Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (23 page)

Slowly Kimbolt looked
up across the battlefield.  The carpet of bodies covered the hundred yard swathe between the forest and the edge of the Derrach gorge.  The stub of the broken bridge poked a few feet out over the cascading waters of the Derrach river, its supports hacked away by Dema’s orcish axemen barely two hours earlier, the key act in the unfolding carnage of which the Medusa was the proud architect.  The advancing army had only had its vanguard across the chasm when Dema had launched her attack, with a hail of arrows and a fast and furious charge from the trees.  Hurriedly the opposing cavalry had tried to form up at the gorge’s edge while, from the far side a press of riders had crowded onto the narrow bridge eager to be at the impudent raiders.  The bridge had been full when the axeman, concealed beneath the roadway, went to work.  The neighing of terrified horses and their rider’s screams still echoed in Kimbolt’s ears as vividly as the moment the bridge had collapsed, taking hundreds to their doom.  Even as those unfortunates tumbled into the rock strewn rapids of the Derrach, almost a third of the enemy found themselves trapped without retreat on Dema’s side of the gorge.  The greater part of the army could do no more than watch helplessly from beyond arrow shot on the other side of the gorge.

Even so
it had still been in the balance.  Dema had allowed two, maybe three times her number, to cross the bridge unhindered before launching her attack.   But the ferocity and surprise of her charge had shaken the enemy’s morale as they were driven with their backs to a sheer drop into the rapids of the river Derrach.  Three times Kimbolt had heard their leader’s famed war horn sounding his rallying call, but then no more.  With their general gone, the battle was over.  While a few hardy knights tried to make a stand behind the bulwark of their fallen horses, they could only delay the Medusa’s great victory.

“Where lies Prince Hetwith
?”  Kimbolt still evaded Dema’s question.

The M
edusa thought a moment and then waved a hand towards the gorge.  “Mostly over there, though I think you are standing on one of his legs.”

Kimbolt shifted his foot
ing and retched.  “Still,” the Medusa went on. “This is intact it seems.”  She dangled Prince Hetwith’s ivory war horn infront of the shivering captive.  “Not that it did him much good. Now, tell me Captain, tell me true, as a military man d’you know of any in your service could have conjured a triumph such as mine from such limited raw materials.”

“’twas an ambush, not a battle, and the better part of his army stands unscathed on the far side of the gorge.”

She seized his hair at this pusillanimous verdict on her generalship.  “Unscathed eh? I think seeing and hearing a third of their army, and their great Prince, ripped to pieces by a handful of orcs and outlanders will scar their courage as deeply as any sword.  See how they drift away, leaderless and forlorn.  As you well know, the next place to ford the Derrach is two days ride to the East, and I fancy no host of Nordsalve will be in a hurry to try the crossing, for fear of what may lie on the other side.”

“If you are so certain of
the greatness of your victory, Lady, then what need have you of my endorsement?”

Her bloodied sword was at his throat even as she twisted the hair on his head with her other hand.  “What need have I of you at all, Captain?”

Glafeld joined the crowd
by the jetty surveying the unexpected vessel as it lay at its moorings.  Its sails were shredded and its foremast splintered.  The sailors grey with fatigue worked at splicing frayed rigging while the ship’s master harrangued the onlookers for assistance. “I’ll pay well,” he said.  “I’m due at Oostsalve in five days, a shipment for the Eastern lands awaits me for a fine price.  Customer asked for me in especial seeing’ as how my ship’s the fastest on the ocean.”

“Don’t look so fast now,” a wag in the crowd called out to the
amusement of those around him.

“Hit by a storm ‘n had to make for here.  But help set me up right and I’ll pay upfront and a bonus sent from Oostsalve if I make it in time for my shipment.”

They laughed at that.  “Yeah, you’ll really be sending money to this dive once you’re well clear.  If there’s a bonus then pay that upfront too.”

The harbour master struck in with the economic realities.  “Going rate is two crowns
for an hour’s work round here. You going to add a bonus to that?”

The master paled at the cost of labour.
“I’m a man of honour,” he pleaded. “My credit is good but I’ll not fix my ship without help.”

“
Hard cash talks surer and straighter than honour and credit.”

“Would you offer
a passage to the Eastern lands?”  The voice of the red headed thief so rarely heard made Glafeld start.   She was there in the crowd, a few yards to the innkeeper’s left.

“Mine’s a cargo operation, miss not passenger, and my ship is no place for a woman.”  The master hastily replied.  Those of his crew alert enough to note the thief’s question scowled their displeasure.

“I’ll take my chances with your boat,” the thief replied.  Then, more to the master’s liking, she added, “And I’ll pay half of the fare in advance.  You need cash to get your boat repaired. I want a boat. Surely we can do business.”

“All of it upfront.”

“When do you sail?”

“I leave here in three days
, or else I lose my commission.”

“Aye then, half the fare now, the rest when I board in three days time.”

The master glanced around the hard unsmiling and unhelpful faces of the Dwarfport crowd and came to a swift decision.  “Deal.” He stretched out a hand to seal the bargain and Glafeld breathed a sigh of relief as the thief took it.  She was bad news and the sooner she was gone, the happier he would be.

Travel stained and weary the elven Lord and human King exchanged greetings in the hastily erected royal tent.  “This orc is a slippery customer, he has led us a merry dance these past three days,” Gregor exclaimed as he surveyed the map on which the track of their perambulating hunt had been marked out.

“This is no ordinary orc, sire.”

“So you keep telling me.  Yet all this hide and seek has merely given time for Bruntveld to catch up with us.  The Marshall cannot be but a league or two West of us.  In the morning we will complete our rendezvous and together we will hunt down this elusive raider, another five thousand swords will make sure of the matter.” The king spoke with the certainty of one hoping to create fact through conviction alone. 

