Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (31 page)

“I don’t think I was ever a child,” she jested in a voice that cracked a little at the end. When he made
no response she left silently, but for the closing of the door.

“Me Governor?”  Vesten looked up from his chair, as the little wizard stood in the entrance of his secretary’s tent.

“Yes, Vesten you. Y
ou are to march to Listcairn with the orcs and the nomad foot soldiers, while I take the human cavalry on some fool’s errand,”  Odestus repeated.

“But I cannot take Listcairn, Governor, I am no general.”

“Nor I, Vesten, but there is no need for either of us to exercise our rudimentary knowledge of seigecraft. The task has already been accomplished.  The Lady is there to greet you,” Odestus talked over his secretary’s surprise.  “Give her my best wishes and my apologies that our five year separation will extend a little longer. It seems there is someone our Master wishes me to find and it is a task I dare not fail at.”

“And what if I should be confronted by an army in the field, Governor.”

“There is no army in the field.  Rugan will not move against you or anyone, Vesten.  All the perils of your journey are behind you now, though my path it seems is less secure.”

As Kimbolt watched, the corral was broken open and the orcish guards dismissed while human guards, including the few outlander women in Dema’s force, shepherded the children to the stable block adjacent to the kitchens.  It was fully an hour before the Medusa returned to the comfortable room she had set aside for the use of her human slave.

“Do you want my gratitude?” He didn’t wait for her to speak and the surly tone clearly surprised her.

“Well, something on the grateful side of complaining,” she admitted.

“What of Hepdida? I
s she so considerately cared for?”

“Of course, you have my word you can be certain of it.”

He sighed, inured to never knowing certainty again.

“Come Captain,
why so glum?”  She sat beside him, close beside him, and raised a hand to turn his face towards hers.  “Your eyes are damp, Captain, what ails you?”

“I did call out to you. I saved your life
but damned a fellow soldier, a knight of the empire.”

“He lost his right to life when he let us ride u
nchallenged through his gate. It was a simple piece of dissembling which any student of military history should have seen through.   He would have died anyway. Your call affected only the timing, a few minutes, that is all you cost him.  But you saved me much more and I am grateful for that. Very grateful.”

He gave a bitter laugh.
“Minutes you say. Well they were not mine to give or take.” He turned his head away from her and asked the floor, “What have I become?”

“You have become what you
had to be Captain, that is all. You have become a survivor.  Welcome to the realities of life now.  There is no honour, no nation no country. There is only you and the people you can rely on.  We all do what we have to do to survive and work with those who can help us.  Life is a cruel game and only cruel people can win it.”

She turned his head towards hers, grasped his face in hands that
were icy cold. “I am grateful. Very grateful.”

He looked up at her face.  Above the masked eyes the snakes sl
ept beneath a loose black hood the cloak about her shoulders hung somehow differently.  She took his hand and pulled it inside her cloak, held it against her.  At first he took the cool touch for chainmail, but then realised it was her own soft skin. By some quirk of her part reptilian blood her flesh was a disquietingly low temperature which sucked heat and resolve from him.

“I am grateful, KImbolt.  Very grateful and I am going to show you just how much.”

He gazed back, dumbly, eyes wet with mourning for the man he had once been.  Then he crumpled into her welcoming arms.

All was ready.  The pale horse stood patiently, the make shift litter of branches and vines fixed to its saddle and stretching out in an A-shape behind it.  Niarmit had worked most of the day to fashion it, the labour soon drying out her clothes, while Feyril lay by the small fire she had managed to build. 

Now she lifted him gently ont
o the litter, hoping for a stronger sign of life than the weak pulse and the occasional flicker of his eyelids. He had not spoken since uttering his wife’s name, but Niarmit hoped he could hear.

“We’re
going friend, home to Illana. Sharkle here will get us there,” she whispered in his ear.  Then she took the horse’s reins and led the patient animal away from the beach.  As they went she kicked away any stones that might jar the passing of the makeshift litter and so threaten its occupant’s health or comfort.  It was going to be a long walk to Hershwood. 

