Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (52 page)

Niarmit scowled and began to tell him
of the false promise that the Helm offered.  Or at least she meant to, but the words would not form.  Everytime she tried to give voice to the notion of a planar pocket that was both home and prison to the souls of the Helm’s past bearers, she found the thoughts would not link with words and no sound came from her mouth.  She had escaped, but she could not return, or warn others of the Helm’s true nature.  She thought of Gregor trapped within reach of Chirard the Mad, Gregor her father who, father like, had seized the Helm from Chirard’s head to save her.  She remembered the unkind words she had graced him with, the fact that she had said neither thank you nor good bye and that she would not see him now until death beckoned her to the Vanquisher’s private hell.  She blenched at the vision of a second father who she had failed and abandoned to great danger.

“Captain Tordil she is hurt, let her rest a while,” Hepdida upbraided the elf in the hiatus of Niarmit’s silence.  “And
I will not believe we are really have the Goddess’s blessing until we are safely clear of this place.”

Gurag and Nakesh busied themselves hacking and slashing at the ancient bookshelf, levering their swords into the crack between wood and stone to prise it away from the wall behind.  Udecht could have told them about the secret catch which, when depressed, would allow a child to swing the entire assembly on well oiled hinges.  However, the orcs seemed to be enjoying shredding the furniture to matchwood, and in their distraction noticed not the Bishop’s stealthy circling past the workbench.  With a splintering crash the bookcase toppled to the floor to expose a blank stone wall.

“No doorway there!” Gurag cried.

“Prayer man lies,” Nakesh snarled.

“Patience,
it is a hidden door. Only one of my blood can open it,” Udecht hastily reassured them as he hurried to the exposed surface.  His fingers traced lightly over the stone.  Immediately a glowing thread spread out from his fingertips, in luminous relief outlining a portal in the wall.  The light faded and in its place was a continuous groove cut into rock separating the section of mobile door from the fixed wall surrounding it.   Udecht gave the centre of the doorway the lightest of pushes and it pivoted in perfect balance to expose a stone spiral descending into the castle foundations.

“They not come this way,” Nakesh growled.  “Door not open before now.”

“There are other entrances to the tunnels,” Udecht assured him.  “The wizard will have used one of those and we will surprise him by coming down this one.”

“Wizards is slippery,” Gurag was hesitant.

“You saw how the Master had wounded him, this wizard isn’t going to be much trouble,” Udecht oiled.  “But think how the Master will reward us for this service.”

Th
e prospect of their Master’s rewards was stimulus enough to the orcs to hurry down the stairway.  Udecht followed a little less gracefully, struggling to silently manage the burden he had concealed within his robes.

“How you know
these magic tunnels, prayer man?” Gurag demanded, his suspicions aroused by the flaring of magical illumination along the passages.

“I used to
walk them long ago,” Udecht replied in a conversational tone.  “My family has always valued the ability to move unseen between the great places of the capital.”

“Quiet,” Nakesh hissed.  “We is hunting wizards.”

“Sorry,” Udecht replied a little louder than was necessary. The darker skinned orc glared doubtfully at him.  For a moment the Bishop thought he might have over played his hand with the rapacious greed of the slow witted orcs, but then, with a grunt, Nakesh turned to lope along the passage.

Udecht was pleased that his memory served him so well; they reached the junction where the lib
rary passage met the main one at exactly the distance he had expected.  Nakesh in the lead stopped at the opening and glanced back at the Bishop for direction. Udecht pointed left. If the helm wearer knew these tunnels as Udecht himself did, then it would be the other off shoot from the main passageway that they would be taking, the one that led out below the castle walls.  They would have to hurry to catch up.

Nakesh peered round the corner and then ducked back.  He beckoned Gurag forward with a wicked grin.  Nakesh’s free hand fired rapid gestures of combat command in a sign language far more articulate than either orc’s spoken word.

