis.
“Almost thirty have succumbed to Ash Fever this week,” continued Anvari, matter-of-factly. “Dozens more lie ill as we speak. We have had to commandeer an entire gallery on the Astor to serve as a makeshift sickbay.” As the Master of Breeds spoke, Dainn’s eyes drifted to the floor behind his chair, where a trio of nude does knelt on the floor in perfect silence, heads downward and hands clasped behind their backs. They were Anvari’s personal pets, named Einna, Tveira, and Thrira (“one,” “two,” and “three”) presumably to make them acutely aware of their expendability. They were the meekest, most fearful, most painstakingly obedient does Dainn had ever seen. In a happier world, he would have liked to sit in on one of Anvari’s famous cow training sessions to see how such supremely submissive creatures were created. He returned his gaze to Anvari as the stag concluded, “Cows were not made to live like this.” Neither were we, he thought.
“Lord Anvari, I h-have a suggestion to c-conserve the cow food,” piped up a slurred voice from a few seats away. Dainn turned to see Frey, a young, comely buck of no more than twenty, leaning forward in his chair, a small smirk on his face. In the homeland, Frey had been a university student studying the arts, and, by all accounts, a lecherous and lazy one. He was present in the room that evening for no other reason than because his father was Thramm, the powerful trade magnate who had furnished a third of the ships in Dainn’s fleet in exchange for a handful of promises from the new king—one of which was that his itinerant son be granted the office of Master of Arts.
For his part, Frey did not seem to take the responsibility particularly seriously. While Thror brought paperwork to meetings and Sindri brought books, Frey usually brought drinks, women, or both. Tonight was no exception. In his left hand he clutched a half-drunk violet bottle of bubble wine, and in his right the breast of the half-drunk plump violet cow in heavy, whorish makeup who was sprawled across his lap.
Realizing with a start that he had actually succeeded in getting everyone’s attention, Frey continued, “Line up the h-hundred ugliest c-cows here, and th-throw ‘em overboard!” He gave a shrill howl of laughter and looked around for reciprocation, but the rest of the room was silent. Dainn felt the familiar pang of barely-contained rage bubble up in his throat, but before he could speak someone else did. Anvari had a wan smile on his face, but his voice was icy.
“We would not want to deprive you of companionship, Lord Frey.”
That got some laughs, and Dainn felt his anger boil over into complacence upon seeing Frey’s smug smirk dissolve into the sullen pout of a schoolboy. He would deal with the young stag's insolence properly when the time came, but there were much fatter fish to fry first. He cleared his throat and brought the assembled stags’ attention back to him. “Any other thoughts on the state of the rations, my lords?”
“May I speak, your grace?” asked Vestri, the lean, muscled stag in steel armor sitting a seat from Dainn’s left. On Vestri’s right, in the chair directly on Dainn’s left, was a slightly taller, slightly better-built stag named Ivangir. In the homeland, these two brothers had been Dainn’s twin lieutenants; now they were the king’s Left and Right Hands, respectively. Though their titles had changed, their ever-present sibling rivalry remained as strong as ever. Council meetings frequently devolved into lengthy verbal (and, very occasionally, physical) brawls between the two, which Dainn alternately stoked and broke up as necessary. Both were skilled warriors and tacticians to begin with, but their competition drove each to constantly better themselves in every regard so as to outdo the other.
“The cows,” said Vestri, “are not the only ones under duress. My men are as stout and battle-hardened as any, but even they are enfeebled from emaciation. Their spirits are iron, but their flesh is paper. In my judgement, it is time to take dire action.” He paused, and turned to the portly stag to his left. “Lord Hrathr, what is the condition of our kennel?” Upon hearing his question, Ivangir’s eyes flashed dangerously.
Like Anvari, Hrathr was a handler of animals, albeit of a slightly baser variety. In the homeland, he had been a middle-grade beast wrangler in the royal menagerie, and he still had the warbeast fire breath scars spider-webbed across his torso to prove it. He was no great authority on animals, but he was the best that had emerged among their crew, and that had earned him the office of Master of Beasts, steward of their caged vixen and warbeast populations. What he lacked in certifications, the jolly, aging stag made up for in learned expertise and passion for his work. Dainn had seldom seen a kennelmaster who spoke of his charges in kinder tones.
