Last King of Osten Ard 02 - Empire of Grass Read online

  DAW Books Presents

  The Finest in Imaginative Fiction by

  TAD WILLIAMS

  MEMORY, SORROW AND THORN

  THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR

  STONE OF FAREWELL

  TO GREEN ANGEL TOWER

  THE LAST KING OF OSTEN ARD

  THE WITCHWOOD CROWN

  EMPIRE OF GRASS

  THE NAVIGATOR’S CHILDREN*

  THE HEART OF WHAT WAS LOST

  * * *

  THE BOBBY DOLLAR NOVELS

  THE DIRTY STREETS OF HEAVEN

  HAPPY HOUR IN HELL

  SLEEPING LATE ON JUDGEMENT DAY

  SHADOWMARCH

  SHADOWMARCH

  SHADOWPLAY

  SHADOWRISE

  SHADOWHEART

  OTHERLAND

  CITY OF GOLDEN SHADOW

  RIVER OF BLUE FIRE

  MOUNTAIN OF BLACK GLASS

  SEA OF SILVER LIGHT

  TAILCHASER’S SONG

  THE WAR OF THE FLOWERS

  *Coming soon from DAW

  Copyright © 2019 Beale Williams Enterprise.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Jacket art by Michael Whelan.

  Jacket design by Adam Auerbach.

  Maps by Isaac Stewart.

  Edited by Betsy Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1822.

  Published by DAW Books, Inc.

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780698191495

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

  Version_1

  Dedication

  If you want to see the full dedication, it’s in The Witchwood Crown.

  If you don’t have your copy on hand at the moment, I’ll summarize:

  This entire story—series—trilogy—whatever you want to call it—is dedicated to my editors (and friends) Betsy Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert, and to my wife (and best friend) Deborah Beale, without all of whom my life would have been different and much less happy.

  Contents

  Also by Tad Williams

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Synopsis of the Witchwood Crown

  Map

  Foreword

  Part One: Summer’s End1. Old Heart

  2. A Wooden Face

  3. The Hidden

  4. In the Storm

  5. The Pool

  6. Meeting the Bride

  7. Dust

  8. Reeree

  9. Appetite

  10. A Familiar Face

  11. Bucket of Eels

  12. Blood and Parchment

  13. Life in the Treetops

  14. A Sip of Cloudberry Wine

  15. Among the Grasslanders

  16. The Two Sancellans

  17. A Scent of Witchwood

  18. A Burning Field

  19. Footsteps

  Part Two: Autumn’s Chill20. The Summer Rose

  21. Among the War-Shrikes

  22. Misty Vale

  23. In the Root Cellar

  24. The Tebi Pit

  25. King of Wolves

  26. A Clumsy Jest

  27. The Flowering Hills

  28. Countess Rhona’s Tears

  29. The Shore of Corpses

  30. The Wheel of Stars

  31. Unbeing

  32. The Hole in the Door

  33. Shadows on the Walls

  34. Cutting Reeds

  35. Colors Too Bright

  36. Storm Winds

  Part Three: Winter’s Bite37. Snakes on the Path

  38. Two Offered Bargains

  39. The Place of Voices

  40. The Blood of Her Enemies

  41. A Heart of Ashes

  42. A Single Arrow

  43. Something for the Poor

  44. Departure

  45. The Dust of Ancient Thoughts

  46. The Bishop’s Worries

  47. A Duty to Die Well

  48. The Courtyard

  49. Gatherers’ Way

  50. A Powder of Dragon’s Bones

  51. A Web Across the Sky

  52. The Crypt

  53. Smoke

  54. Dead Birds

  55. My Enemy

  Afterword

  Appendix

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  The list of people who have usefully influenced my return to Osten Ard is long, and I apologize in advance if I have forgotten anyone.