Udecht gulped.  It had not been his intention to launch a real ambush, but from Nakesh’s leer of triumph, they had caught up with the quarry far earlier than the Bishop had expected.  Abruptly Udecht dropped his hidden burden from within the folds of his robes.  The stolen sword clattered noisily on the stone floor to the instant consternation of the two orcs.  Nakesh’s glare could have curdled milk and left Udecht in no doubt as to what fate awaited him when the orc had the time to spare, but the dark green humanoid had other matters to attend to first.  He sprang round the corner with a guttural shout, seizing what milliseconds of surprise might be left unspoilt by the clatter of the falling sword.

Gurag was a little slower to process events, his expression more puzzled than angry.  As a clash of steel sounded around the corner, Udecht bent and lifted the sword he had dropped offering it hilt first to the confused creature.  Instinctively the orc reached out for the proffered weapon with his free hand, encour
aged by a smiling nod from the Bishop.  As his gnarled fingers closed on the hilt of the ancient blade, the bloodline magic fired in anger.  The hapless orc was blasted clean across the corridor by an electric shock before falling stunned and mumbling to the floor.

There were shuffling steps in the main corridor, Nakesh
walking unsteadily backwards his sword held out infront of him.  He turned to look up the side passage where Udecht waited, the ancestral sword wavering in his hand.  Nakesh’s mouth split in a grimace of ferocious hatred.  He raised his own weapon and took a heavy step towards Udecht his lips forming the words ‘prayer man’ though no sound emerged from them.  Udecht saw, in the steady light of the gemstones, the flood of green black blood streaming down the orc’s chest from a yawning second mouth which had been cut across his neck.  Even as Nakesh swung his sword high and wide, his body toppled forward, stretching his length on the floor.  The tip of his blade clattered against the stone, some four inches short of Udecht’s toes.

His heart racing, Udecht looked past the slain Nakesh to where Gurag was beginning to stir, levering himself upright.  However, the lime skinned orc had barely lifted his backside from the floor when a figure darted in from the left and expertly skewered the hapless creature with a sword thrust t
o the armpit.  With a gurgling exhale, Gurag slipped back down, never to rise again.

The orc’s slayer darted up the corridor towards the alarmed bishop.  Udecht had time to note t
he cusped ears and dark skin. An elf! He had not expected that, but he also noted the blade slick with orcish blood that was heading for his chest.

“Don’t strike,” he cried.  “I’m no orc.”

“Outlander, traitor then, you’ll die just the same,” the elf announced.

“I’m Udecht,” the B
ishop cried.  “Brother to King Gregor, prisoner of Maelgrum.”

“Udecht
?” the elf quizzed, his blade stopped an inch shy of the Bishop’s throat so that the acrid scent of orcish blood filled Udecht’s nostrils.  “You are Udecht?”

“He is the B
ishop,” a girl’s voice interjected.  “Though I remember him being a lot fatter.”

Udecht readily forgave the slight on his former
physique for the welcome validation of his identity.  The elf moved to one side so he could see more clearly his sponsor, a dark haired girl, pale of skin with thin white scars on her cheeks.  He trembled a little at a face so alike to another he had known a lifetime ago.  “Hepdida isn’t it,” he stammered.  “I remember your mother.”

“My mother’s dead,” the girl said.  “An orc killed her.”  She kicked Nakesh’s body.

“I know,” Udecht replied gently. “I’m sorry, sorry for your loss.”

“What br
ings you and two orcs down here?” the elf demanded.  “Are there more?”

“
There are no others and the door behind is shut and hidden from view, Master elf, but you have the advantage of me,” Udecht bowed.  “You know who I am, but who am I to thank for rescue from my captors.”  He nodded in the direction of the fallen orcs in emphasis of his status as liberated prisoner, rather than captive collaborator.

“His name is Tordil,” a third voice announced as a tall woman came round the corner from the main passageway.  “Captain Tor
dil, and he’s seen a lot these past weeks that has blunted the usual elven charm and courtesy.  And before you ask, my name is Niarmit, latterly princess and priestess of the province of Undersalve.”

It was Udecht’
s turn to be stunned by an unexpected apparition.  “You’re dead.  Everyone knows you died at Bledrag field,” he stammered.