“Thirty-six warbeasts we've got,” Hrathr said. “Twenty-five adults, eleven calves." He paused and added with a simple, proud smile on his face, "One calf just weaned not more 'an a day ago, not a thing you'll see lovelier than that."
“Are they in good health?” asked Vestri flatly, ignoring Hrathr's sentimental addendum.
“For the most part, Lord Vestri, though two or three are nearin' pasturing age and a couple o' the calves are feverish.”
“Thirty-six,” repeated Vestri, turning his gaze back to Dainn. “We have thirty-six warbeasts in our kennel. Your majesty, I had hoped never to have cause to give such grim counsel, but I cannot stand idly by while my men waste away. I think it is time to begin culling some number of our cattle and making food of them.” Hrathr's smile faded when he heard that, but he said nothing, merely looking down somberly. He understood the direness of the situation. He was an experienced beast keeper, and one of the first things a beast keeper learned, Dainn knew, was how to kill a beast when it's time came. Dainn wondered morbidly how many of his friends the jovial old stag had had to murder in his life.
Ivangir’s nostrils flared, and unlike Hrathr he did not hold his tongue. “No!” he shouted, pounding a fist on the table. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but he held his tongue when Dainn motioned for him to let Vestri finish.
“Start with the young, the sick, the lame if you have to,” continued Vestri, seemingly unfazed by his brother’s outburst. “But we must start somewhere, and we must start soon. Every day we wait, we court disaster.” Ivangir looked to Dainn for permission to respond, and he nodded.
“Would you have us pluck out our teeth to sate our stomachs, Vestri?” Ivangir spoke with the deep, rumbling, resonant voice of a seasoned general. He fixed his brother with a stony look. “Our warbeasts are the beating heart of our legions. To cull them is to castrate ourselves. We cannot afford to land on alien shores defenseless.”
“We cannot afford to land on alien shores half-dead of starvation either,” countered Vestri, meeting Ivangir’s gaze evenly. “Who will command a horde of beasts when our starved soldiers are too weak to walk?”
“A starved stag can be fed, but a dead warbeast cannot be revived. And a legion without beasts is no legion at all.” Ivangir’s black eyes glimmered with a muted resolve, but he allowed a note of something vaguely approaching compassion to enter his voice. “These are dire times, to be sure, and our men are hungry. But that is not a mandate to dine on our cavalry. The men are cold as well. Would you have us chop up our spears to make firewood, or slice up our sails to fashion cloaks?”
Vestri remained steadfast. “I would consider either act if the situation called for it, Ivangir, because I prize the lives of men over some small number of spears, sails, or beasts.” He paused, and exhaled hotly. “I would have expected the same from you.”
Ivangir snorted with derision. “And I would have expected better sense from you. Are you so myopic? Can you not see that the lives of our people hinge on every spear, on every sail, on every beast?”
“Not true. One warbeast gone will make no difference in a battle, but it will make all the difference to a platoon of men with one hoof in the grave, whose last three meals were the head, body, and tail of the same rancid fish.”
“You are entirely ignorant if you truly believe one warbeast is a trifling thing,” said Ivangir coldly. “I saw one warbeast turn the tide of battle with my own eyes while you were still a pageboy.”
Vestri bristled. The fact that Ivangir was two years his senior was a major sore spot that his brother exploited frequently. Ivangir, not bothering to contain his small, dark smile at Vestri’s discomfort, turned to Dainn. “I trust you recall the Battle of Whitespear, your majesty?”
