The Wounded Guardian (36 page)

‘Can we tell it which one to believe?’ Martil half-joked.

‘Perhaps we should not think about starting the rebellion yet. Perhaps we should live somewhere quietly until the Dragon Sword is convinced you are the rightful wielder, then come back.’

Martil felt the irresistible lure of that offer. To live somewhere quietly with this woman and this child, why, it was the sort of life he had dreamed of when he left Rallora for what he imagined were the peaceful northern lands. True, the ideal woman had not been a queen, and had probably been a little more generously endowed, in the mould of Rabbag rather than Merren. And the children he had imagined would be boys, tough youngsters he could teach how to ride and how to use a sword. But he looked over at them, sitting at the table, and somehow knew deep in his soul that these two were better than the dream.

‘It sounds good,’ he said wistfully.

Merren looked at him then, and he wondered if he had put a little too much of his feelings into his voice. He quickly covered it by offering to read Karia a book, and used her excitement to mask his own emotions.

But it was hard not to relax, sitting there in the quiet cabin; a little girl on his lap, listening to him read a book, a beautiful woman sitting quietly, watching them both. Hard also not to daydream, to imagine this was a real life.

Karia settled down and enjoyed the attention. This was more like it. No shouting, no anger and no Martil covered in blood. Just a nice fire, a funny saga about a princess who was made to sleep with a small vegetable under her mattress and herself as the centre of attention. This was the sort of thing Father Nott used to speak about. This was the life she wanted.

Merren watched Martil read to Karia and felt a strange, wistful pang. Her mother had died young and she had been raised by a succession of
nursemaids and tutors. Her father had been distant and rarely had enough time to spend with her. Even after anointing her as the future Queen, he had only ever wanted to talk to her about royal duties. When she was a little girl, she had longed for time with her father like this. It had never happened. He was always too busy. Would things have been different had that happened? It was impossible for her to say. Still, it did make her think about her own future children. They would need care and attention if they were to grow up into people the Dragon Sword would accept. She looked at Martil as he read quietly to the little girl. She was not blind; she had detected his attraction towards her. She had immediately thought it was something she could use to help keep him loyal, as it had worked with Barrett. At least she was pretty sure it could work like that. Anyway, the important thing was encouraging him to keep being a good man, and not the Butcher of Bellic. He was no good to her as a dead Dragon Sword wielder.

The sound of a horse disturbed the cosy scene. Martil guessed Barrett and Conal must be back. He stayed in the chair, wanting to hold onto the magic of the moment. But something made him wary, there was something about the footfalls as they crossed the veranda and dragged up to the door. He was already moving, lifting Karia up, when a hand pounded on the door and a voice, hoarse with emotion, bellowed:

‘Open up! In the name of Aroaril!’

Martil handed Karia to Merren and signalled towards the bedrooms. She nodded at once, and darted inside one. Martil felt his mind clear as he readied himself for battle. There was nothing that could come in that door that was going to get through him to them.

He freed the latch and jumped back, Dragon Sword held low, ready for the rush.

Instead the door swung open and one man stumbled inside. A man who fell to his knees and raised his hands towards Martil in supplication. It was only when he turned his tear-streaked face up that Martil recognised him.

‘Count Sendric!’

Cezar slipped in through the window and crossed to the bed silently. It had been a long hunt. His delay in returning from Norstalos had allowed Earl Byrez to almost disappear into an underground network of Aroaril-worshippers and sympathisers.

But, after his failure in Norstalos, Cezar was in no mood to give up. An afternoon of torture had revealed this location and he was now only steps away from finishing his mission.

The shape in the bed was unmoving as he walked silently across the floorboards—but a whisper of noise to his left made him dive forwards; just in time, as a sword hissed through the air where his head would have been.

Still kneeling, Cezar sent a pair of throwing knives flying back towards his attacker. One thudded into the wall, the other struck home.

The man gasped in pain and Cezar drew a shortsword and leapt forward, deflecting aside a weak thrust to ram his blade home.

The stricken man staggered back, and moonlight through the window revealed him to be Earl Byrez.

‘This is not the end,’ the dying man groaned. ‘My son will see Markuz destroyed.’

‘No, he won’t,’ Cezar told him coldly before cutting his throat.

There was little of the satisfaction he normally felt when completing a kill. He was still haunted by his failure to kill Martil, and now Onzalez had told him he could not go back to Norstalos immediately. He must wait for word from Ezok. But Onzalez had reassured him: ‘You shall face him and the fight will finish with you standing over his fallen body. I have seen it.’

It was hard to be patient but at least that thought was a comfort. He would wait, and the waiting would make the victory all the sweeter.

Merren, Martil and Karia watched the Count gulp down a cup of wine. Martil had helped the Count sit at the table, and then had summoned Merren and Karia from the bedroom.

‘What happened?’ Merren demanded.

