Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (41 page)

“Sixty yards down track, about twenty to the East.”

“
I see him.  Drop back Sergeant, into single file.  On my signal we surround him.” 

Jolander obediently tucked his horse in behind Quintala’s and the rest of the troop followed suit so that a long line of cavalry processed past their quarry’s bolt hole.  Then, when as many were ahead as behind the hiding place, Quintala gave a shout and a wave and the entire troop wheeled left and charged off the track, lances lowered. 

Imediately the concealed figure shot up and made to run eastwards, away from the track and the pursuit.  However, he had but cleared the ditch and covered a couple of strides before three dozen lancers had formed a ring around him.  The man drew a sword and glared warily at the encircling cavalry.  He was a scrawny fellow, nearing middle years, unshaven and clad in greys and browns.  “Who are you?” Quintala demanded.

“Kaylan,” the man replied,
adding with some defiance, “Kaylan-ap-Stonehelm.”

“You’re a bit tall for a dwarf,” Quintala observed, raising an eyebrow at the man’s chosen sobriquet.

“What business are you about?” Jolander queried, steadying his impatient horse.

The man scanned the S
ergeant’s bold livery and retorted, “I might ask you the same, you’re a long way from Morwencairn.”

“Aye, but I’m not skulking by the road
like a fugitive. What crime are you running from Kaylan dwarf-friend?”  The last epithet was added with a sneer.

“I take dwar
f-friend as a badge of honour, Sergeant.  The dwarves of the Hadrans have done much for me and a lot more than your Morwencairn lancers to keep the nomads and the orcs on the far side of the Hadrans these past five years,” Kaylan snapped back, his sword still held high.  “As to my crime, these are dangerous times.  I’ve spent two days being chased by nomad horsemen. An experience like that makes a man cautious not criminal.  So forgive me if I don’t leap up to salute every squadron of horses that gallops past me.”

“Nomads? H
ere?”

Quintala spurred her horse forward to come level with the wary fugitive.  “Why would they be chasing
you
?”

Kaylan eyed the S
eneschal steadily, taking in her dark complexion and silver hair, then he called to Jolander.  “You’re a fine one to be jeering at the dwarven company I’ve been keeping, Sergeant.”

The S
ergeant rode up on Kaylan’s other side.  “Keep a civil tongue in your head, this is Seneschal Quintala and we ride on King Gregor’s business.  Mind I’ve still time enough to teach you some manners.”

“There’s plenty better than you have tried,” Kaylan snapped back.

“Easy Sergeant,“ Quintala raised a soothing hand.  “There is a tale and a half here and I would hear the rest of it.  An outsize dwarf with a Woldtag accent, who’s been chased by nomads across the southern Marches of Medyrsalve.  You’re a long way from Undersalve, my friend, almost as far as the nomads would be from their desert home.  What brought you both here?”

“There’s many of us left Undersalve when the orcs and the nomads came, no mystery in that. As to what the nomads wanted with me, we
ll you’d have to ask them that. I was too busy running to stop and ask why.”

“These Nomads, how many, where and when?”  Jolander demanded.

“About two hundred riders, last saw them four days ago now, due East of here.”

“You must be a lot faster runner than you look, if two hundred nomad horsemen couldn
’t catch up with you,” the Sergeant quipped.

“I had a horse then and it was foggy and they just gave up, mayhap they got bored mayhap they went chasing tastier prey.”

Quintala caught a slight sideways glance as the erstwhile fugitive spoke, a glimmer of dissembling that she sought to probe. “And what do you think that tastier prey might have been, Mr ap Stonehelm?”

He gave her a fixed stare.  “I really couldn’t say.”

“Where are you going then?”  Jolander broke in.  “This heading leads away from Medyrsalve not towards it. For a refugee you have a poor sense of direction.”

“Maybe
I have no love for the half-breed Prince of that province,” Kaylan replied while keeping his gaze fixed on Quintala.

