Knight's Valor (5 page)

T
he high vassor stood before the king and queen, who were seated on their thrones, high-backed works of stone with an array of foreign jewels in various colors and sizes embedded into the armrests. High-ranking lords, ladies, knights of the Inner Guard, and at least one vassor—on a visit from the lower provinces—were in attendance, having been summoned by the queen. The queen sat tall and regal in a flowing emerald gown of fine silk. The king looked frail and weak, his condition worsening by the hour, and Queen Klienne had to speak for him.

“What possessed you to send your entire legion to Aklon?” she asked Prichard Hennis, her expression rigid and cold.

“As I recounted last night, your grace, the sapient primus, Nerus Vayjun, filled me with the idea. I believe he had control over my mind, at least to a degree, but I know not how long it lasted. Choices I made during this time were not entirely of my own volition. The same can be said of the Council of Elders, if you will permit me to say so.”

The queen looked thoughtful. “I bore witness to the Council's loss of its own wise judgment. Perhaps the primus stole yours as well, but that does not absolve you. You must still answer for the lives of nearly three thousand of our knights. We are vulnerable to attack, with barely five hundred knights of the Inner Guard to defend us, some of whom have taken leave, having received permission from the king.”

Prichard Hennis fell to one knee and bowed his head. “I humbly submit myself to any penalty you pronounce this day, your grace.”

The queen looked to her husband, but she knew from the vacant look in his eyes that his mind was far away. Twenty-five annos of marriage, twenty of them consumed with ruling one of the two great realms, had come to this. The queen focused her gaze on the high vassor once more, and her lips parted, but before she could utter a word, a war horn sounded in the distance.

Prichard Hennis raised his head, his eyes fixed firmly on the queen. “Thrice it blows, your grace. That could only mean—”

“An enemy at the gates,” she finished for him. “Why did our scouts not ride ahead and alert us? We keep no less than three along High Road at all times, do we not?”

“We do, your grace,” replied Prichard Hennis. “But with shadow crafts at work, they might have been taken unawares and killed.”

The queen's face was flushed with discomfiture. “Lord Hennis, I … I must defer to you in this instance.”

The high vassor found his feet and turned to face the knights lined up on either wall behind him. “Knights of the Inner Guard, man the towers of the curtain wall. Summon your brethren and defend the castle. With your lives if you must. Your queen commands it.”

When Prichard turned to the queen again, she mouthed, “I thank you,” and clasped her hands in earnest.

“Your grace, you and the king must get to safety,” said Prichard. He gestured to one of the Inner Guards, who had made to leave for the wall. The knight stopped when he caught the high vassor's gaze. “See to it,” Prichard commanded, and the knight nodded and bowed before ascending the steps that led to the thrones. The knight gathered the king in his arms, much like a child, and directed the queen toward a rear door to the left of the landing.

“My daughters,” said the queen as she stared down the steps at Prichard.

“I'll see to them personally,” Prichard replied before turning to leave. As he made his way from the throne room, chamber pots and other items crashed to the floor of the hall as nervous servants ran to and fro. He realized that the first grasping fingers of panic were reaching into the castle and soon would have it in an iron grip. The courtyard, too, was a flurry of activity, with cooks and bakers and stable hands pitching in to aid the knights of the Inner Guard with defensive preparations. Others were dashing up steps to the battlements or climbing ladders inside the round towers that stood at the corners of the curtain wall and midway along each flank.

“Men of the plain,” one knight shouted from a high tower.

Another called out, “Defend the wall. Ready your arrows!”

The drawbridge had been raised during the night, and the castle was as fortified as ever it would be. But the moat that fronted the castle was nothing more than a frozen neck ditch now, deep and broad though it was. Its thirty-foot drop would not deter the relentless plainsmen, who were prepared to walk atop the corpses of their own if such a feat allowed entry into the castle. Prichard ran up a stone stairway along the wall and then climbed a ladder to the top of a tower that overlooked the moat near the center of the castle, taking a position next to a knight. He could see the plainsmen emerging along High Road, heard their shouts as they approached. They were clad waist to ankle in animal skins, but their chests were bare, save for leather straps that carried sheath and sword—trophies from dead enemies. A few covered themselves with stolen furs, but clothes against the skin of the torso was not the custom among the plainsmen of Dremsa.

“Let fly!” shouted a knight commander, and a hundred arrows flew toward their marks. Sharp iron tips bit into the flesh of scores of attackers, whose blood stained the snow as they fell. Scores more warriors materialized over the hill beyond, like ants on the march, to replace those who had fallen. The living tossed the bodies of the dead into the moat as if they were sacks of grain.