The Count passed a shaking hand over his face. ‘My daughter. It is my daughter. After you left, soldiers arrived, demanding answers. I told them I had sent you away, and I believed you had left through magical means. I invited them to search the castle, which they did, leaving empty-handed a turn of the hourglass later. Almost as soon as they had gone, I rushed down to see old Father Quiller, who has been our family’s priest since I was a boy. I asked him to contact friends in the capital, to see if my daughter was all right and if Gello had taken any action against Rana and the other ladies-in-waiting. It was in my mind to appeal to the local commander, a man called Jennar, to send word to the Duke that I had done nothing to help you. That way my daughter could be released. But within another turn of the hourglass, the news came back to us.’

‘Yes?’ The Queen’s face had gone white.

The Count looked up at her and seemed to dissolve, tears running down his cheeks. ‘Your majesty, Gello’s men have…abused…then killed my daughter and the rest of your ladies-in-waiting. My friends were able to reply so quickly because they saw the naked bodies hanging from the palace walls.’

The Count dropped his head into his hands, but Martil turned to Merren. Her face was pale, there was a muscle jumping along her jawline, and she seemed to be holding herself together only by an extraordinary effort of will. He half-reached out to her, to give her a shoulder to cry on, a hug for comfort—he did not know, only that he should offer something.

But she merely held up her hand. A single tear escaped her, rolling down her cheek until she cuffed it away angrily.

‘Now, Sendric, you see what we are up against. For defying Gello, my friends, your daughter, were foully abused then murdered,’ she said in a voice so icy Martil thought it must surely break. ‘But if you and the other nobles who hate Gello had united behind me years ago, we would not have come to this. Now we must destroy Gello to put this right.’

Sendric looked up. ‘My Queen, I am willing to do anything you ask of me. My life is unimportant. Ask of me what you will.’

Merren stood, walked around the table and helped Sendric to his feet.

‘I share your pain, Sendric. Mine is made bitter by the knowledge good men like yourself were too scared to do anything before. But I can promise you this, we shall have revenge.’

‘What of the prostitute I hired to impersonate the Queen?’ Martil could not help but ask. He regretted the deaths of the ladies-in-waiting, but at least they knew what they had been letting themselves in for. Lahra, or Rabbag, had been tricked by money.

‘As far as I know, she was set free. Only the bodies of the ladies were hung from the walls,’ Sendric shrugged, obviously uninterested in the fate of a whore.

‘Gello’s birthday is soon. She was probably booked to perform there,’ Merren said bitterly.

Martil decided to change the subject swiftly.

‘Count Sendric. Gello’s actions mean three things. First, he is incredibly confident. He is willing to alienate four nobles by killing their daughters…’

‘One noble,’ Merren corrected him. ‘The other three were daughters of wealthy merchants or former soldiers.’

‘Still, one noble. Second, he is happy for people to know what happens to those who oppose him. Third, he is not concerned you will find out how your daughter died. You know what that means.’

‘Aye. Either there is a force on the way to kill me, or orders for the local garrison to do the same.’

‘Then we must gather what men you can and find somewhere quiet to use as our base. This lodge is too small, and too easy to find. We shall start raiding, and then we shall start to make Gello afraid of us.’

‘How many men will you need? I have my personal guard, then there are my hunters, and I’m sure some of the militia would be willing to help.’

‘No more than fifty. We need to start small, and work upwards,’ Martil said confidently.

‘Horses!’ Sendric said, alarmed.

They could all hear hoofbeats, but Martil held out a hand.

‘Just two. It will be Barrett and Conal—unless you think you were followed, Count?’

‘No. I used the secret passage to get out. None could have followed me.’

Sure enough, Barrett’s secret knock echoed through the cabin a moment later. He and Conal arrived with sacks full of fresh food, to be horrified by the news the Count brought, yet pleased it meant they could start working towards Gello’s downfall.

‘We have a busy night. We need to split up, get the men, get supplies and get to our new campsite,’ Martil declared.

‘Count Sendric. I appreciate you are the only noble in this small group, but War Captain Martil here is a veteran of the Ralloran wars. He is also the Dragon Sword wielder. I wish I had been taught the arts of war but my dear father and aunt decided I should be kept from them. As I cannot run a campaign, I will appoint Martil as my military commander.’

The Count shrugged. ‘I do not care. I seek only revenge, then a quick death.’

Merren walked over to him and forced him to look at her.

‘We are not doing this to die. We are doing this to win. Understand? You shall all be my advisers. I was banned from studying warfare by my father but I am a quick learner. So I will need to hear each night how our plans are advancing. Now come, we have no time to waste.’

After a few days of frenetic activity, the tiny rebellion was taking shape. For Martil, these were strangely familiar times. It almost took him back to the days
when he was training the Ralloran army. Sendric had found them almost fifty men, a combination of his personal guard, his hunters and militiamen of long experience that he could trust. Sendric had wanted to also bring Father Quiller along, but the old priest had refused, saying he needed to look after his flock. That had been something of a blow, as Martil knew they would need a priest’s healing powers at some stage. But at least, thanks to Sendric’s hunters, they found the perfect camp, a cave system in the hills, hidden by the woods.