The name Whitespear abruptly sent a lightning bolt of recognition through Dainn’s head, flooding his mind with a million hazy sensory remnants of old memories—echoes of shouts and screams, the shrill clang of steel meeting iron, the smell of burned bodies. He recalled the battle, of course. How could I forget? Whitespear had been a pivotal battle in Svardagr’s lengthy campaign against the vixens, and Dainn’s first battle as a full-fledged general. For six long days, Dainn (and Ivangir, then his sole lieutenant) had dragged a legion of stags through an ocean of blood and flames, braving a non-stop hail of arrows and an endless storm of swords. When, on the fourth day, they reached the gates of the vixen stronghold, they were wounded, starved, and exhausted, their siege weapons burned and broken and their warbeasts all slaughtered. For a brief moment, as the battalions of bloodthirsty vixens loomed ahead, victory began to seem uncertain, until reinforcements arrived in the form of a hundred armored stags... and one angry warbeast. Some nameless hero rode that warbeast straight into the fray, trampling dozens of steel-clad vixens like so many tin soldiers underhoof, and cooking dozens more alive in their armor with its searing fire breath. The beast made it all the way to the gates of the fort before finally being mobbed and felled, but it was too late—an opening was made, and Dainn and his soldiers, brimming with renewed hope, charged and slaughtered the remaining soldiers. They won the battle, and, only a few weeks later, the war. The vixen capital was torched, the men were slaughtered, and the women were enslaved. Dainn had returned home a conquering general, and received a hero’s welcome. All, perhaps, by the grace of one well-timed warbeast.
Despite all the death and destruction of those days, the memory brought a smile unconsciously to Dainn’s lips. In the end, a Caribou’s life was meant for battle, for honor, for glory. Those were the aspirations that had once given Dainn’s own life purpose. He was not meant to waste away helplessly at sea, fighting endlessly over how to distribute table scraps. In the field, surrounded by enemies, his life in constant peril, Dainn had felt more at ease than he ever could here on this ship, in perfect safety, surrounded by friends. He would give anything for the chance to be in those glorious days again.
Dainn snapped out of his reverie long enough to notice that in his silence Ivangir and Vestri had resumed their heated argument. “Enough,” he said sharply, silencing them both immediately. Both stags looked at him expectantly. “Ivangir is right.” Ivangir’s small, dark smile returned, this time with a triumphant edge, and though Vestri said nothing his face twisted into a scowl and his eyes flickered darkly. Dainn had no doubt their personal war would resume afterwards in private, but he had no further interest in spectating.
“The men will abide on low rations,” he continued, “but our beasts are too valuable to lose. We will not touch them until we have no other choice.” He turned to the Master of Stocks. “Thror, cut the rations a quarter.” He paused, and looked briefly at Anvari and Vestri. “But... scrape together a supplementary ration for Lord Anvari and Lord Vestri, to be doled out to the cows and soldiers in the worst shape.” Dainn sighed heavily. Sindri again placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but this time he shrugged it off.
In the silence that followed, Dainn found himself looking straight ahead, to the large chair at the other end of the table. It was the only empty chair in the room. The Council chair directly opposite the king’s chair was traditionally reserved for the king’s heir, so that he could sit in on meetings and prepare to become the king’s successor. Svardagr had never had any sons, so on the old Council it had eventually been Dainn who took that seat. From his vantage point at the end of that table he had had a chance to play witness to all of Svardagr’s speeches and sermons, all his wrath and charity, all his plans and plots. Had it not been for those nights of terror, Dainn suspected that from that chair he would have nursed a fierce admiration for his predecessor. If I had an heir sitting there in that chair, would he admire me? Would he admire the way this beggar king has been reduced to parceling out trifles as his people fade away?
"Your majesty, you have not considered all the options."
The low, husky voice from across the room shook Dainn out of his reverie. It was an unmistakeable voice, but it didn't matter; there was only one stag on this ship who dared to tell to the king what he had and had not considered. Dainn turned to look down the table, where a sallow, middle-aged stag wearing a finely-tailored green surcoat was sitting upright, fingers steepled in front of him, and staring at him evenly with cool grey eyes.
Lord Raskh was the only member of Svardagr's Council, save for Sindri, who had survived to reclaim his seat on Dainn's, and he was not the one Dainn would have preferred. In the homeland, he had been Master of State, the king's chief diplomat and one of the primary architects of the enduring peace that had marked Svardagr's reign. The Caribou did not do much diplomacy with foreign nations, but there was plenty of negotiating to be done and deals to be meted out between the various stag tribes that vied for dominance within the homeland. Most Caribou kings presided over one or two civil wars if they were lucky, but Svardagr's was one of those rare reigns that was united from beginning to end. This was due in part, no doubt, to Svardagr's focus on bringing together the Caribou to crush external states like that of the vixens, but Raskh's skill with deal making played no small role either, and grew to win him the respect of his king and the admiration of the public. It was the same skill, Dainn thought bitterly, that prevented him from denying the stag a seat on his Council—the people still remembered him as the great peacemaker of that bygone age, nevermind that his peace was rendered moot when the country was set ablaze. His presence on the Council legitimized Dainn, to a greater degree even than Sindri's, and helped him keep his disparate following united behind him. He was, as Sindri often reminded Dainn, a necessary presence, and besides that a capable one. That did not stop Dainn from disliking him.