As the knights fired a second and third wave of arrows, Prichard could see more plainsmen pushing wheeled siege weapons forward—two or three ballistas and several trebuchets.

The siege machines were set in place, and a plainsman loaded the sling of a trebuchet with a rock the size of a horg. As arrows continued to hiss toward them, the plainsmen launched the boulder toward a tower on the curtain wall. The rock smashed a dent in the stone directly below a knight, just as a second trebuchet's throwing arm launched another rock. This time, an unfortunate knight, too slow to remove himself from danger, suffered a crushing blow to the head that sent him flying backward into the courtyard below.

Prichard moved to the rear of the tower and shouted orders to a group of men waiting below. “Send up a bow, and a full quiver!”

Queen Klienne followed the young knight through the underground passage to an iron-studded wooden door. He pushed it open and gestured for her to enter. She looked into the empty room and saw the king on the left side, seated on the floor, his back leaning against the cold stone wall. His eyes were closed, and his chin rested on his chest.

“You will be safe here, your grace,” the young knight said as they stepped inside. “For the time being.”

The queen looked around the dim chamber. It was dank and cold, with a single torch burning on a convex stone wall across from them, two oak barrels sitting beneath it. “Someone has been here,” she said as she regarded the lit torch.

“No, your grace. Well, yes,” said the knight. “Servants keep the torch burning in this room during the day. But no one of importance has been here.” He glanced at the king and then back at Queen Klienne. “I should fetch him the wheeled chair.”

“No,” the queen said. “Don't leave us.”

“As you will, your grace,” the knight replied, bowing.

The queen stepped back into the passageway and gazed down its length. “How long is it?”

“Just over half a league, your grace. It was built to allow for your escape during times of war.”

“Where does it lead?”

“It runs westerly. Halfway along, it climbs back up at a shallow angle to take you to the surface. When you leave the mouth of the passageway, head northwesterly. After a day of hard trekking you'll reach the edge of the land and look for a small wharf. There a boat is moored, which you can sail to the Isle of Payzik, whose people, as you know, are loyal to the Glyssian Realm.”

The knight made to say something else but hesitated.

“Go on,” the queen said.

“You'll be greeted by cold and snow and ice on the other side, your grace. The way will not be easy.”

“I thank you for the explanation,” the queen said, before walking to her husband. She sat on the cold stone floor next to him and took his hand. She could feel every bone, and see them besides. He had only a few weeks of life remaining, two months at most. If the war didn't end him soon, the disease that ate away at him from within would end him soon enough. She began to recall tender moments from times past, when the king was a strapping young man of twenty-five annos and she a fair maiden. They would lie in a field of flowers after a round of delightful lovemaking, listening to the birdsong that filled the air. This was during their betrothal, when such acts were forbidden, but neither cared much for the rules of the day. Theirs was a fierce and overpowering love.

Queen Klienne thought on this and more—the king's coronation, so many annos ago; the feasts and celebrations in the great hall; the games and tourneys over which they had presided; the births of her two beautiful girls. Such were the thoughts that finally sent her into a sweet and needed slumber.

Noise of a sudden struggle awakened the queen, and when she opened her eyes, the knight of the Inner Guard was on his back, fending off a servant girl, who bore down on him with a silver dagger dripping with blood. His hands were bloody, and a half dozen slashes striped his face. The girl seemed extremely strong for her slight size. Klienne gasped when she saw the slender girl suddenly grab the knight by the throat and lift him over her head with one arm.

The girl's eyes were blazing blue lights as she turned to gaze at the queen. Klienne did not hesitate. She found her feet and grabbed the king by the fabric that covered his shoulders. The knight, still poised above the maid's head, battered her with mailed fists. As the girl made to fling him away, the queen hauled the king from the room and ran down the passageway. An explosion erupted from the chamber. She turned and saw a bright blue light burst through the room's entrance, saw the knight fly out head first and smash against the passage wall. The servant girl emerged from the room hovering like a dragonfly, her raven hair whipping about as a strong wind blew through the passageway. The wind sent the queen reeling back, and her husband slipped from her grasp. He lay motionless on the stone floor, between Klienne and the pitiless fiend that had once been a mere servant girl.

“No!” the queen commanded. “Leave him be.” But she watched helplessly as her husband's body rose four feet off the passage floor and moved toward the servant girl. When the king came within the girl's reach, her face changed into an eerie, sneering likeness of Primus Vayjun's. The girl's hand touched the king, and they both vanished.

There was no time to grieve, no time to think. The queen found her strength, and began a desperate run for freedom.