Martil was worried it would become unpleasant in the depths of winter but Merren assured him that was still months away. As well as being extensive enough to house all the men and their families, there was plenty of fresh water from a nearby stream and an abundant source of game through the woods. Barrett was careful not to tell Karia about it, but each day he summoned deer, or birds and rabbits for the cooking pots. As well, all the rebels had brought copious amounts of dried oats and salt.

The caves were hardly comfortable, but they did their best to make them liveable—again. They had found some unusual drawings on the walls, as well as piles of old bones and rotting animal skins.

‘This must have been a home to the goblins,’ Sendric decided. ‘Perhaps even the seat of their High Chief! Before we drove them into the north, they were all through this forest. It would have been an ideal spot for them.’

Martil looked at the crude paintings of hunting and dancing and wondered at the life they had left behind here. From what he had heard, the northern mountains were harsh and inhospitable. The paintings fascinated Karia as well.

‘What sort of creature are these goblins?’ she asked, trying to compare her hand size with the handprints on the cave walls.

‘They look similar to us, a bit shorter, much hairier and their speech is very different. Once this was all theirs. But this is a rich land, with fine forests, good farmland and deposits of gold and silver. When our people began to settle the land, the goblins tried to drive us away. But they could not hope to stop our cavalry, archers and armoured infantry. For years they raided us and fought back but they have accepted the reality that this will never be theirs again, and they leave us alone,’ Sendric told her.

‘I would love to meet one,’ Karia sighed.

‘I don’t think that’s going to happen,’ Sendric smiled.

Martil reflected that the goblins may not have known how to defend their land from the invading Norstalines but they knew how to find a good home. It was almost ideal. They had used crude stone walls to divide the caves into useful areas. With some enthusiastic help from Karia, Barrett conjured up powerful blasts of wind to clean the system, then encouraged huge amounts of herbs to grow, which were then magically dried and placed around the caves. The smell of lavender, lemon balm and thyme freshened the stale caves. Furniture from the magician’s lodge, as well as from Sendric’s country home had been brought along on pack animals.

The country home, a huge house with a score of bedrooms, had proved a godsend, providing everything from a huge variety of clothes and blankets to tables, chairs, plates, cutlery, food, spices, a number of domestic animals and even two female
servants who were remarkably accommodating. Sendric, Martil and Barrett all felt it was not essential for Merren to discover that fact. The families had only been able to bring along as much as they could carry—getting them all out of the city had been a task in itself. Luckily the underground passage had another entrance, into the cellars of a house belonging to the commander of Sendric’s personal guard. The men and their families left both this way and through the gate. Obviously they had been forced to leave much behind and anything they lacked, such as beds, had to be built.

Once the early work on the caves had been done, life settled into more of a pattern.

During the day, the women worked to grow food, as well as to keep the caves clean and make them feel more homely. They also had a never-ending task of washing and cleaning clothes. Sendric’s country house had provided plenty but living in woods and caves, and working and training, meant those clothes did not stay clean for long.

As to the men, training them was the most important thing. They were in three groups, and Martil made these into squads, trying to use the rivalry between them to spur each other on.

First came Sendric’s guards. There were two 10-man squads, as well as two sergeants and a lieutenant called Rocus. They were all well armed, with mail shirts, shiny helmets, shields with the Count’s crest, and long swords. They had been drilled to perfection—to carry out ceremonial duties. However, the manual of arms was not the best teaching device for the skills necessary to break through a shield wall. And if their swordsmanship was clumsy, their fitness was abysmal. Too much
time standing post, and not enough time running, had them exhausted after only a taste of Martil’s training.

The hunters numbered eleven, as well as a chief hunter called Tarik. These were fit men, used to running all day and night, brilliant archers to boot, but unused to working with others. They operated in small groups of two or three usually, were unable to take orders and were just as likely to chase after a deer as they were to follow Martil’s instructions.

Then there were the militia. Sendric had tried to choose those men with at least ten years’ service, but not so many years that they were too old for this sort of venture. He had selected a dozen men, as well as a lieutenant called Wime. They were tough men, who were all veterans of tavern brawls and street fights. Martil knew this type of experience could not be beaten; it was the sort of thing needed to survive a battle. They were crafty, could take orders, and knew all about operating as a team and protecting each other’s back in a fight. But they were only armed with thick wooden sticks, and wore only boiled leather coats for protection.

Each group had its own abilities, and its own weaknesses. Using each to the greatest benefit would be the real challenge.

Martil felt it was important to work them hard, to stop them thinking about what they were doing. Obedience and loyalty to Count Sendric had brought them here. But that would not be enough when it came to a battle. They had to believe in their cause. And that would take time.

The first day they looked a strange sight. The guardsmen were lined up immaculately, two ranks, sergeants at the ends, Rocus at the front, all in
their polished armour and all standing to attention. The hunters stood in a group, chatting among themselves, while the militia had formed into a rough line but stood relaxed, waiting to see what he would do.

Martil had no intention of giving them a big speech, or impressing them with his war stories. It was more important to win their respect.