The people might remember him as some political genius, but Dainn remembered him as the arrogant bastard who had countered, criticized, and condescended him unrelentingly during every one of Svardagr's Council meetings. If Sindri had been Dainn's biggest friend on that Council, Raskh was his biggest enemy. To Raskh, a born-and-bred member of the aristocracy, Dainn knew he was nothing more than an upjumped peasant in ill-fitting finery. Social climbers were anathema to blue-bloods. Raskh had fought hard against his appointment to the Council, his promotion to general, and his involvement in affairs of state. He had tried to match every bit of attention Svardagr lavished on Dainn with a dose of humiliation. Ultimately, of course, Svardagr had chosen Dainn as his de facto heir (for his own vile reasons) over Raskh's objections, but that did not improve the Master of State's opinion of him. When Dainn had donned the crown for the first time, in the midst of a whirlwind of uncertainty, he had thought at least that Raskh was behind him for good, but now here he was again, as implacable and acid-tongued as ever and far too important to remove. Some luck.
Dainn forced himself with practiced restraint to respond calmly. "What do you mean, Lord Raskh?" Raskh gave him a small smile, doubtless aware of his power over Dainn. Dainn silently renewed his old vow, made years ago in a tearful rage after his humiliation during the first meeting of Svardagr's Council he ever attended, to knock every one of his perfect white teeth out of his mouth at his earliest opportunity.
Raskh turned to the stag sitting across the table from him. "Lord Strom, how long has it been since you last were able to scry our surroundings?"
Strom, the Master of Runes, was a gaunt, old stag with beady yellow eyes wearing a threadbare black smock and a runed whalebone necklace. At the sound of his name, he smiled, revealing a mouth with only a handful of rotting teeth left. No one knew where he came from. He had appeared before Dainn one day at sea in his ragged smock, disheveled, claiming to be the apprentice of the deceased former Master of Runes. Dainn, thinking him a vagrant, dismissed him. Strom made no effort to protest, merely saying cryptically "It is on her ankle," and walking out the door. No one else in the room had any idea what he was talking about. Dainn thought no more on it until the next night, when he was bedding one of his trained cows, Runa, and in the middle of the act she began to bleed profusely from her nose. The first few doctors he fetched could not tell what was wrong with her, and eventually Anvari was woken and ordered to perform a full examination, but even he could not discern her illness. Finally, Dainn, remembering the crazed old man's parting words, asked Anvari hesitantly to check her ankle. Anvari did, and found a Black Mite, a deadly kind of tick found on sailing vessels, latched on to her skin just above the ankle bone. He informed Dainn that it would have killed her in hours had they not caught it. Dainn asked if there was some way someone might have found her and given it to her, and felt a chill go down his spine when Anvari replied that according to Mero she had been strictly confined to her room under lock and key for some act of misbehavior for the past three days. Strom was appointed Master of Runes the following morning.
Since then, he had proven his worth by his ability to craft specialized runes and use some kind of scrying art that allowed him to divine nearby islets and reefs. When Strom had first displayed this latter ability, Dainn and the rest of the Council had alighted on it, thinking it the best chance to reach their destination expediently. But then, a few weeks ago, Strom had suddenly been unable to perform it, claiming it was no longer possible. No amount of bribes or threats could make him make it work, and finally everyone had given up, reassured themselves land could be found with or without runes, and forgotten. Dainn was not happy to be reminded.
"Scrying has been impossible these past weeks," said Strom in his placid, sinister voice, saying what they all knew as his yellow eyes bored holes into Raskh. The stag sitting next to him, Durnir, Master of Steel and his counterpart in corporeal tools, leaned away from him uneasily when he began to speak. "These waters have unfamiliar magics."