“Ha, at last,” Quintala cried.  “We find some common ground.  My broth
er’s enemy must be my friend. Here you may ride with us.”

“A word ma’am,” Jolander asked with stiff urgency. “In private.”

The Seneschal gave the senior lancer an appraising glance, bristling to the tips of his moustache with supressed tension.  “As you wish, Sergeant.  Mr ap-Stonehelm will you excuse us.”

Kaylan bo
wed low.  “Sure, your ladyship. I’ll take care not to hurry off anywhere.”

Quintala and Jolander steered their mounts beyond the encircling ring of lancers, before resuming their discourse in insistent whispers.

“You have a problem with an extra swordsman, Sergeant?”

“Begging you pardon ma’am, but I’ve seen his type before.  You may not come across the common fellons as much as I have, but there is the stink of the jail about him.  There stands a man would sell his grandmother to his grandfather.”

Quintala, in the face of Jolander’s paternal solicitude, declined to mention how many rogues and gaolbirds she had encountered in her long life to date.  “Oh I grant you, Sergeant, he is not telling us all he knows.  But if indeed there are two hundred nomad cavalry roaming the Medyrsalve marches I would rather not leave anyone behind who could tell them of our passing.”

Jolander gave a grunt and a nod of approval.  “We could kill him then, ma’am.”

“And forgo the chance to find out what part of this tale he is trying to hide from us?  No, we will let him ride with us, safer from mischief in our midst than left behind either alive or dead.  By a happy chance we even have a spare mount for him.”

Jolander looked back in horror at the riderless grey mare held on a loose rein by the rearmost lancer.  “Prince Eadran’s horse, ma’am, you cannot th
ink to set this footpad on the Prince’s steed!”

Quintala gave a sigh.  “Sergeant, poor Eadran has no further use for it and, in truth, the animal has had light passage far too long.  Let’s set this fellow on the finest horse we have and see if some honourable treatment might loosen his tongue more than your insults and disdain.  It is a long ride back to Morwencairn.”

“Ma’am.”  Jolander gave a stiff and discontented salute, but the Seneschal was already wheeling her horse back to the ring of lancers and the dwarf friend in their midst.

“The girl is well?” Illana asked when Niarmit met her on the narrow forest path.  The thief now wore her crescent symbol on a new forged chain around her neck while priestly robes had replaced the travel stained leggings and tunic in which she had been washed ashore a lifetime away.

“She is
much better, my Lady.  I will call on the Goddess again to sooth the scars on her body.  However, I am not so sure about the wounds to her spirit.”

“She is young and
must have drawn on great resilience to endure what she has already.  Has she spoken yet of her story.”

“She says little Lady
, but her accent has the lilt of Morwencairn city more so than the southern counties of Morsalve.  How she came to be prisoner in an orc camp on the borders of Hershwood is but one conundrum in a tapestry of enigmas.  How is the Lord Feyril?”

Illana gave a slight dip of her head, “he prospers after a fashion and he and I would speak with you.”

Niarmit nodded.  “Tordil bid me find you, he minds the girl Hepdida though, in truth, she is ill at ease beyond my company.”

“She will be safe enough with Tordil for an hour or so, there is much
we must discuss with you.”

Illana le
d and Niarmit followed until the path opened into a wide circular clearing at the centre of which a great solitary oak reached high into the sky.  The tree’s gnarled roots had broken through the ground and, in their twisted embrace, formed a hollow trysting seat at the base of the trunk.  It was there that the Lord of Hershwood reclined, surveying the dappled branches of his domain.

“Well met, Illana, my Lady Niarmit,” he greeted them in a soft voice that Niarmit str
ained to hear. 

“I am glad to see you recovered, my Lord,” Niarmit replied biting back the thought that Feyril’s recovery was far less complete than Hepdida’s.  The elf lord’s beard and hair were white and his face was lined with the signs of age that Elven bodies never showed.  The hand he proferred in greeting was twisted with arthrit
ic knuckles and the grip though firm was fleeting.

