Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (53 page)

“My Lad
y,” Tordil was horrified.  “These words are the counsel of King Gregor. Gregor who fell at Proginnot with all the elves of Hershwood about him.  How many of those lives might have been saved had Gregor worn the helm then and achieved what you achieved here today.  Does my Lord Feyril’s advice count for nothing?”

“Feyril knew nothing of
the Helm,” Niarmit spat.  “And neither do you Tordil.  If the Goddess means for her people to survive then she will help us find another way. But it will not be the Helm.”

The elf was almost weeping.  “My Lady we cannot return empty
handed. The artefact is there. Please take it.  Then we can at least prove what we achieved that others may take heart from our bold success.  At least if we have it then, should you come to … should you change your mind…”

“I’ll not touch it.”

“But my Lady you alone can carry it. I am not of the bloodline.”

“I’ll take it,” Udecht said,
bending quickly to collect the Helm from the floor.  Niarmit scowled unhappily at him, but the Bishop hurried on.  “We have wasted time in discussion. Let us just move.  The alarms have all been sounded and as it is I do not fancy our chances crossing half a league of open ground.  Delay will not help matters.”

On that point at least
, Niarmit could agree and, with a curt nod, they set off down the steep winding passageway which led through the rock of Morwencairn to the fresh air beyond.

“If I feel an outlander arrow between my shoulder blades, necromancer, then I will still find strength and breath to slit your gizzard,” the elf lieutenant hissed.

“Be calm,” Thomelator advised him.  “Tensio
n such as the kind you are radiating is like ripples in the surface of my illusion.  Take care else your nerves will tear the deception I have woven. We are past the bridge now. The guards saw only a simple cargo skiff. I gave them the password of the day and all is well.  If you can think it so, then it will be so.”

“I like this not
.  The Sun is setting. We are a mile or more from where we said we’d be. How are we to find our friends, or they to find us.”

“I would start over there,” Thomelator suggested pointing to a spot in the shadow of Morw
encairn.  “See where the orcs and the zombies seem to be converging in greater agitation than elsewhere.  Ho! A flash of magical fire. Methinks that trouble has found your friends. Maybe it is time you found them too.”

Th
e elf needed no encouragement. At a hissed command the quartet of elven rowers strained their backs to scull the boat shorewards even as another burst of flame erupted near the riverbank.

They were strung out in a line. Hepdida leading, followed by Udecht, while Tordil and Niarmit brought up the rear.  They had emerged from the tunnel in a cave, its mouth concealed by a thick gorse bush.  The shrubbery had enabled them to pick their best moment to break cover just as a patrol of outlanders had passed heading West.  However, they had almost immediately run into a  score of zombies steered along the same path by a pair of necromancers.  Heading East was impossible.  Niarmit had brandished her crescent symbol of the goddess and the zombies had quailed at the sight, but they had been forced further South, trying to skirt round the undead and head along the very edge of the river bank.  But by then the alarm had been raised.  Howls of wolf-riding orcs chilled the blood while the outlander patrol had wheeled round to join the pursuit from the West.  Hemmed in by pursuers, Niarmit kept her eye on the narrowing strip of riverbank along which they might evade the clutches of immediate pursuit.  However, the sway of torches from the bridge showed where more of the enemy were joining the hunt, and they would be blundering into another encirclement.

Behind her Tordil launched another ball of fire at the outlander patrol.  Faster and more manageable than the zombies they were the greater threat.

“Save your strength, Tordil,” Niarmit shouted.

“A little of that M
aelgrum kneeling magic would not go amiss now, my Lady,” the elf called back.

“And your breath,” Niarmit retorted.

Ahead of them Udecht stumbled and fell with a cry, rolling in the grassy dirt. The helm slipped from his fingers and tumbled towards the river bank.  Hepdida, turning at the sound of the Bishop’s voice saw it and caught the basinet before it could topple into the water. Tordil was flinging another spell at the outlanders his back to the tableau, but Niarmit saw it frozen in time.