  Ylva von Löhneysen, Ron Hyde, Angela Welchel, Jeremy Erman, Cindy Squires, and Linda van der Pal all offered indispensable suggestions, corrections, and the occasional smack in the snoot (when I got something really wrong) about the early drafts of the book.

  Angela Welchel and Cindy Yan put in a huge amount of creativity and work helping us with other, Osten-Ard-related projects.

  Ylva and Ron wrote the synopsis of The Witchwood Crown. I edited it a little. Also, Ylva, Ron, and Angela Welchel worked together make the appendix at the end of the book, which is full of chewy informational goodness.

  And of course, Ylva and Ron have been godparents to these books since the beginning, because in many ways they (and the other fine humans mentioned above) know Osten Ard better than I do. Hey, I took thirty years off before returning, what do you expect?

  In fact, oh, so many people deserve my thanks again this time, because makin’ books ain’t easy!

  Lisa Tveit is the social media warrior making sure that tadwilliams.com remains a bastion of silliness and Tadalia on the internet. And my many friends on the TW Message Board keep my courage up during dark nights of the soul where I wonder if anyone cares about what I’m doing.

  Olaf Keith contributes a great deal to the website and also helps me and my work in a number of other ways, and I’m always grateful for his kindness.

  Marylou Capes-Platt did her usual excellent job of copyediting on Empire of Grass, as well as slipping in the occasional and very welcome note of encouragement.

  Michael Whelan painted another fantastic cover. Don’t mean to make it sound like it’s something I take for granted, no matter how often it has happened. I never do.

&
nbsp; Isaac Stewart (with a lot of feedback from ace cryptogeographer Ron Hyde) has again drawn brilliant maps and contributed in many other ways.

  Joshua Starr, as always, handled the assembly side of things with his usual skill and good nature.

  My agent Matt Bialer takes care of me and my work, and reminds me about things like not biting careless reviewers, no matter how much they might deserve it.

  My overseas publishers, especially Stephan Askani of Klett-Cotta in Germany and Oliver Johnson of Hodder and Stoughton in the UK, have been hugely supportive, as always.

  And, as mentioned at length in the dedications, none of this would have turned out anywhere near as well without my editor/publishers, Sheila Gilbert and Betsy Wollheim, and my writer/collaborator/partner in crime and life, Deborah Beale.

  Thank you, all you heroes.

  Synopsis of The Witchwood Crown

  More than thirty years have passed in Osten Ard since the end of the Storm King’s deadly, magical war—a war that nearly doomed mankind. King Simon and Queen Miriamele, scarcely more than children when the Storm King was defeated, now rule over the human nations from the High Throne, but they have lost touch with their onetime allies, the immortal Sithi folk. Then Tanahaya, the first Sithi envoy since the end of the war, is ambushed on her way to the Hayholt, the ancient castle that is the seat of the High Throne.

  While Tiamak, scholar and close friend of the king and queen, works with his wife Thelía to save Tanahaya’s life, Queen Miriamele and King Simon are away from the castle on a royal progress. Currently they are visiting the neighboring country of Hernystir and its King Hugh as part of a royal progress to the north, where Simon and Miriamele are troubled by the behavior of Hugh and his new love, the mysterious Lady Tylleth. Dowager queen Inahwen warns the royal couple’s advisor Count Eolair that King Hugh and Tylleth have revived worship of the Morriga, an ancient, dark, and bloodstained Hernystiri goddess.

  Even while accompanying the royal family on their progress, Prince Morgan, the seventeen year old grandson of Simon and Miriamele, spends his days drinking and womanizing with his knightly companions Astrian, Olveris and old Porto. Morgan’s father, Prince John Josua—the only child of Simon and Miriamele—died of a strange illness some years earlier, leaving his wife Idela a widow, Morgan and his younger sister Lillia fatherless, and the king and queen, John Josua’s royal parents, still grieving.