Raskh already knew this too, but wanted it reiterated for the benefit of his audience. He would have made quite a lawyer, in another life. "So we have reached the end not only of our food but our best means of navigation," he summarized, lacing his fingers. "A dire time indeed."
"I am aware." Dainn was growing tired of his showmanship. "What would you have me do?"
Raskh's grey eyes met his. "Return to the Pygmy Isles."
"No," Dainn said, without a moment of hesitation. That was not a choice he could make.
"It is the only rational choice," said Raskh evenly. "There is no land west of here, surely even you can see that by now. And even if there still is some uncharted continent somewhere out there in the ocean, we do not have the runesight to reach it soon nor the resources to reach it later. Turn back, and the stags and cows on this ship may yet live decades longer on the Isles."
"Thank you for your counsel, Lord Raskh," said Dainn, trying to remain calm as well. "But I will not consign my people to fade away by degrees on that godless rock. If we turn back to the Pygmy Isles we will starve and waste into nothing until a few generations see us as scrawny and savage as the natives. We will die then, too, but not with dignity. And that is not a death I am willing to see us befall."
Raskh snorted. "You do not get to name life 'death' because it suits you, Dainn. Life on the Isles is life, death on the sea is death. Those are your options. One is safe and easy, the other is torturous and doomed."
Dainn's voice stayed firm, but he felt that pang of rage, recently suppressed, bubbling up in his throat again. "Death comes to empires in more forms than one, as a statesman of your expertise knows well. To resign our sons to savagehood to spare our own miserable lives is not courage, it is baldfaced cowardice. Our people did not embark on this journey because it would be safe or easy. We embarked on it because we are willing to sacrifice."
"And our people have sacrificed everything," snarled Raskh. "Twenty minutes ago you portioned out fractions of scraps to full-grown men with empty bellies. When will you realize there is no more oil left in this lamp of your fantasies to burn?"
"It is not a question of my fantasies. It is a question of salvation. I will die for my people if it means they live on." Dainn spoke every word through clenched teeth, hot anger having broken sweat on his brow. Looking around, he saw Ivangir and Vestri, silent as they waited for their king to speak his peace, also looked furious. The rest of the Council seemed either nervous or curious to see the conclusion of this debate.
"And yet curiously it is not you who has died," said Raskh, coldly. "It is innocent soldiers and does, every day, who obeyed your orders. You will be the last to die, Dainn, as you well know. You will starve alone long after the rest have perished. And you will not have died for your people, they will have died for you. I cannot help but wonder what king would place such a burden on his subjects, except one blinded by fantasy."
Dainn did not respond. His arms trembled with barely contained rage, and his eyes were narrowed to slits. Raskh took the opportunity to continue speaking.
"I have held my tongue while you parade around and play at being king long enough," he said, rising from his seat and beginning to walk down the table. Dainn pleaded silently with him every step to stop. If he got within arm's length, he did not know if he could keep himself from doing what ever fiber of his being longed to do. "You fancy yourself the second coming of Daen the Daywalker, I know," continued Raskh, running his fingertips along the wall as he stepped closer. "But you are not him. You are a happenstance king made by dumb luck, a bad trick of fortune. You know nothing of sacrifice for your people, nor of the pain they endure to serve you."
He paused a few feet from Dainn's chair, and looked him in the face. Hot, baleful blue eyes met cold, disgusted grey. "You of all people, Dainn, should know what great pains one must brave in the name of serving your king." Raskh flashed him a small, knowing smile.
Dainn's eyes went wide. How did he know—
Dainn did not even have time to fully register the question before the sound of the door swinging open and the faint tinkling of bells interrupted him. All eyes turned to the doorway, where Daena stood, silhouetted by yellow lamplight. Her chest was heaving from running—clearly someone had sent her here in a hurry. Her green eyes were wide, and her face had a manic expression on it. After a second of huffing, she yelled one loud, clear syllable: “Land!”