The dark haired servant gir
l handing the helm back to the Bishop.  Her mouth was bent into a faint smile, Udecht took the artefact from her without a word.  He looked across at Niarmit, saw that she had seen.  He made to shake his head in denial of something, his eyes hooded in shame.  “Her mother was a beautiful woman,” he said as Niarmit drew level.

“Not now uncle,” Niarmit said.  “Though it seems you are indeed my father’s brother.”

“We’re trapped,” Tordil said as he joined them.  A semi-circle of pursuers was closing in on them, outlanders’ to the West, zombies to the North and orcs to the East.  At their back, to the south, was the river, a solitary skiff sculling towards them from the bridge.

A flight of white arrows shot from skiff into the group of orcs and a voice shouted, “ahoy, my Lady.”

“By the Goddess,” Tordil roared. “That is well done, there is our boat.”

“Aye, and between us and it stand four dozen orcs,” Udecht pointed out.

“Give me the Helm,” Niarmit commanded.

“At last,” Tordil sighed as Udecht handed over the precious item.

“Now follow me,” Niarmit commanded as she ran towards the orcish lines.

Obediently the others fell into line, though they were mystified that Niarmit carried rather than wore the precious
weapon.  The orcs steadied themselves to receive this unlikely charge, hefting spears and readying shields.  When they were barely ten yards from the orcish line, Niarmit flung the helm into the faces of the enemy.  An orc in the front line ducked, but the whirling steel helm hit the orc behind full in the chest.

There was a
n explosive blast that ripped through the gathered orcs as the helm connected with the enemy triggering a shockwave of repulsion.  The creature who took the brunt of the assault was stretched dead on the floor while all around him his compatriots were unconscious or reeling from the force of the blast.  Niarmit charged through the opening in the line she had created, followed by her three companions.  Ahead the skiff was in sight, a couple of feet from the bank. Elven archers bending their backs to send arrow after arrow of covering fire.

“Quick,” Niarmit picked Hepdida up by the armpits and flung her into the boat.

“The Helm,” Tordil cried as the orcish ranks closed behind them.  “We can’t leave the Helm.”

He turned to charge back into the fray but Niarmit
grabbed him by the shoulder.  “No, Tordil leave it.” As she pulled him back, off balance, a spear caught the elf Captain in the shoulder knocking him bleeding into Niarmit’s arms.  “The Helm,” he cried as he fell.

“I’ll get it,” Udecht said, picking up the elf’s fallen sword. 

“No!” Niarmit screamed as she struggled to drag the wounded Tordil into the boat.

A flurry of arrows punched a hole in
the orcish lines ahead of the Bishop’s charge, but the line still closed behind him as he flung himself flat stretching for the precious helm.

Strong hands pulled Niarmit and Tordil into the boat.  “We must leave now,” a voice was saying.  “They are putting archers on the bridge.”

Looking around Niarmit saw that the humble skiff had once again assumed the form of the elegant elven boat in which they had journeyed from Hershwood.  Two of the elves were still firing arrows while the others sculled the boat out into midstream.  She scanned the river bank, but there were only leering orcs, now joined by outlanders and zombies.  Some crowd persisted around the point where Udecht had disappeared, but of the Bishop she could see no sign.

“The captain is hurt, and he’s let them put a hole in my robes.”

Niarmit spun round to see the wispy bearded necromancer bowing over the injured elf.  She seized his arm.  “Where are your bonds, prisoner? What have you done?”

The elf helmsman coughed discretely.  “The prisoner has been of some assistance, My Lady.  It is his magic which disguised our boat and allowed us to come to your assistance.  He is an illusionist.”

Niarmit looked afresh at the prisoner, who bowed low in return.  “I am in your debt Master Thomelator. How can I repay you?”

“Two things my Lady.”

“Name them”

“Please call me Thom, and please don’t send m
e into exile because of my harmless pastime.”

