Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (20 page)

Feyril was
silent, unable to gainsay the King.

“Besides, this is not Maelgrum we face, ‘tis my brother and some rabble from beyond the barrier.  He wants my kingdom, but he shall win no more land than will suffice to bury him in.   You are come today, Hetwith of Nordsalve will be here before the week is out.  If I can but stir my brother in law and the Prince of Oostsalve, we shall soon have force enough to shatter every traitor’s dreams.”

Odestus gazed down at the churning water where the broad River Nevers was joined by the fast flowing Saeth, freshly charged by the snowmelt from atop the Hadrans.  Beyond the angle of the river the tall densely packed trees of Hershwood concealed the realm of Feyril beneath their broad canopies. 

Behind the Governor, his force of orcs and ogres were drawn up in three divisions, with the wolf riding cavalry to the left.  They were on the North side of the Nevers so only the Saeth stood between them and their objective. 

“All is ready sire,” Vesten reported.  “The scouts report the ford is unguarded we can be in Feyril’s domain by night fall.
”

Odestus nodded, “he has t
aken his best to Morwencairn. The forest should be near empty.”

“Still, a shame we had not the human cavalry for our left flank.”

Odestus shook his head.  “Orcs and humans serving together, ‘tis beyond my power to command.  Besides, the force we have should be ample for our Master’s purpose.  Sound the advance.”

Kimbolt’s hands were numb, not with cold but from the tightly bound ropes biting into his wrists. His initial gratitude at having human rather than orcish guards had faded rapidly.  On the first break neck ride through a fog too thick to see his own horse’s mane, there had been no concession made to his difficulties.  Hands lashed together he could only grip the pommel of the saddle.  His mount’s reins disappeared into the mist where one of his guards dragged his steed along.  With so little command of his steed or his course, Kimbolt had nearly lost his seat a hundred times. 

Emerging from the fog had brought little relief as the pace of the ride accelerated
and the night closed in.  To their left Kimbolt was dimly aware of the orcish contingent on wolf-back easily matching the outlander humans for speed.  Military instincts had led him to try to make some count of the numbers in Dema’s diverse party.  He had guessed at around five hundred orcs and perhaps half that number of humans, but the demands of self-preservation prevented any detailed analysis of the invading force.  Indeed the captured Captain had barely any attention to spare for his wider surroundings.  Occasionally, on their right, Kimbolt caught sight of the lights of a village or an isolated farmhouse, but Dema drove them onwards never stopping to check their course or her bearings.  Yet the Medusa led her human band and its orcish shadow with great surety down narrow tracks, and along forest paths without ever encountering a human inhabitant.   

Kimbolt was used to hard riding, to fatigue beyond endurance, but the night’s relentless drive had tested him to the limit.
He hovered between wakefulness and the blissful oblivion of a tumbling terminal sleep.  It was only the reflex twitching of his knees against his mount’s flanks which kept him astride the horse as it twisted and leapt for hours on end.

Just as the Captain was convinced he would collapse, the pale fingers of dawn stretched across the landscape, illuminating an anci
ent ruin which had to be the Medusa’s intended destination.  Kimbolt steeled himself for a last couple of miles, at the end of which the frantic gallop slowed to a walk.  Both horses and wolves made their way between two great moss covered walls into a grass covered courtyard that must have once been a roofed and vaulted great hall.  As his horse bent its neck to tear up the lush grass, Kimbolt did not wait for his captors to come and help him down.  He just slipped from the saddle and fell untidily onto the grass.

“This is a fool’s errand!” Quintala muttered none too softly into her horse’s side.

“Does that make us fools then?”  Eadran quipped
as he steered his mount alongside the glowering half-elf.  Then, bending his head close to the furious Seneschal, he murmured.  “Now mount up Quin and, whatever your feelings on our mission it were best you did not share them so loudly.  We ride in company and our troopers have enough to trouble them without learning of dissent in the King’s counsels.”