For a moment, everything was silent as the stags processed what she had said. Then, understanding dawning on their faces, everyone abruptly forgot everything that came before, clambered to their feet, and rushed for the door. Dainn was the swiftest, sprinting quickly to the door and pushing Daena out of the way before rushing to ascend the stairwell, Raskh fast on his heels. He emerged onto the deck, grimacing at the salty rain and wind, and elbowed his way through the excited, yelling crowd of stags and cows that was already forming. When he reached the front, his eyes widened in awe.
Out of the fog, the crisp red glow of a fading firework shone through the darkness.
There were cheers and shouts and hollers from everywhere as the crew rejoiced. Grizzled sailors grinned toothily and saluted one another before grabbing the nearest cow at hand and heading off to their cabins to celebrate. For the Council, the somberness and acrimony of minutes ago was erased. Thror gave the happy yip of a schoolboy dismissed from class early. Frey and his cow stood arm-in-arm, gaping with matching looks of dumb shock. Anvari stood calmly, smiling his wan, knowing smile. Hrathr laughed heartily with relief. Vestri and Ivangir exchanged a small smile, their rivalry apparently defused for the night. Even Raskh, arms crossed, looked up at the sky innocently in simple, stupefied surprise.
Dainn, for his part, remained silent, simply standing at the front of the ship and staring at the sky as the red faded and a bright orange and then a yellow exploded in its place. Raskh's words and his own rage were a distant memory fast fading into the background; he felt suddenly serene. For the third time that evening, he felt a hand on his shoulder. “We live to fight another day, Dainn,” said Sindri. "You are a good king." Dainn did not reply. But, for the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to smile.
No one knew what came next. They were about to breach land no Caribou had ever set foot on. No one could say what wonders and horrors lay on that alien shore, or whether its inhabitants would be friend or foe. But Dainn felt no fear at all, only iron resolve. At sea, helpless and starving, there had been cause for fear. But not here. On land, with a spear in his hand, a warbeast between his legs, and an army at his back, he knew he could take on the world.
Whatever unseen destiny those lights heralded, he was ready.
PONYVILLE
Twilight Sparkle woke in a cold sweat. She sat upright in bed and brushed beads of perspiration from her forehead. Looking around to get her bearings, she saw the familiar bookshelves and tables of her bedroom, illuminated by the soft moonlight streaming in through the window. She realized that she was breathing heavily. It's okay, it's okay, I'm at home, I'm safe. She swallowed, and reached for the glass of water she kept by her bedside. It was only a nightmare.
Wracking her brain, she tried to recall her vanishing dream's contents. She had read once, somewhere or other, that nightmares didn't return if you memorized exactly what was in them. It was worth a shot.
There was... a dark ship, in the ocean. It had white sails. And on the bow of the ship was a pony. Or, not a pony, but something like it. Something tall and furry, with antlers like an elk. It was male, she was pretty sure. His eyes were closed and his head was down, and he was wearing a dark coat or cloak or something like that, and a bronze crown. She remembered the crown because it looked so odd, like part of a costume from a play set in medieval times. It was really coming back to her now. The tall man wasn't alone. Standing to his right was a hulking black figure made of twisted, writing shadows, with orange fire for eyes, and a huge, ornate golden crown like Princess Celestia's but even more elegant and glamorous, somehow. The black monster was hunched over, whispering in one of the tall man's ears in coarse, vulgar tones. And on his left, there stood, or rather, floated, a pale white ghost with a beautiful female face in a shimmering white dress and a silver daisy crown. She was whispering into one of the tall man's ears too, but her voice was sweet and honeyed. Somehow, she scared Twilight much, much more than the monster.The two apparitions continued to whisper to the third as the ship drew closer and closer, until Twilight could see the tall man inches in front of her face. He looked up suddenly, and opened his eyes and stared right at her. His eyes were violet. They were her own. And then she woke up.
She took another drink of water. It was an absurd nightmare, but... something about it made her feel a knot deep in her stomach. There was strange, alien quality to it that wasn't there with other nightmares. It didn't make sense, but nightmares seldom did. Why did this one trouble her so much? What was so different about it? She stayed awake for a while trying to puzzle it out before realizing the foolishness of what she was doing and opting to just let it go. It's just a random dream. I've just had a stressful week. I won't even remember this in the morning.
Before she went back to sleep, she closed the curtain on her window to keep the moonlight out.