“Archers on the bridge,” the helmsman warned.  “We have to shoot the central span but they’ll still have us at point blank range.”

“How many arrows have you got left,” Niarmit asked.

“Not enough, and even then we can’t shoot and row.”

“I have a spell which may help,” Thomelator offered.  “Though in truth it would be best if you could all look a little bit panicked but absolutely not try and shoot back.  That would spoil my illusion.”

The bridge was fifty yards away and already a few outlanders were stretching their bows for a test shot.  “What ever you have planned,
Thom, I would do it quickly,” Niarmit growled.

As the illusionist whirled his fingers in a seemingly double jointed incantation, Niarmit bent down beside the injured Tordil.  “Hepdida, come help me bandage the Captain’s wounds.”  The servant girl tore her gaze away from the river bank and knelt beside the semi-concsious elf in the thwarts of the boat.  Niarmit tore strips
of cloth to pack around the deep puncture wound.  “The spear head is still in there, I can use the Goddesses favour to get it out once we find a safe landing spot. If we find a safe landing spot.”

“Niarmit,” Hepdida asked.  “I shouldn’t have been able to open the secret d
oors should I, or hold the helm?”

“We’ll talk once we’re safe, Hepdida.”

“Niarmit, who am I?”

She paused in her work to look at the troubled servant girl.  “Hepdida, dear Hepdida, you are my cousin.  It seems Udecht found himself no more tightly bound by his priestly vows than Gregor held to his marital vows.”

“Is that why the Bishop ran back for the helm?”

“Incomming arrows,” the helmsman warned.

“Try and look panicked, duck about a bit,” Thomelator reminded them, though the outlander arrows all splashed harmlessly several feet to the right.  Nonetheless, they played the charade the illusionist asked and the next volley of arrows fell no closer.  Then they were under the bridge’s central span and out the other side where a fresh flurry of arrow-shots were met with no greater success.

“What have you done to their aim, illusionist?” the helmsman demanded in wonderment.

“Hush, I’m concentrating.”

It was some minutes more before Thomelator was sure they were safe from harm, half a mile downstream of the bridge and carried as fast as river current and elven oars could drive them.

“What did you do?”

“I merely created an illusion that the boat was some feet away from where it was.  Provided you all acted the part, I could convince them that their arrows
were all just missing, though, in truth, they were firing pretty much dead on through the centre of my illusionary boat.”

“What a glad happenstance that you stumbled upon us this morning, Thom the illusionist,” Niarmit said.

“Life is like that, My Lady, small chance events that set the course of your life for ever.”

Udecht crouched in the centre of the circle. The swelling around his right eye had all but closed it.  His tongue flicking around his mouth felt a tooth so loose he would not keep it beyond another sunrise if he lived to see another sunrise.  His whole body ached with bruises and his back was sticky with blood from a flailing axe which he had incompletely dodged. But he held the Helm, and the Helm held the ring of orcs and outlanders at bay.  Around him lay half a dozen orcish corpses, a couple felled by the Helm before Udecht had reached it.  The other four had been at the forefront of the gauntlet of blows and abuse Udecht had suffered, and they in turn had been the first to suffer when his evasive tumble had brought him within reach of the precious artefact.  It may not have been the weapon as Tordil had imagined it, but poking the steel helmet at his attackers had been a satisfyingly effective stratagem.

So, the ring of enem
ies surrounded him but dared not close.  Everytime a bolder assailant took a step inwards, Udecht thrust the helm towards him prompting an instant retreat.  It was standoff which neither side could break, but the Bishop feared their stamina would easily outlast his.  He rose unsteadily, his injured knee buckling beneath his weight as he weighed his chances of charging through the encirclement.  However, there was a forest of spears several ranks deep beyond his immediate self-made clearing.  Even a fabled rhinoceros would struggle to break through by sheer momentum, still less a battered half-fed priest with a dodgy knee.