Kimbolt rolled over in the bed pursued by dreams of twisted passion.  A sparkle of light penetrated his eyes and in his sleep Dema appeared towering above him a terrible beauty her blue eyes unmasked staring into his.  He awoke with a start and then clenched his eyes shut against the glimmer of blue that shimmered across the walls of the room. 

He levered himself into a seated position at the edge of the bed and carefully opened one squinting eye to stare at the floor beneath him.  The thick rug of the castellan’s quarters welcomed his bare toes but the polished flagstones shone with an eerie twinkling light as though illuminated by some deep blue flame.  It was this which had penetrated his dream and triggered visions of Dema’s petrifying gaze.

Carefully, glancing askew through split fingers, Kimbolt raised his gaze towards the sour
ce of the uncanny light.  “Dema?” he called uncertainly.  “Are you there?”  The only reply was a co-incidental crackle like tiny lightning.

He looked for a while through guarded hands, turning his head back and forth as he tried to fathom the vision that hung before him, but in the end he just let his hands drop to his lap.  It was an oval window
suspended in space in the middle of the room.  The opening, stretched from floor to ceiling yet nothing could be seen through it, for its surface was a swirling mix of azure light, eddies of light and darker blue blooming and dissipating continuously across its surface. 

Ki
mbolt stood, gathering the bedsheet around him against the chill which emanated from the scintillating apparition.  Cautiously he approached it, walked round it, puzzled over it.  The surface was smooth as glass and thinner than paper.  It hung like a frameless mirror in the middle of the room, invisible from the edge, impenetrable from infront or behind where the shades of blue flowed and mingled like a monochrome rainbow of oil on water.

“Dema
?” he called again and there was some muffled answer from the other side, though the other side of what?  A voice, blurred like sound heard underwater, yet some how familiar.

It called again a bubbling rendition of his name ‘Kimbolt!’ there was alarm in the voice.  Then another spo
ke, snarling, clearer, harsher, a voice he’d not heard before. ‘He can’t hear you girl!’

‘Kimbolt!’ she called again from a scene he could not see.

“Hepdida!” he cried stepping towards the tormenting window.

But in a moment there was a clash of steel from beyond the veil, a third voice, a shout and then a flash which flung Kimbolt back against the bed.

Bruised he struggled to rise, looking back at the source of the sound, but the hanging portal and its ghostly light and sounds were gone.  In the gloom he saw a darker shape crouching on the carpet as stunned as he.  “Hepdida?” he called softly.  “Is that you?”

The shape rose abruptly to its full height.  Starlight through the window
glinted off the chainmail and the sword, though the latter’s bright edge was dulled by a layer of blood.  There was a chorus of reptilian hisses as Dema whirled round to face him and, for a fraction of a second, Kimbolt looked into the Medusa’s unmasked eyes.

The two dwarves bowed low and Kaylan returned the courtesy though, lacking the length of beard or shortness of legs, he could not brush the floor with his whiskers as the dwarves had done. “’Til next we meet then Kaylan-ap-Stonehelm,” the dark haired dwarf intoned.

“’til next we meet, Mag-ap-Bruin, Glim-ap-
Bruin.”

“Would ye’ not
come back wid us?” the younger blond dwarf implored.  “This town is no place for lawful folk to linger and, if the lassie you seek has any sense at all she’ll not have been stopping long here.”

Kaylan looked around past the convoy of dwarf carts and ponies at the shacks and dives of
Dwarfport.  It did not seem a place to Niarmit’s taste but then Kaylan was no longer sure what his Lady’s taste might be.  The furious flight from Undersalve had revealed a depth of despair and anger he had not known the princess possessed. 

