Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (2 page)

He was weary of war. He had known no other life, neither as a boy, nor as a young man. He was weary even more of being the Commander-in-Chief of his small country.

As the night slowly surrendered to the force of daylight, he sighed. One might have thought the sigh was due to the fact that within minutes he would have to meet with his field commanders and get the obligatory battle reports, troop and supply location updates, and all of the remaining military information specifications of the night just past. But no, the sigh represented nothing more than a tiny sliver of sadness that he would not be able to look upon the three Inam'Ra moons simultaneously full for yet another year, for this phenomenon was precisely that, a yearly one.

“Like so many small pleasures in life,” he thought, “they come and go so quickly.”

Just as quickly, he was forced away from this fleeting moment as his lifelong friend and longtime second in command approached. As usual he was holding a flask of bittersweet that he held out to his King.

“Thargen,” Rolan offered, forcing his gaze away from the beauty in front of him, “I thank you for this. I hope this morning finds you rested and up to the challenges in front of us.”

He knew there was no chance that Thargen was rested. He might have gotten a few hours of interrupted sleep, but it had certainly been years since he had greeted the break of any given day fully rested. Thargen was a giant of a man, a full head taller than his King and half again as wide.

“My Lord,” Thargen returned. “I must say right off that it troubles me that I would find you here outside the castle gate alone and unprotected. I know that most of the fighting is days away, and the Great Wall is still intact, but surely there might be Slovan or Vulturan spies about who would like nothing better than to report to their superiors that they had managed to put an arrow into our King. Where is the guard?” At this, Luke Bowman, Minister of Conquest, Dorin Esselt, Minister of Strategic Unit Deployment, and Borok Dodson, Minister of Planning and Escapes, materialized out of nowhere, along with the remaining twenty or so of the King’s personal guards. All were battle ready. All were battle hardened. Most carried scars from years of service in their King’s army. All were armed with weapons of every sort, the clicking and rattling of which were the predominant sounds as they surrounded Rolan, Thargen, and the three captains.

“We must go,” said Thargen, who began moving towards the castle. “Paulimas awaits inside at the great table. I’m afraid he brings grim news from Minot. The Trolls have broken through at Devil’s Lake. We cannot possibly halt their advance before they make Lexington. But Paulimas will speak to all of these things in greater detail.”

The massive stone gate closed behind them as they entered the castle, the grinding and squealing of the huge gears temporarily obliterating all other sounds.

“Thargen.”

“My Lord?”

“You will begin the debriefing with Paulimas, and the captains of course. I will join you soon. But for now, I will see my son.”

Thargen nodded. “My Lord.”

At the entrance to the Great Hall, Rolan and six of the King’s Guard kept walking down the hallway, three in front of him and three behind. Thargen and the three captains entered the Hall itself, passing through the doorway shoulder to shoulder. Half of the remaining Guard took up defensive positions right outside the entryway. The other half broke away and headed toward responsibilities that needed no discussion or guidance. This was a group that had been together for many years. Well they knew what to do to protect their King. Some went to check passageways in the immediate vicinity, always wary of the possibility of threatening intruders. Others climbed the inner stairways to get reports of anything unusual spotted by the sentries on the wall. Three went straight away to a door that was the entrance to the stairway leading to the dungeons. One of the night patrols had captured a Troll the night before, within a few miles of the Great Wall. Barber, the dungeon master, would be questioning him, and the King would want a report.

As Rolan entered the Prince’s nursery, he caught a view of himself in the mirror on the far wall. He was shy of six feet tall, slight of build, and years of war, with missed meals and never enough sleep, had done nothing to bulk his frame. He was handsome, if thin. His blonde hair was shoulder length, and while clean enough, could have used a good brushing. His jaw was square, and his face, which usually bore a look of kindness, was absolutely beaming with the thought that within moments he would gaze upon his three-day old son.

The royal nursery was quite large, and it took him several strides to cross it. He looked down upon his newborn baby boy. It was a moment frozen in time, and he was so taken by it that he noticed he was holding his breath.

As if on cue, the wet nurse, Rachel Sweetbriar, entered by an adjoining doorway.

“My Lord,” she offered. She looked him straight in the eye. This was significant because the same behavior in the kingdom of Slova, principal enemy of Ravenwild, would have cost her dearly, perhaps her life, or her tongue at least, for it would be unthinkable for a mere servant to look upon the leadership of that barbarous land with the gaze of an equal, and certainly not if the servant was a woman. “I am so pleased for you and the Good Lady Isabella.”

He returned his look towards his son. Again his face shone like the light of dawn.

“Have you and your betrothed decided upon a name yet?” She gave him a playful look, mischievous even. “If I may be so bold, all of us in the castle have been talking about this for weeks and weeks and we have …” And then she died.

The distinctive twang of a crossbow drew the King’s eye to the motion behind the curtain of a nearby wall, and before poor Rachel had hit the floor, Rolan had unsheathed his dagger and buried it in the chest of the assailant hidden behind the drapery. The intruder collapsed in a heap.

He bent to see if there was anything he could do for her, but her eyes alone, wide, vacant, and staring, told it all.

