Elizabeth Moon - Kings of the North (Oath of Fealty Series)

B Y E LIZABETH M OON
T HE D EED OF P AKSENARRION
Sheepfarmers Daughter
Divided Allegiance
Oath of Gold
Oath of Fealty
Kings of the North
T HE L EGACY OF G IRD
Surrender None
Liars Oath
V ATTAS W AR
Trading in Danger
Marque and Reprisal
Engaging the Enemy
Command Decision
Victory Conditions
P LANET P IRATES (WITH A NNE M CCAFFREY)
Sassinak
Generation Warriors
Remnant Population
T HE S ERRANO L EGACY
Hunting Party
Sporting Chance
Winning Colors
Once a Hero
Rules of Engagement
Change of Command
Against the Odds
The Speed of Dark
S HORT-FICTION C OLLECTIONS
Lunar Activity
Phases
Moon Flights

Kings of the North is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2011 by Elizabeth Moon

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

D EL R EY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Moon, Elizabeth.
Kings of the north / Elizabeth Moon.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-345-52479-9
1. Paksenarrion (Fictitious character)Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.O557K56 2011
813.54 dc22 2010041124

www.delreybooks.com

Jacket design: David Stevenson
Jacket illustration: Paul Youll

v3.1

For Linda Varda, Master Sergeant, retired after thirty-four years in uniform (Army, Texas Army National Guard, Texas State Guard), senior NCO of her unit and First Sergeant. Served overseas in multiple areas, recipient of the Humanitarian Service Medal when, as part of the 92nd Aviation Company, she was involved in multiple rescues while supporting a high-altitude project on Mount Rainier.

And for Richard Dykstra, Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Inactive Reserve, after active-duty service in the Army and the Texas Army National Guard as Ordnance Officer, both here and abroad.

Both have served their country in many other ways as well, and it was my honor to sing with them in the choir of St. Davids Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas.

Thank you for your service, and may the winds blow always at your back.

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to the Thursday Evening Fencing Group (my title, not theirs) with whom I can work out the details of combat situations involving swords, daggers, polearms, crossbows, and so on. Access to the library at New World Arbalest was, and will continue to be, a great advantage to these books.

Thanks are also due to the community forming at the Paksworld blog, source of new alpha readers who were very helpful in pointing out problems with the first draftand to existing alpha readers whose experience and ability to articulate what was wrong materially improved the book, especially David Watson and Karen Shull.

Once again, and every time, thanks are due my agent, Joshua Bilmes, my editor, Betsy Mitchell, and the crew at Del Rey for their fine work and their ability to keep me on track.

Errors, as always, are my responsibility.

Contents

Dramatis Personae

Fox Company (was Kieri Phelans mercenary company)

Jandelir Arcolin , commander, Lord of the North Marches

Burek , junior captain of first cohort

Stammel , senior sergeant of first cohort

Devlin , junior sergeant of first cohort

Are , corporal of first cohort

Selfer , captain of second (short-sword) cohort

Tsaia: senior noble families

Lyonya

Pargun

Torfinn , king

Elis , his daughter

Iolin , younger son

Einar , kings brother, traitor

Aarenis

Adventurers

Chaya, Midsummer Feast

F alkieri Artfielan Phelan, King of Lyonya, waited with barely concealed impatience for his grandmother, the elven queen of the Ladysforest, to appear for the Midsummer ritual. Under his bare feet, the moss of the Kings Grove felt cool and welcoming; the fragrance of the summer night, flowers that bloomed at no other time, filled his nostrils. Yet he could not take full pleasure in the soft breeze, the cool moss, the sweet scents. Where was she?

He had spent the entire short night on the central mound near the Oathstone, expecting the Lady to appear, but she had neither granted his request to come early nor sent a clear refusal. He had hoped to use this auspicious day to ask her once again for help with his continuing effort to reconcile the two peoples, elves and humans but since his coronation she had come seldom, and never for long. The whole night she had been elsewhere , and not even his growing taig-sense could find the direction.

He looked again at the stars overhead; the ritual must begin when the Summerstar touched the oldest blackoaks crownand as he watched, the star slid that last short distance.

Grandson, the Lady said. It is time. She was there, where she had not been an instant before, and already she had begun the chant. No time now to remonstrate. He raised his arms high and sang as the sky brightened overhead. Across the Oathstone, she also sang, the two of themso the tradition wentsinging the sun over its midsummer peak. The Ladys hands drew patterns in the air, coils of silvery light, a net to capture the first rays of the suns gold.

Kieri suspected she would withdraw into her elvenhome kingdom as soon as it was done, but as her enchantment wrapped around him, his irritation subsided. Her song, her power, held him fast. His mind soared: he knew he was in the place he belonged, performing the rituals he needed to perform. The taig responded to both of them; he felt it in his whole body, a tingling awareness of life that both nourished him and needed him. This was how it should be. But the dawn song and the Lady left him at the same time; her enchantment no longer clouded his awareness, and his resentment returned.