“She’s not taken ship today,” the thief conceded.  He had searched the ships and questioned the masters as they impatiently loaded up with dwarven merchandise and off loaded the goods the Dwarves craved
, but his brief enquiries had brought no success. 

All the while, t
he caravan of the clans of the Hadrans had shown no inclination to stay in a place so offensive to Dwarven preferences for order and civility.  Dwarfport was a necessity to them, no more.  Having arrived at the break of dawn, the various clan traders had concluded their business by mid-afternoon. All was now ready for them to leave before the denizens of Dwarfport began to celebrate in their unruly way with the infusion of gold that inevitably got creamed off the dwarven trades.  It was not a celebration the dwarves had any desire to witness.

“Ma
yhap she never came here at all?” Mag-ap-Bruin suggested.

Kaylan shook his head.  “I’ve not had time to search everywhere or ask everyone, but she had it in her head that she was going to come he
re.  She’s a determined lady. What she sets her mind to is generally what she does.”

“Aye,
I see you’ve a lot in common with her.  Methinks ‘tis not just your helm is made of stone, ‘tis your entire brain as well you stubborn longshanks,”  Glim laughed.

“Well, if you’re mind is made up then you may as well have this
,” Mag stepped forward and seizing Kaylan’s hand in human greeting, pressed a leather purse and small carved hammer charm into his palm.  “There’s money for your search and a token, it shows you as a dwarf friend, Kaylan-ap-Stonehelm.”

Kaylan spread hi
s hands in embarrassment.  “Mag-ap-Bruin, you dishonour me to present me with gifts when I have nothing to give you back.”

The dark haired dwarf waved him down.  “Your gift to me was the sight
of a longshanks charging into a crowd of slime covered orcs on wolf-back wielding your little tooth pick and wearing nothing but boiled leather for protection.  Now away with you, find this wee lassie of yours, ‘n I hope she’s worth it.”

“It isn’t like that!” Kaylan insisted, but the dwarves had already turned to join their comrades in the slow moving well armed caravan.  The thief watched them go a moment and then made his way towards the centre of
Dwarfport as the darkening sky heralded the coming of dusk.  He would start in the bars, he resolved.  Someone would have noticed a tall feisty red headed woman.

Quintala strode into the opulent quarters which had been set at her disposal and flung the door shut.  The crash of the ornately carved timber against its rare rosewood frame gave some small consolation for the feelings of impotent frustration she was enduring at her brother’s court.

She crossed to the balcony to look out on the gathering regiments of soldiers, all endlessly drilling rather than marching anywhere.

“Seneschal, you should use my guest chambers with more care.”

She didn’t turn, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her surprised.  From the sound of his voice he would be seated in the easy chair facing the window.  She
had walked straight past him.  “I had thought these were my chambers, brother.  My private chambers,” she said to the empty air.

“The whole palace is mine, Seneschal. I come and go where and as I please,” said with oil-smooth self-assurance.

“Aye, round and round your precious palace you go brother, with no danger of going anywhere important or doing anything significant.”

That had riled him, she heard the rustle of silk as he shot to his feet, felt the heat and breath of his anger as he crossed the few paces between them, but still she would not turn.

“Enough!” the cut-glass voice of Kychelle called them to order.  Quintala raised an eyebrow at that. Just where had the elf-lady of Silverwood been hiding?  “I did not suggest this meeting for you to bicker over your petty differences.”

At last the S
eneschal turned and bowed to her grandmother. “Of course grandmama, I should have realised the Prince would never have come of his own volition.”

“Is it the will or the inclination t
hat you think I lack, Seneschal?”

She returned the Prince’s glare, “neither brother.  It is the independence of thought that you are ill supplied with.”

His arm twitched as he just managed to subdue an impulse to raise a hand against her.  Her mouth flickered into a smile at the aborted gesture.  “I see some ague affects you, brother, it seems your long years are catching up with you at last.”