Feyril’s reply went unsaid as Findil burst breathlessly into their presenc
e. “We are trapped,” the elven Captain declared.

“What
?”

“How
?”

“I took the scouts West
‘ere the sun set.  There is a great host but five miles from here.”

“
Bruntveld?” Gregor’s hopeful suggestion carried a note of desperation.

Findil shook his head.  “No. W
ell not as you would wish.”

“Do not speak in riddles,” Feyril commanded his captain.

“I reckon there would be at least fifteen thousand, too many for Bruntveld’s division and the smell of orc, wolf and something else too reeks upon the air. This is no force of the Salved.  Tordil worked close enough to see their banner.” Findil hesitated a moment.  “Sire, it is the Marshal’s body carried on crossed spears.” 

“F
ifteen thousand, by the Goddess!” Gregor murmured.

As King and Elf-lord digested these ill tidings, a lancer of the king’s guard made his entrance.  “I bring news sire, of the orc?”

“Which orc?”

“Grundurg, my Lord
Feyril,” the lancer elaborated, discipline over-riding his surprise at the Elf’s uncharacteristically bitter tone. “Our scouts have found him at last.  His band is gathered four miles North East of here.”

“Between us and Morwencairn,” Gregor said.

“He has but five thousand, sire.  We will have the measure of him, and Prince Hetwith must surely be with us by the morrow.”

“Unless he
too has been turned into an orcish banner.”

Findil’s muttering brought a sharp rebuke from Feyril and further puzzled the lancer who had entered the tent in every expectation of congratulation on bringing the long awaited news that the raider had been run to ground.

“Thank you, soldier, wait outside a moment.  You too Findil, the Lord Feyril and I have matters of import to discuss.”

“We cannot smash our way past Grundurg without this other host falling on our rear.” Feyril declared when they were alone again.

“We must buy time, Hetwith may yet join us.”  When the elf Lord raised a sceptical eyebrow, Gregor hurried on. “It is but two days we have been expecting him.  Who knows what may have delayed him.  It may be that I have underestimated the skill and numbers of my brother’s allies, Feyril, but I do not see in that a conspiracy of ancient evil on the scale you imagine.”

“
Be that as it may, we are agreed that barely an hour’s march from our camp we have an enemy totalling two and a half times our strength.”

“Aye,” Gregor admitted. “It is not a force one should hurry to attack.”
   

“
It seems that it is we who are between the hammer and the anvil, sire.”

“Then let us move out of the way, before
the one can strike against the other.”  Gregor let pass the elf’s gibe at his own foiled plan.  “Tell me Feyril, did you note that escarpment, by the village we passed around noon today.”

“The village of Proginnot? A
ye the ridge had a wood atop it. It lies perhaps ten miles South East of here.”

“There we will make a stand, our number
s may not be enough to go on the attack, but let them come to us and throw themselves on our spears.  Old Matteus used to say that a good position is worth ten thousand men.”

Feyril nodded.  “I trust the sa
me exchange rate still serves, Sire.”

“Pass word, we break camp, immediate
ly, but we leave the fires burning.  I daresay they are watching us and I would that we were well on our way to Proginnot ‘ere Xander and Grundurg realise we have slipped the trap they set for us.”

“Surely you must know more of your half-brother Quin?”  Eadran chided in ill concealed exasperation as he and Quintala rode easily along the great Eastway.   The lancers, as had been their custom, hung back to allow Prince and Seneschal privacy in which to discuss matters of state and, in this case family. 

“He is two hundred and fifty years older than I
, Ead.   He and I have lived entirely separate lives, each with our respective human families.  We have barely met beyond the merest formalities when our orbits intersect at this court event or that.”  She hesitated a moment, before releasing a crumb of insight for the weary Prince’s delectation.  “You have to understand, both he and I were an affront to our grandfather’s dignity, hard evidence of his daughter’s disobedience.  It is not just humans who despise the half-bred.”

“
You mean your elven Grandfather?  He thought…”  Eadran tried to exploit the opening but struggled for a suitably delicate line of enquiry.

“Of c
ourse I do!”  The glare she gave him was withering; once again he was that bashful teenager unmanned by the world of experience within her youthful frame.  Once again she took pity on his discomfort with a smile of reassurance and forgiveness.  “The Lord Andril, my grandsire and the most venerable lord of the Silverwood, more ancient even than Feyril.”

“Did you ever meet him?
”

Quintala shook her he
ad.  “He came to see my father, brought me to him as a babe in arms.  Andril told him that I was to be brought up in a human court, as my brother had been brought up in the court of Medyrsalve.”

“But
Rugan was the son of a Prince.”

“And I the mere daughter of a S
eneschal.  I am not sure if it was my father’s human race or modest station which offended Andril more.  Still enough was enough as far as he was concerned, countless human lovers and two mixed race off-spring put my mother quite beyond the pale of his tolerance. He took sail for the blessed homeland beyond the sea not long after I was born and took my mother with him.”

“Her choice
?”

“I don’t know.
I never knew her.  My father told me she was the loveliest gentlest creature he had ever met, but that she was also scarred and damaged, all too easily bent to the momentary will of another.”

The half-elf fell sile
nt and this time Eadran elected not to intrude.  After a few moments of saddle staring reflection she looked up and shook her head so her silver hair cascaded about her shoulders.  Eadran caught his breath at the unconscious beauty of her and wished once more that he could have held her whimsical heart for more than a couple of summers.   Gulping back such useless regrets he sought distraction in politics.  “Tell me Quin, what do you think moves Rugan?  He must have become Prince of Medyrsalve near two centuries before your birth. What drives his ambition?”