  When not nursing the poisoned Sithi envoy, royal counselor Tiamak is collecting books for a library to commemorate the late John Josua, but when his helper Brother Etan investigates some of the dead prince’s possessions, he discovers a banned and dangerous volume, A Treatise on the Aetheric Whispers. Tiamak is filled with foreboding, because the Treatise once belonged to the wizard Pryrates, now dead, who collaborated with the Storm King Ineluki to destroy humanity, though they ultimately failed.

  The threats to Simon’s and Miriamele’s peaceful reign are increasing. In the icy north, in the cavern city of Nakkiga beneath the mountain Stormspike, the ageless ruler of the Norns, Queen Utuk’ku, has awakened from a years-long magical slumber. Her chief servant, the magician Akhenabi, summons the High Magister of Builders Viyeki to an audience with the queen, who declares her intention to attack the mortal lands again. The queen leads a strange ceremony that resurrects Ommu, one of the chief servants of the Storm King, though Ommu was thought to have perished forever during the Norns’ failed attempt to destroy the Hayholt and the mortal kingdoms.

  In Elvritshalla, the capital of Rimmersgard, King Simon and Queen Miriamele are reunited with their old ally Sludig and his wife Alva, as well as their dear Qanuc friends Binabik and his wife Sisqi. They also meet the trolls’ daughter Qina and her betrothed, Little Snenneq.

  The royal progress reaches Elvritshalla just in time to say farewell to Duke Isgrimnur, who dies shortly after their arrival. His last request to Simon and Miriamele is that they renew their search for Prince Josua (Miriamele’s uncle, Simon’s mentor, and John Josua’s namesake) and his twin children, Derra and Deornoth, who mysteriously vanished twenty years earlier. Later Little Snenneq, who is Binabik’s apprentice, meets Prince Morgan and predicts that he will become as important to Morgan as Binabik became to Morgan’s grandfather, King Simon.

  In a castle in southern Rimmersgard where the royal party is guesting on their way home, Simon realizes he has not dreamed in many days. He consults Binabik, who creates a talisman to help him. That very night, Simon dreams of his dead son and the voice of the child Leleth, who had once whispered to him in dreams three decades earlier. Leleth tells him “the children are coming back”. After Simon frightens the whole household while sleepwalking, Miriamele destroys the talisman, and Simon again loses the ability to dream.

  In the still more distant north, the half-blood Sacrifice Nezeru, daughter of Norn noble Viyeki and human woman Tzoja, is sent as part of a “Talon” of Norn warriors to retrieve the bones of Hakatri, brother of Ineluki, the defeated Storm King. Nezeru and her fellows, commanded by their chieftain Makho, find the bones being venerated by mortals, but Makho and the Norns take them and escape from the angry islanders. During the escape, Nezeru fails to kill one of their enemies (a child) and is severely punished for it by Makho.

  However, before the Talon can return to Nakkiga with Hakatri’s remains, they are met by the Norn Queen’s arch-magician Akhenabi, who takes the bones and sends the Talon on a new quest to Mount Urmsheim to collect the blood of a living dragon. To aid in this dangerous feat, he sends with them an enslaved giant named Goh Gam Gar.

  While traveling eastward towards Mount Urmsheim, the Norn Talon encounters a mortal man named Jarnulf, a former slave in Nakkiga who has vowed to destroy the Norns and their undying queen, Utuk’ku. Because the Talon has lost its Echo—their trained communicator—Jarnulf, hoping to further his own private aims, convinces the Norns to take him on as a guide. They all travel eastward towards the mountain, last known home of dragons, and on the way Jarnulf overhears the Norns discussing their queen’s great plan to defeat the mortals by recovering something called “The Witchwood Crown”.

  In central Rimmersgard, the Talon encounters the royal party, and Jarnulf is able to get a secret message to Queen Miriamele and King Simon that the Norn Queen is looking for something called the Witchwood Crown. Simon, Miriamele, and their advisors are alarmed, and they have seen enough signs of renewed hostility from the Norns that they take Jarnulf’s message seriously, though this is the first they have heard of him.