Rugan grimaced.  “They’ll catch you too
, sister.  We are of one blood.  It seems our fate is to have ten times a mortal span no more, and in that time we will age as our pure blood cousins do not.  Are you ready for that sister, the erosion of that pleasant physiognomy which in your case must pass for beauty?”

“Aye,” she replied with forced assurance.  “I look forward to following you along that path.”

“Believe me,” Kychelle broke in on their verbal sparring.  “Immortality is over-rated.  The charms and distractions of this world are not infinite, nor easily enjoyed alone.  But if you have dispensed with those insults which you seem to use in place of opening pleasantries, perhaps we can move to business.”

“Business?” Quintala echoed.

“Indeed.  I had hoped, in private we might talk more freely and with greater sense than either of you managed in the audience chamber.  There are matters of state to be addressed.”

“Of course, Grandmama,” the S
eneschal conceded.  “Such as the ongoing idleness of the regiments of Medyrsalve.”

“They are not idle,” the Prince snapped.

“Endless parade ground drills here while orcs and Goddess knows what walk the hills and dales of Morsalve.  I call that idleness.”

“It takes time to muster all my army and I have patrols watching the passes of the
Palacintas.”

“Always defensive, always waiting.  You should march to the attack.”

Rugan shook his head.  “I will not divide my force, Seneschal.  I have reports this morning that Listcairn is fallen.  Who knows what enemies now lurk in Morsalve and where, if the strongest fortress on the very boundary of my realm can fall so ripely into orcish hands.”

“Listcairn
?” Quintala mouthed.  “I was there but days ago.”

“And now it flies the tattered standard of the Bonegrinders tribe.”

“Then you must strike, strike now.  Seize it back.”

“Take my half f
ormed army down onto the plains?” Rugan exclaimed.  “Who knows what allies the Bonegrinders have.  Have two and a half centuries taught you neither patience nor caution?”

“Have five
centuries taught you nothing
but
patience and caution?”

“Enough, I say,” Kychelle slammed the butt of her staff on the stone floor.  “Rugan is right, Quintala
.”

“Rugan is a coward.  He hides behind a pregnant wife claiming he defends a line of succession which will soon having nothing left to inherit.”

“Had you spoken those words in the audience chamber I would have had you flogged, sister,” Rugan growled with a chilling fury.

“It would have been amusing to see you try, brother,” Quintala retorted, her fingers twisting with the itch to cast some spell of humiliation on the Prince.

“Manu tua est manu mea,” Rugan muttered at speed and Quintala found her fingers suddenly numb as the Prince’s digits spun in micro-atristry.

“You bastard,” she spat as she raised her unresponsive hands infront of her face. “You enchanted me.”

“That is a little against the expectations of hospitality, grandson,” Kychelle concurred, her amusement tempered by some genuine reproach.

Rugan was unapologetic.  “There are instances, sister, when pre-emptive action is appropriate.  T
emporarily incapacitating an angry spell using sibling is one of them.  Charging after unknown foes in Morsalve is not.”

She flailed at him with her useless hands, aiming to clout her tormentor around the head. The bastard was smiling, laughing at her. “Quintala,” Kychelle commanded as Rugan easily ducked the clumsy blows.  “If you cannot be still, then I will cast my own enchantment and you can participate in this discussion by blinking your answers.”

Conceding defeat she turned to the elf-lady.  “Answers? What questions do you have then?”

“We need news from Mor
salve.  We need to know what state the realm was in when you left.  What force Gregor may have with him, and what may threaten him, assuming that is, he still lives.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you,” the brooding Senschal scowled.  “
A chance to set my brother’s unborn bastard on the throne of the Empire.  Would that finally make you feel safe, Rugan, having your own son as high King of the Salved?”

The P
rince shook his head at her outburst. “I am constantly amazed that we have the same mother, sister.”

“Aye, well at least you knew her.  Our grandfather passed me as a babe in arms to my father before taking himself and my mother out of my life for ever.”