The lady seized his hand in hers.  “It is a long story which we
have not the time for now.  We believed you dead too.  But come feel the warmth in our hands and believe, however it may have happened, that we both still live despite the odds.”

Dumbly Udecht nodded his agreement
at the undeniable presence of the Lady of Undersalve.  Her red hair was cut shorter than when he had seen her in embassy to his brother and her limbs were hardened with muscle that an eighteen year old princess had not needed.  However, the Lady Niarmit’s face once seen was not readily forgotten.  “I am glad to see the line of Matteus survived, but surely there is another of your party.  Where is the wizard, the wearer of the Helm who made Maelgrum kneel?”

“What!” Tordil exclaimed.  He stared wide mouthed at Niarmit.  “Is that what you ac
complished, my lady, truly the Helm is the weapon we were promised.”

“I don’t understand,” Ud
echt said.  “The wearer of the Helm who I saw was a man. A great wizard.”

“A fine disguise to choose
, my Lady,” Tordil gushed before turning to the puzzled Bishop.  “Believe me, your reverence, the Lady Niarmit is the only one to wear the Helm.  I saw her put it on, and I have but five minutes ago seen her take it off.”

“You wore the H
elm?” Udecht repeated. “You are…”

“Not of
the line of Matteus it seems,” Niarmit interrupted, even as Udecht seized her chin and turned her head sideways to look upon her right temple.

“Aiee, indeed.  The H
elm has marked you,” he said, seeing the delicate tattoo it had imprinted on her skin.  Abruptly the Bishop dropped to his knees, “your Majesty, I am your servant.”

“The regal niceties can wait,
your reverence, or should I say uncle.  I suppose it is your life that this bauble now tracks,” she pulled a jewelled ankh from within her shirt, its central gem a clear pink hue.

Udecht nodded gluml
y.  “My brother Xander is dead. Destroyed by the Helm when he tried to usurp your right to wear it. The Ankh will have told of his end.”  He offered her the hilt of the sword he carried.  “I brought this for the wearer of the Helm. It is the father. The sword forged by the Vanquisher and born by every king since.  Take it Majesty. Only one of Eadran’s line can wield it.”

Niarmit took the weapon.  Udecht held his breath as her fingers closed about the pommel but n
o burst of magic flung her back. Further proof, if proof were needed, of her royal lineage. “It is a pretty thing, to be sure, but I would rather some advice as to how we escape.”

“You found your way into these
passageways but not the way out?”  Udecht was stunned.

“I followed my mother once,” Hepdida told him.  “When she worked in the Archbishop’s palace.  I knew the entrance there and she told me the other end led to the citadel, but I was too scared to explore the side passages.”

“You were a child,” Udecht reassured her.  “No shame in that.  But the other side passage will take us down outside the city walls.  Eadran and Morwena were the first to use it, so the stories go, when they wished to walk about their realm as the ordinary people do.  Not many remember these old passages now, but my sister and I would play down here as children, while our brothers played at soldiers.”

“Good,
then let us go.  There is a boat waiting on the Nevers half a league downstream.”  Niarmit led the way back down the main passageway towards the other branch that Udecht had described.

“My Lady,” Tordil called her back. “You have forgot what we came here for.”  He was pointing at the great helm of Eadran, discarded at the side of the c
orridor like an unwanted coal scuttle.

“Let it stay there,” Niarmit growled.  “It is not the weapon we thought it was.”

“But with it you made the foul lord kneel,” Tordil cried, incredulous at her scorn for the artefact.

“You hurt him,” Udecht exclaimed. 
“He was shaken, weakened.  The Helm is truly more powerful than even I imagined.”

Once more Niarmit tried to frame the words
to tell them the truth of the Helm, of the Vanquisher’s sacreligious pursuit of immortality still further defiled by the insanity of Chirard.  Again, the thoughts would not line up in sufficient order for speech.  Her mouth worked soundlessly for some seconds, and at the last she said simply, “we will find another way.  I’ll not touch that thing again, let alone wear it.”