He smiled
at her and his eyes at least lit up with youthful vigour. “I have clung to life this past week with a desparation that none should ever feel.  I am healed, but spent and my time and part in the troubles that assail this realm is done.”

“What
?”

“Mine too,” Illana echoed
.

“
You mean to leave?”

“Not straight away, but all the forces of Hershwood have been flung at the enemy and scattered to the wind.  We have repulsed the
little wizard but the price was half the numbers I left with Illana, while of the greater part of our force which rode to Gregor’s aid only myself and Tordil and a handful of others have by various routes returned.”

“Where would you go? How would you leave
?”

“We will take ship to the blessed realm as all Elves who weary of this world are wont to do.   Those of our company who wish may come with us.  Those who would stay may journey to their fellows in the Silverwood where the lineage of my cousin Andril will still preserve the elven dignity within the Petred Isle.”

“Though they may find the isolationism of the silver elves a little constricting,” Illana interjected with an edge to her voice.

“Indeed my love.  But let us not forget how my determination to play a part in the lives of men has brought us little but sorrow.” 

“It was
our
determination, my Lord. You have done nothing less than I would have wished, advised and urged you to do.  We both know the nature of the peril the world faces.”

Feyril nodded and coughed.  “And that is why we must speak with you, my Lady Niarmit.  I am glad to see you cl
othed again in priestly garb.  It suits you better than the trappings of a footpad and would please your father, Prince Matteus.”

Niarmit looked up sharply. “So,
you lay that slander to rest, my Lord?”

The old elf shook his head sadly and reached inside his tunic.  “I acknowledge only that Matteus was your father in every way that
counted save one, and I am sorry that my hasty words in Dwarfport caused you distress.”  He pulled from his inner pocket the jewelled ankh with its coral coloured gemstone.  “Will you not wear this now?”

Niarmit gazed into the depths of the jewel
while the ankh swung and twisted gently on its chain.  She reached for it, feeling the artefact’s eerie warmth beneath her touch.  Feyril breathed a little easier as she took it from him.  “You said many things back then, words tumbling out in some disorder as I recall.  Perhaps you would tell your tale again and I will see if the passage of time has made it any more credible to my ears.”

“Where to begin
?” Feyril asked.

“The beginning is always best.”

“You know of Eadran the Vanquisher.”

Niarmit laughed, “I had not meant the be
ginning of the Empire. Why my Lord, you may as well go back to the beginning of time itself.”

Feyril allowed himself a weak smile.  “What is ancient history to you, my lady, is but my own life story. 
At the time of the Vanquisher the Petred Isle had already laboured in servitude for five hundred years to Magister, or Maelgrum as we called him, the living embodiment of ill will.  Slaves and orc servants alike trembled at his whims, the Eastern lands paid tribute in precious metal and human lives.  Those he could not enslave, like elf and dwarf, he held in thrall to him by the taking of hostages.”

For a moment Feyril’s
voice faltered and Illana reached over to cover and grip his gnarled hand with her own.  Feyril squeezed her fingers with his and then resumed his narrative. “He took our daughter and also the princess of Silverwood, daughter to Andril and Kychelle.  For their lives’ sake we endured and tolerated what we should have risen against and challenged. Had we but known what manner of captivity they suffered we would not have delayed one day in defying him.”   The old elf’s voice rose in fury at the memory of the injuries done to his child and kin.

“Aye, my L
ord,” Illana reassured him. “But our daughter has been safe in the blessed realm these centuries past with lately Andril and her cousin Liessa to keep her company.  We will see her soon ourselves.  It would have served little purpose to have risen against Maelgrum too soon for his was and is a power greater than our own.  We could only strike when the time was right.”

“And that time was when the Van
quisher came to the Petred Isle?” Niarmit prompted.