As soon as he had determined that Rachel was indeed in the next world, Rolan snatched his son from his crib, simultaneously drawing his sword. Mere moments later he regretted his decision to remove him from his bed, for it was shrouded by some of the most protective magic in the kingdom, and no force, from that of an evil-intentioned hand to that of a veritable inferno, could have harmed him. But once he picked him up, the power of the layer-upon-layer of spells was null and void. Now he had done it; exactly what they had hoped he would do.

It was then that the invaders, Gnomes all, emerged in unison from hiding places in the large room, numbering more than twenty strong. Rolan knew right away that without help, his cause was lost. He also knew that there was a formidable wizard involved with this surreptitious assault, for there was no way that this many spies could have breached the security of the castle unnoticed without the help of very powerful sorcery. This was not just the Great Wall. This was the castle itself.

Nonetheless, he maintained his battle ready posture, turning slowly to size up his position and decide if there was any reasonable possibility of cutting his way to an escape.

“My good King,” the voice came from somewhere behind him. “Put down your sword, and you have my word that neither you, nor your son, nor your Queen will be harmed. You have no chance. Look around. There are too many of us. It is over. Do not jeopardize your family by playing the fool. Surrender, or die. Surrender and live.”

The voice had a sickening, almost effeminate, quality though the timbre was that of a man.

Continuing his turn, Rolan came face to face with the speaker. He was a Gnome as well and appeared to be half a head taller than the rest of his company. A large scar ran from above his right eye, down across his nose and onto his left cheek, extending all the way to the base of his skull. A devastating wound, it had not gotten the medical attention it clearly needed when it was inflicted, so his face was now literally twisted upon itself. His appearance was, in a word, gruesome.

“Who are you?” asked Rolan, pausing only slightly in his turn to glance at the spokesman for the Gnome attack party.

The Gnome didn’t answer his question, saying instead, “I will only ask you one more time, King. Lay down your sword and surrender, or you and your son will both be dead before you have taken another breath.”

A horrific howl screamed its way into the room from the doorway through which Rolan had entered, and there was a blinding flash as the wall he was facing erupted in red flame. Ten of the Gnomes were instantly incinerated and reduced to piles of ash on the floor. There was clattering as their weapons hit the stone. Rolan took immediate advantage of the confusion by diving forward and to the right, rolling slightly so as not to crush his son, all the while maintaining his grip on his sword. By doing so, he placed a large bench in between himself and the remaining Gnomes. And it’s a good thing that he did, for several crossbow darts buried themselves in the wall in front of which he had stood a moment before. Several Gnomes now charged forward, brandishing their short swords. Rolan was forced to put his son all the way down, pushing him under the bench. The Gnomes pressed the attack, but quickly discovered that there were too many of them to effectively operate in this small space. Two died on Rolan’s first strokes, one whose chest was cleaved wide open, the other suddenly absent of his head. Again the red firestorm erupted, and three more were transmuted to ash. Their number was now reduced to four who shared quick glances of pure panic but continued to attack. Now, however, Thargen and several of the King’s Guard charged in from the doorway Rachel had used and reduced the Gnomes to bloody carcasses in a matter of seconds.

“Where is the Queen?” shouted Rolan as the last of the Gnomes was dispatched.

“She is in the Great Hall, My Lord,” Thargen called out. “She is unharmed.”

“Lead us there!” he commanded. His voice was pure ice.

“My Lord,” said Thargen. He motioned, and guardsmen surrounded their monarch.

With the King holding his baby Prince, they made their way to the Great Hall with all due haste. Rolan was sickened by the death all around him. Guardsmen and regulars lay butchered everywhere he looked. The smell of fresh blood was overwhelming. Several maids and serving women appeared to have shared their fate. This was beyond reason. This was beyond war. This was insanity.

Slamming the doors to the Great Hall behind them, Rolan and his guardsmen bought themselves several minutes of guaranteed safety, for the Great Hall was shielded with the same magic that had been conjured to shroud the Prince’s layette, only this was even more impenetrable because it had been conjured by five different wizards, including the Great Wizard Taber, the only surviving wizard-of-the-first-school. He was standing on the far side of the Great Hall, hovering in front of Queen Isabella with his arms extended in case any threat needed a taste of the red death.

“My love,” Rolan said to the Queen, the relief at her well-being obvious on his face.

“My King,” she returned. She was clearly overjoyed at the sight of her husband and son alive and unhurt.

“Wizard Taber,” Rolan said to the great wizard, handing the Prince off to the Queen, “I did not see you come with us from the nursery.”

Taber gave a wry smile. “Short cut.”

“Wizard, are we secure?” asked Rolan.

“We are.”

“Are you certain?”

“I am.”

“Good. How long?”

“As long as you wish, My Lord. There is no magic on Inam'Ra that could possibly unravel the spells that shroud this hall. But having said that, the longer we stay, the greater the danger of being trapped here. My guess would have to be that there are wizards lurking about outside that are doing everything they can to ensnare us. We must use the tunnels. And we must use them now.”

“Thargen, your thoughts.”

“My Lord, I agree with the good wizard Taber, at least for the Queen and the Prince. They must use the tunnels, and they must use them without delay. They will be safe under his charge. We, however, must fight our way out of this the same way we came in. They are Gnomes.
Gnomes
.”

He spat the word out as though the very presence of it on his tongue was distasteful.

“No amount of Gnomes can prevail upon us in our own castle. I say we take the fight straight at them. When all of their blood is spilt, we will regroup and make safe our home once again.”