Quintala’s jaw dropped at the unprecedented rebuke from Gregor’s floppy haired second son.
She looked him up and down anew, “It seems the seed of kingship may sprout in you yet, Ead.”

“
I will take that as a compliment.  Now it is a long ride to Medyrsalve, but all the better for you to tell me whatever you can of my uncle and his court.”

“If two score troopers an
d the heir to the Helm of The Vanquisher cannot move Prince Rugan, I doubt any words of mine will tip the argument,” Quintala struck stubbornly to her point.

“In this matter, Quin, my father’s command is that we should leave nothing untried. It is not just the forces of Rugan that will hail from Medyrsalve, but those of Oostsalve
beyond, and even the garrison at Salicia should it be recalled.  All must march through Rugan’s land.  It is essential he bows to the King’s will.”  Eadran re-iterated the arguments of the council with the zeal of the freshly converted.  “Now dear Quin, two and a half centuries have made you wise in the ways of this world. I would credit you have plenty of value to share on our journey and time enough to share it.  So come, mount up and, as we ride, tell me what it is to be half-elven that I may better understand our quarry.”

Quintala gave a brisk no
d before leaping lightly into the saddle.  Eadran was away waving their escort of royal lancers into motion.  “What it is to be half-elven, my Prince?” she murmured to herself alone.  “Why it is to be despised and suspected by both your mother’s and your father’s kin.  Rugan and I both hold our positions by law of inheritance, not by love or respect. Mayhap I need look only into my own mind to better understand my half-brother.”

A boot in the ribs stirred Kimbolt to wakefulness and a harsh outlander voice urged him, “eat!”

As the
captive Captain worked himself into a sitting position, the guard dropped a piece of hard bread and a bowl of thick cold gruel into his lap.   Kimbolt struggled to eat the paltry repast two handed.  The gruel served only to slightly soften the bread such that it could be chewed without risk of breaking a tooth, but still with little hope of a smooth and early swallow.  He was coughing his way through another mouthful when the Medusa announced herself.

“I trust you are rested, Captain.  We r
ide again in twenty minutes.”

“It is still day. H
ow long have we rested here?”

“It is the fore noon, Captain.  We have a few hours yet to sunset in which we can make good ground.”

“Your green skinned scum will not go un-noticed.  You will be hunted down and destroyed.”

“And what would b
ecome of your servant girl then? eh?”  As her prisoner brooded on her remark, Dema went on. “But fear not, my orcish allies travel faster but only by night, they will follow our trail at a safe distance and rejoin when we camp.  That will also mean the more respectable of my guards can trade for supplies within any places we pass at dusk.  Gruel is nutritious but orcs, more so even than humans, have a hankering after meat.  If I cannot get them pigs or even the odd cow, then methinks you might start to look like a tasty morsel to them and that would never do.”

Kimb
olt shivered and Dema offered him a mocking reassurance.  “Fear not, Captain, it will not come to that.  All the orcs in Sturmcairn could not have so much as your little toe unless I chose to let them.  However, I need them well fed. Hungry orcs lack discipline and, as I am sure you know discipline is everything.”

“The people of the Salved will have no truck with you or your traitorous rabble.”

She sniffed.  “Bold words, but you are so wrong.  They will gladly trade their goods with my rabble.” The Medusa flung a hand towards the human troop who, even now were emptying their billets and preparing to mount up.  “Those imperial uniforms taken at Sturmcairn give my ‘soldiers’ a certain familiar authority and there are plenty enough safe camp sites like this for our purpose.”

“What is this place
?” Kimbolt demanded as he gazed once more on their make-shift campsite. It was an ancient ruin of a once great building.  The thick stone walls were pierced with holes that would once have secured massive timbers to support the roof, and countless openings hinted at other chambers in a sprawling complex.  Centuries old it was, yet weathered only by wind and rain.  Its doorways and windows retained their original shape, un-enlarged by the scavenging Kimbolt would have expected.  An abandoned building was too ready a source of dressed stone to be neglected by any nearby builders and the openings would be the easiest point of attack for those bent on recycling.  Many was the time in the eastern lands, Kimbolt had ridden past ruined fortresses and temples, with ragged gaping holes where once stained glass had stood.   Yet here no human hand had contributed to its decay.