T
he four riders traveled south from Rivencrest, skirting the eastern shore of Kilgud Lake and passing through the lands west of Livlee, whence Sendin and Ghendris hailed. The southern provinces, poorer than those in the north, had allowed their roads to fall into disrepair, and the rains had worsened their already treacherous state. After three hours of hard riding, they came to the end of the road and entered The Tooth, a broad cape that hooked into the sea at the bottom of Glyssia.

Jerreb and his three companions kept on through the roadless expanse and came to a broad, flat field that gradually rose to a hill near the farthest reach of the land—the realm's end. Atop the hill sat Tooths Point, a collection of gaol towers that housed hardened criminals from across the two great realms of Glyssia and Prybbia.

A horde of Dremsa plainsmen, some on horseback, most on foot, was besieging the prison buildings. Groups of them were battering the gaol towers with heavy rams, and many of their freed countrymen were already spilling through smashed doors or breaches in the wall to join them. The massive front doors of one tower burst open under the relentless hammering of a ram, and a ragged line of shouting prisoners streamed out. The lawbreakers still inside were taking their revenge on every prison guard they found, cutting their throats, bludgeoning them to death, or hurling them alive and shrieking from the tops of towers.

The three knights and Ghendris walked their horses cautiously toward the mayhem. A sudden cry of “Asdrahzen!” went up from a plainsman, and every head in the field turned toward the uninvited foursome.

“What did they yell,” asked Ellerick, who watched in horror as the horde began moving en masse toward them.

“A Dremsa word meaning strangers,” said Ghendris, as he hefted his mace high above his head, and commenced to swing it. “Best make ready, friends.”

The three knights unsheathed their swords. Ghendris spurred his horse and led the charge with a furious battle cry, the other three following close behind.

“Don't get swallowed by the horde,” Jerreb ordered as the four steeds galloped toward the marauders. “Ride the perimeter and have at them.”

“Spread out!” Sendin yelled, and the four riders veered away from one another in a thunder of pounding hoofbeats.

Ghendris was the first to draw blood. He swung his silver mace against the exposed head of a runner and split the man's skull like a rotten melon, sending streams of red gore and splinters of bone flying. The man fell without a sound and was trampled by the horses of his fellow militiamen. Jerreb charged at the Dremsa riders on the right flank, whose massive and clumsy field horses careened one into the other after giving chase to the swift courser. The royal horse dashed and veered and deftly changed direction, while Jerreb slashed at Dremsa horsemen too preoccupied with their positioning to defend themselves. He felled five in as many seconds before racing off to charge another cluster.

Sendin was less graceful, but no less effective. He charged headfirst into his foes, stabbing and hacking, severing limbs, piercing throats, smiting off heads. Even without their armor, the knights held their own against the horde, whose undisciplined tactics were no match for trained soldiers. Even Ellerick, who went to great pains to avoid being wounded, ducking and sidestepping the thrusts of his opponents like a Dorsen jig dancer, delivered lethal counterattacks whenever he saw an opening, and the edge of his sword met flesh a dozen times.

The three knights and Ghendris kept to the perimeter of the horde, just as Jerreb commanded, dashing in and quickly out, and little by little they reduced the enemy's numbers. Still the field swarmed with frenzied Dremsa savages, hell-bent on disemboweling the four
asdrahzen
.

“For Storms Reach!” cried Jerreb, as he slashed at another foe, sending a line of blood from the plainsman streaming into the eyes of another, blinding him. He planted a well-timed boot into the chin of a running marauder and sent him flying into the path of an oncoming horse. Bones crunched as the horse trampled him and snapped his spine like a twig. The fighting continued around the corpse.

“In the name of Hertrigan Vame,” shouted Sendin, as he stabbed and hacked at men on the edge of the horde, “descendant of the Kyngs of Olde, Master of the Realm, and to whom my blade is sworn! Die Dremsan dogs!” Sendin had cut through twenty men like a woodsman through bushes, and others began to shrink back, though they greatly outnumbered the Livleean, who fought alone on the western flank. When the horde parted, Sendin saw a chance and rode down the middle, scattering the savages like a pile of leaves in a gale.

The fighting grew muddled, the Dremsa forces so disordered that many left themselves open to attack. Bigger men used smaller men as human shields and were happy to see their fellow savages fall under the biting blades of the knights and their friend. As the dead multiplied and hindered movement, many survivors became easy prey for the rampaging foursome.

Jerreb took note of Sendin's success. “Drive through their center!” he commanded. Ellerick and Ghendris turned into the horde and slashed a path toward the heart of the mass, splintering it like greenwood. Dremsa plainsmen scattered in every direction, leaving their dead behind. Close to a hundred and fifty men had been felled by four. Fifty others fled into the surrounding woods. The field was littered with the bodies of men and horses, and the stench of blood and entrails hung heavy in the air. Amid the carnage were abandoned siege weapons and rolling wooden cages that held the savages' captives.