  In the City of Nabban, a Wrannawoman named Jesa cares for Serasina, the infant daughter of Duke Saluceris and Duchess Canthia, Simon’s and Miriamele’s allies. Tensions in Nabban are rising: Count Dallo Ingadaris has allied with Saluceris’s brother Earl Drusis to fan fears of the nomadic Thrithings-men whose lands border on Nabban. Drusis accuses Saluceris of being too cowardly to properly punish the barbarians and drive them back into the grasslands.

  Meanwhile, on the plains of the Thrithings, gray-eyed Unver, an adopted member of the Crane Clan, and his companion Fremur, participate in a raid on a Nabbanai settlement. As they escape, Unver saves Fremur’s life, perhaps in part because Unver hopes to marry Fremur’s sister, Kulva.

  Sir Aelin catches up with the royal party, bringing messages for his great-uncle, Count Eolair. Lord Pasevalles, Eolair’s temporary replacement at the Hayholt, sends his worries about Nabban, and Queen Inahwen of Hernystir sends news that King Hugh and Lady Tylleth are growing ever more open in their worship of terrible old gods. Eolair sends Aelin with this bad news to a trustworthy ally, Earl Murdo. But while seeking shelter from a passing storm, Aelin and his men spend the night in a border castle with Baron Curudan, leader of King Hugh’s private, elite troops. During a storm that night, Aelin sees the dim shapes of a vast Norn army outside the fort, and then watches Curudan meet with humankind’s deadliest enemies. But before Aelin and his men can escape with the news of this treachery, they are captured and imprisone
d by Curudan’s Silver Stags.

  In the Norn city of Nakkiga, Viyeki is sent by Lord Akhenabi on a secret mission to the mortal lands with his Builders, but he is accompanied by a small army of Norn soldiers as well. Tzoja discovers that with Viyeki gone, her life is threatened by her lover’s wife, Lady Khimabu, who hates Tzoja for giving Viyeki a child, Nezeru, when Khimabu could not. Tzoja knows she must escape if she wishes to live.

  As Tzoja thinks of her past with the Astaline sisters in Rimmersgard and her childhood in Kwanitupul, it becomes clear Tzoja is actually Derra, one of the lost twins of Prince Josua and his Thrithings wife Vorzheva. Tzoja flees to Viyeki’s empty lake-house in a cavern deep beneath the city.

  Their royal progress finally returned to the Hayholt, Simon and Miriamele ask Tiamak to honor Isgrimnur’s dying request with a new search for Prince Josua. Tiamak sends his assistant Brother Etan south to try to discover what happened to Josua when he disappeared twenty years earlier.

  Meanwhile, challenged by Little Snenneq, Morgan climbs Hjeldin’s Tower, the Hayholt’s most infamous spot, and is almost killed. He believes he saw long-dead Pryrates while he was atop the tower, and swears Little Snenneq to secrecy.

  With evidence of the Norn resurgence everywhere, Simon and Miriamele realize these ancient and magical foes are too powerful to face alone. They decide to try to contact the Sithi, especially their old allies Jiriki and Aditu. At Simon’s urging, Miriamele reluctantly agrees to send their grandson Prince Morgan with Eolair and a host of soldiers to Aldheorte Forest to find the Sithi and return their poisoned messenger Tanahaya for more healing.

  Viyeki travels south from Nakkiga toward mortal lands, accompanied by an army of Norns who plan to attack the mortal fortress of Naglimund. Viyeki is told that he and his Builders are going to excavate the tomb beneath the fortress of the legendary Tinukeda’ya Ruyan Vé, called “the Navigator”, and salvage his magical armor, though Viyeki does not understand how this can happen without causing a war with the mortals. Tinukeda’ya, also called “Changelings”, came to Osten Ard with the Sithi and Norn, though they are not the same as these other immortals. In Osten Ard, the Tinukeda’ya have taken on many shapes and roles.