“What is this place
?” he repeated the question at the smiling Medusa, though with a prickling sense at the back of his neck.

“Why Captain, you sit in the great hall of San Nys
trel, high seat of the order of Thaumategry and foremost college of magic in the North West. Or at least it was five hundred years ago.”  She laughed as Kimbolt hastily crescented himself.  “I see you share your people’s superstition.  The same superstition that has kept all away from this place for centuries.  Why even lovers in search of a place for a tryst have avoided this site for fear of the ghosts of long dead mages.  There is no safer place in the Empire of the Salved for a company of orcs to camp.”

“
By the Goddess, you will fail madam,” Kimbolt retorted with a conviction that owed more to hope than belief.   “Your abominations will kindle in human hearts a fire you will not readily still.”

Dema
scowled.  “You are wrong Captain.  Human hearts? What weak fickle things, ruled by greed and fear in equal measure.”

Kimbolt looked up, daring for once to look at the black gauze covered eyes.  There was a sparkle of blue light through the material which still
managed to chill the blood.  The cowl of her cloak, which usually stilled the wriggling serpents into sleep, heaved now as the Medusa’s snakes stirred with the darkening of her mood.   “What do you know of human hearts, Madam?”

She swooped, seized his chin in her fingers and glared into his eyes with a ferocity that made his senses numb.  Beneath the hood, there was a cacophony of hissing as the material bucked and heaved with the writhing of reptiles.  Her hand on his skin was icily cold, but
there was a heat in her words as she told him, “I was human once too!”

For a moment she held his gaze, her other hand twitched towards the mask, but then with a snort of contempt,
she flung him aside and strode away calling for her horse.

The beacon fire had long since burned out and Sturmcairntor was once again the safest and coldest vantage point from which the garrison lookouts could spy to East or West.  As the wind whipped up the finely powdered ash, Haselrig pulled his cloak about his face and gazed eastwards.  The snaking pass skirted alongside the youthful Nevers River on its way to the broad plains of Morsalve and beyond its capital Morwencairn.  The three orc sentries gave the pale ex-priest, ex-antiquary, ex-librarian a wide berth as he stood and stared towards the land of his birth.  The only sign visible of the land of the Salved from this, its furthest border, was the slender tower of Garradtor.  First in the chain of beacon towers that led from this spot to the gates of Morwencairn itself. Garradtor had been the first lit in response to Kimbolt’s firing of the beacon.  Its small platoon had fallen prey to Dema and Grundurg as had the next two towers, but for now the rule of Maelgrum stopped with the conjured fog bank at the wide opening to the mountain pass.  With Dema and Grundurg gone, the rest of Maelgrum’s army waited.  While he knew something of his Master’s intent, Haselrig knew better than to ask for the detail in the undead wizard’s plans.  And so, for another day he found a moment of solitude atop the windswept tower, a glimmer of freedom from the shadow of his Master’s will.  It was a moment to reflect once more on long ago decisions that, while far from hasty, had been made with a certain ignorance of the full consequences. 

The ex-antiquary’s ruminations were disturbed by two new arrivals
, Xander and Udecht.  The two brothers were growing more alike in appearance.  Xander had thickened out and made some show of addressing his unkempt appearance with the luxuries of the fortress’s stores.  By contrast, the Bishop looked gaunt. His voluminous clothes hung slack on a body that had lost all appetite, while lacking razor or other toiletries his face looked more hardened outlander than dutiful servant of the Goddess.

Has
elrig turned away, in no hurry for princely small talk, but the spartan platform gave him no hiding place.

“Ah, Haselrig,”   Xander greeted cheerfully.  “Have you come here to look upon my future kingdom too
?”