Jerreb galloped toward the cages and began searching the faces of the women and children they held. Behind him, his fellow knights and Ghendris circled the dead bodies, looking for survivors.

As Sendin rode past Ellerick, he said, “For a lowly rear sword, you're not so bad with that steel o' yours, boy.”

“For a horg's dung heap, you ain't so bad yourself,” Ellerick replied, to Ghendris's great delight.

The big Livleean arched his head back and cackled at the sky. When he settled himself, he looked at Ellerick. “You're a real pisser, you are.”

“Don't encourage him, Ghendris,” Sendin said, just as his eyes caught movement among the bodies. “This one's alive.”

Ellerick and Ghendris rushed to Sendin's side. Sendin dismounted and pulled his blade from its scabbard. Fearful eyes looked up at him from the ground, the eyes of a young Dremsan.

“He looks to be no more than fifteen annos,” said Ghendris.

“No matter,” Sendin replied, sticking the point of his blade into the flesh of the boy's neck. “He'll talk just the same. But I'll need you to translate.”

Blood oozed onto the tip of the blade while the boy's screams rang out.

Jerreb studied the faces of the women, and by their pallor alone he could tell that some had been taken from as far north as Heth. One cage featured a few faces he recognized—women from Rivencrest, two of them nursing babes.

“You there,” Jerreb said, pointing to one of the nursing women. “I'm looking for Triyalle. Have you seen her.”

“I know of three by that name, sir,” the woman replied.

“From the Rivencrest neighborhood of Northbank, at the mouth of Kilgud Lake. We have a small cottage on seven acres. She had no children.”

“Are you promised to her?” the woman asked.

“I'm her husband.” When the woman's expression bordered on alarm, Jerreb added, “She was sworn to secrecy. I'm a knight of the Outer Guard.”

A round of gasps went up, and several women started to chatter in hushed voices as heads wagged.

Finally the nursing woman said, “Fair one, that. But I'm afraid you won't find her here.”

Jerreb grabbed the bars of the cage, his eyes wide. “What? Are you certain?”

“One high in the ranks of our captors decided she was far too fair to reside in a cage, so he set her on the front of his horse and rode off.”

“Rode off where?” demanded Jerreb. “Which direction? Which road?”

“There are many roads that lead north from here, sir, and I did not see which was chosen. Will you be freeing us from these cages now?”

Jerreb used his blade to slice the ropes that held the doors of the cage closed, and the women scurried out of the cramped space. He opened the other three cages and was soon surrounded by scores of women and children, but their numbers hardly reflected the many families that populated Rivencrest or the other lands the horde had touched.

He looked over the crowd and began to speak. “There are inns two miles west of here, as well as a local magistrate, who will hear your grievances. Take the road that cuts through the woods, and travel together.”

Before they could press him with questions, Jerreb mounted his courser and made his way to the other three men and their young captive.

“This one told us all,” Sendin said. “We have no further need of him.”

“We don't take prisoners,” said Jerreb. “Not anymore.”

“I'll send him to hell, then,” Sendin said, and he thrust his blade into the captive's heart and twisted it as the boy shrieked piteously. A moment later the field was silent once more.

Jerreb heard a creaking sound and looked up to see the woman Seyalinn driving the spice wagon into the open field. Jerreb spurred his horse and drew up next to the wagon. The boy, Quarvik, was still strapped to his mother's back. Jerreb spoke directly to him. “You told me I would find my wife here, yet she is nowhere to be found.”

I said you would find her. I did not say you would find her here
, thought Quarvik, who looked to be asleep.

“But she was brought here,” said Jerreb.

Yes.

“Is she safe?”

I do not know.
I have not dreamed of her since our journey east. Sir, I beg you, please do not speak your words, for when you speak, your thoughts are clouded, and I struggle to find the sense of them. Only think your words so that I might receive them clearly.

Very well
, thought Jerreb.
But I need to find my wife. And I know not where she has been taken.

As I have said
,
the time for that will come. Another matter must come first.

You speak well for one so young
.

All that I know I have learned from my dreams.

I can assure you, lad
,
you don't know all.

Jerreb turned away from the boy then and trotted toward his fellow knights. “We ride north, for Storms Reach. We'll finish what we set out to do.” He turned to Ghendris. “Are you with us?”

Ghendris directed his gaze toward the scores of dead Dremsa plainsmen that littered the field behind them. “It's a battle the likes of this that sets fire to mi blood. And I can do with a few more rounds.”

“Good,” said Jerreb. “Then we ride.”