Conqueror’s Moon Read Free

Seven Stones to whistle up a gale that drove the man o‘ war onto the Darkling Sands, where all but a handful of the expedition perished. The self-styled Conjure-King of Blenmoss (“moon swamp”) then demonstrated other of his formidable powers to the awestricken survivors of the shipwreck and afterwards sent them home to Holt Mallburn in a leaky fishing smack, carrying a list of non-negotiable demands.
    The King of Didion paid substantial tribute to the terrible Conjure-King for decades; but when Rothbannon died, his successors proved much less adroit in the art of extortion, since they were afraid of the perilous Seven Stones and the Beaconfolk who empowered them. Didion stopped paying tribute, but decided that reconquering Moss was more trouble than the place was worth. After all, the Mossbacks would have to sell their sealskins and amber to someone—and the traders of Didion were always ready to do business.
    The four kingdoms of High Blenholme on occasion squabbled viciously but never went to war—until 1128, when my tale begins. I was at that time sixteen years of age, and had served Prince Heritor Conrig as a fledgling snudge and secret talent for four of them. We were more than master and man, for I alone knew what it was that set the prince apart from ordinary mortals.
    Or so I believed.
    ==========
    It was a peculiar time. For three years, in a manner unprecedented, the volcanos of Tarn had been in a state of intermittent eruption, filling the Boreal skies with a haze of dark ash that folklore named the Wolf’s Breath. The phenomenon had previously been very rare and of brief duration, albeit much dreaded in Didion, where prevailing winds carried the ash-clouds eastward, casting a pall over the land that invariably resulted in a failed harvest.
    A Wolf’s Breath persisting for three years in a row was a signal calamity, and Didion was finally pushed to the brink of famine. The mighty Sealords of Tarn also faced ruin, since a great proportion of their food was imported at high prices, and they had been forced to abandon most of their goldmining operations until the poisonous exhalations of the eruptions should cease. Even fertile Cathra produced scarcely two-thirds of its usual abundant crop of grain. This was sufficient to feed its own people, but left a diminished surplus available for trade. Only sorcery-ridden Moss, being foggy and poverty-stricken most of the time anyhow, seemed to suffer not a whit from the Wolf’s Breath.
    Which was suspicious on the face of it…
    Many blamed Conjure-King Linndal of Moss for the misfortune, saying that he was taking vengeance on King Achardus of Didion for having refused to consider Linndal’s daughter Ullanoth as a fit bride for his second son. Others said that the Tarnians themselves had triggered the dire event by grubbing too much gold from the bowels of their mountains, so that hellfire seeped up to fill the empty space and spewed forth sky-darkening smoke. The Brothers of Zeth in Cathra, being more learned in science and wishing to instill hope, maintained that the eruptions were a natural distemper of the earth and would surely cease once the subterranean integrants regained their equilibrium.
    But the eruptions did not cease.
    As catastrophe overwhelmed his country, Achardus of Didion squandered his assets in a desperate attempt to buy food and ward off insurrection among his starving subjects. Eventually, the market for the nation’s raw timber, furs, and tin was glutted. Prompted (as was thought then) by conniving mainland shipbrokers, Didion began building vessels of war. These found an all-too-ready market on the Continent, where the powerful nations of Stippen, Foraile, and Andradh nursed expansionist ambitions.
    In Cathra, King Olmigon Wincantor had taken to his bed with the ailment that would ultimately end his life. His Privy Council, riven by factional disputes, was at first unwilling to take effective action, even when Prince Conrig, the able heir