Unhewn Throne 01 - The Emperor's Blades(164)

Kaden’s mind swam, partly with wine, partly with the staggering scope of the responsibility so recently laid in his lap. Tsa’vein Karamalan? The Vested? Half the things Adiv talked about he knew only from vague childhood stories, and the other half he didn’t know at all. It would take him months, years, to catch up, to learn the barest fraction of what he needed to govern the empire effectively.

“And now?” he asked. “Who has governed Annur since my father’s death? Who is taking care of my sister and of the needs of the empire?”

Adiv nodded as though he had been anticipating the questions. “Your sister needs no taking care of. She is a shrewd young woman, and your father’s last testament elevated her to the head of the Ministry of Finance. As for the governance of Annur, it falls to Ran il Tornja,” the councillor replied. Kaden shook his head. Another name he had never heard.

“Il Tornja had only just become the provincial commander of the garrison in Raalte when you left. That’s why his name is unfamiliar,” Adiv said. “I first met him when he was raised to Commander of the Army of the North, and then worked closely with him when your father raised him to kenarang and recalled him to Annur.”

Kenarang. It was an ancient title, dating all the way back to the golden age, when the Atmani ruled Eridroa from their capital far to the south, before they went mad and destroyed it all. The Annurians had borrowed some of the old Atmani terminology, hoping the hoary names and titles might lend their rule an air of antiquity that it had lacked when Terial hui’Malkeenian first cobbled together the empire out of the shambles of the republic using only his sword and the strength of his will. The kenarang was the highest military rank in the empire, overseeing the four field generals. It was strange, Kaden thought, that two men he had never known, Tarik Adiv and this Ran il Tornja, occupied the two highest posts below the Emperor himself.

“How did the provincial commander of Raalte come to be kenarang in less than eight years?” he asked. His mind was still aching, trying to make sense of it all, and he stared at his palms as though he might find some answer there.

“Micijah can answer that question better than I,” Adiv responded. “I have no more than a bureaucrat’s understanding of the military.”

At first Kaden thought Ut might not say anything at all. Then he shifted in his seat, the steel plates of his armor grinding against one another in a way that made Kaden wince.

“While soldiers from Nish to Channary played politics, il Tornja won battles, and important ones,” he said finally. “The Urghul dogs were getting restless, and it didn’t take long for Sanlitun, bright were the days of his life, to realize what he had in his provincial commander. He raised il Tornja to command the Army of the North, and only barely soon enough. A month after the appointment, the rabble came at us in waves, crossing the White River in force for the first time. The cohorts from Breata and Nish were still a thousand miles to the west, whimpering about defending us from an emboldened Freeport.” Ut’s mouth twisted in a snarl. “If your father had let me have my way, I would have put every captain’s head on a spike.” For a moment the large soldier was speechless, trapped inside his rage. After years with the monks, Kaden had almost forgotten just how disfiguring anger could be; Ut’s emotion was even uglier than he remembered. Finally the Aedolian spoke again, his voice tight and clipped.

“Raalte can’t field more than five thousand foot and no horse. Il Tornja’s company was tired and undermanned when the rabble came. Most generals would have crumbled, but the kenarang isn’t most generals. He split his force in four, four, and slaughtered them, nailed the head of every tenth Urghul—man or woman—to a post along the west bank of the river.” Ut chuckled grimly, as though satisfied with the memory. “The eastern tribes won’t trouble us again for some time.

“After the victory, your father named il Tornja kenarang. Even Ewart Falk couldn’t object. He had the good sense to kill himself, at least.”

It was by far the longest speech Kaden had heard from Ut since the Aedolian arrived in Ashk’lan.

“Ran il Tornja is a good man,” Adiv appended after a moment. “Your father trusted him and so should you. He is serving as regent presently and will look after your sister and your empire both until you arrive.”

Suddenly Kaden felt extremely weary, as though he had raced the Circuit of Ravens a dozen times with Pater on his back. Men he didn’t know were running his father’s empire—his empire now, he reminded himself—making decisions and giving orders he could only barely begin to understand. He had eight years of history and politics to catch up on in what would be a trip of little more than two months, and hundreds, maybe thousands of new names to learn: atreps and ministers, envoys and captains on the frontier. If Ut and Adiv were to be believed, the empire had come to a dire pass and, Intarra help him, it would be his hands on the reins as soon as he sat down on that cold stone throne.