Elise was now awake, adding a quilt to her nightgown as she waited to hear more about what was going on.
“May I peek at the wee mabyeth?” he said, sweeping off his hat.
“Why certainly,” she said as he stepped softly to the cradle and knelt.
“I love you Dora,” he whispered. “And now I am free to say such a thing.
“Thank you,” he said, standing up at once. “And I know you'll take good care of her.”
Elise gave a bewildered nod and Coel vanished down the steps.
Chapter 207
“Cachu!” gasped Peredur at the sudden sight of Minuet, Bethan, Ariel, Abaddon and Daniel in the kitchen at Peach Knob. “Pity you can't knock up thin air when you appear like that,” he said, sitting down hard on a bench.
Bethan grabbed up his hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Where are Grandfather Neron and Grandfather Razzmorten?” said Ariel.
“Razzmorten's asleep in the parlour,” said Peredur. “You'll need a candle.”
Ariel turned loose a couple of mage lights and helped Abaddon guide Daniel to a chair by the daybed where Razzmorten lay snoring, as Minuet, Bethan and Peredur followed.
“So is Grandfather Neron all right?” said Ariel.
“Oh child!” said Peredur. “I'm so very sorry.”
“No!” cried Ariel. “Poor Grandpa!”
“I know your grandfather Razzmorten did everything he possibly could...” said Minuet.
“I sure did,” said Razzmorten as he sat up, “for all the good I was. You know, I could've done it if Demonica hadn't got me, all those years ago. I really could've. I never did quite recover.”
Ariel sat beside him at once, unable to hold back a great whooping sob as she put her head on his shoulder.
“I think everyone needs a nice breakfast,” said Bethan. “Now have you kept up the starter, Peredur?”
“Pret' neigh every day,” he said. “I'm careful because I don't like sour bread.”
“The witches are dead, Father,” said Minuet.
“Witches?” said Razzmorten.
“Damn right!” she said. “Demonica showed up for the dance.”
“Demonica!” he said, giving wide-eyed pause. “I'll declare. So they were setting up an elaborate trap. They thought that when the twins showed up, Demonica would come in from behind and surprise them.”
“And she did,” said Ariel.
“And Ariel got her,” said Abaddon.
“Good for you!” said Razzmorten giving her a squeeze.
“And that's all quite true,” said Minuet, “but Spitemorta was just as shocked as the rest of us when Demonica appeared. I think she was there to take the Heart and the Staff.”
“Well now if that's right, I'd allow that Spitemorta really did try to kill her.
Demonica was good at waiting for years and years to get even. And nobody, I mean nobody ever crossed her and lived.” He turned suddenly to Abaddon. “Now how the ding-dong blazes did you end up in the thick of things?”
“Oh I've been in Niarg for some time, sir,” said Abaddon. “It's a bit of a tale.”
“Abbey killed Spitemorta, Grandfather,” said Ariel.
“Now I will declare!” said Razzmorten. “How did you ever manage that?”
“I'll be happy to go into all of it when we have the time,” he said as he sat by Ariel and took up her hand. “But to give you an answer, I came here right after you all did. And my coming back to Spitemorta went to her head so badly that she gave me the Heart and Staff to do in Ariel and Daniel. And when the moment arrived, I got her.”
“Which will be legend,” said Ariel.
“I'd say you'll both be in that legend,” said Razzmorten.
“And poor Bethan's missing out on every bit of this in spite of being Queen Mother and in her own house,” said Minuet. “I haven't seen her in all these years. I'm going in to help her.”
“And I'm coming along to sit at the table,” he said.
Abaddon kissed Ariel on the cheek as he rose and offered his hand. “So Daniel,” he said. “Can you make it to the kitchen, or should we give you a hand?”
“Well I'm on my feet,” said Daniel, with a shove at the arms of his chair, “so I'll make it. But I can't imagine having what it takes for so much as a mage light for who knows how long.”
Razzmorten had just put a spot of milk in his cup and was reaching for the pot when Ariel sat down at the table with the Heart and the Staff. “I can't believe that you've not destroyed those,” he said with a look of alarm.
“I'm not going to,” she said.
“You had months upon months of training for this very purpose...”
“Yes,” she said, shaking her head. “Going through all manner of possible ways of bleeding off their power, but...”
“No!” he thundered, shooting to his feet. “You dare not let them take possession of you...!”
“Father!” cried Minuet, rushing from kneading biscuits to calming him with a floury hand. “Father. We're all here to keep an eye on her. Perhaps she has an explanation.”
“Longbark, Grandfather,” said Ariel. “Daniel and I both communed with her.
There is far more power in either of them than we had ever imagined. Any attempt to release it would destroy us and everything else within a respectable distance.” She paused to look at Daniel.
“Nay,” he said, shaking his head. “She just told me that my role was to help you.”
“Neither the Heart nor the Staff can be destroyed by any power on this earth,” she said, gently touching Razzmorten's arm as he patted her hand and slowly sat back down.
“So she told me that I am to bring them to Mount Bedd and give them to Teeuh. She will be their keeper for all time and she will use them to free the old Fairies and Longbark. In fact, Abbey and I plan to leave for Mount Bedd as soon as it's light.”
***
The gibbous moon rose out of a spreading glow in the east, just as Ariel, Abaddon and Minuet stacked poor Daniel by the buttery door and were helping Bethan to gather her things for the traveling spell to Peach Knob. Its ghostly light which turned the floundering blackness at Tnassip Road into a landscape of shadows was not the help to Bernard's assault that one might imagine, for it gave the enemy some grasp of what was upon them as well as places to hide. Edward and Laora, Sulacha and Mwg, Herio and Flame and all the rest of the three hundred and fourteen dragoons relentlessly swooped and dove and loosed their arrows, opening up the enemy lines again and again as more enemy pressed in from the Port of Niarg and from further up Tnassip Road.
At last, with dawn not far away, Bernard's army were finally through, forming their ranks and tramping into the countryside to the tootle and thump of tabor pipe and drum. Bernard turned about to march backward, looking at his troop, proudly swinging his sword in time like a drum major. He was as exhausted as he could ever remember, but as the gooseflesh prickled up and down his arms, he found himself singing.
Obbree was following behind with his four strike falcons, grandly waving his finger as if he were directing the music. Suddenly he was wide-eyed with alarm. Enoil, Baase, Caggey and Coadey raced past Bernard for something ahead. “Captain!” he bellowed.
Bernard started an immediate turn forward in time for a bolt from a heavy crossbow to pass clean through him and stick in the ground behind Obbree.
Baase got there first, dancing up the black tunic and red hour glass to rip out the assailant's windpipe, as Enoil pounced and slashed him open where he stood. They scarcely had him on the ground when Caggey and Coadey struck down two more crossbowmen taking aim. In the midst of this, Bernard's men broke formation for a skirmish with a small detachment of enemy from Tnassip Road as Obbree drug Bernard out of the way to find him completely lifeless. “Damn it!” he cried, hitting the ground with his fist. “Why wasn't I awake! Only a hair of a moment and he'd be alive!” He sat back and bit his lip as tears filled his eyes.
Suddenly there were horns being blown here and th
ere for some distance, one right neigh. Obbree looked up to find a mounted enemy officer flanked by a horn blower and a standard bearer with a great white flag.
“He was a good man and one damned fine soldier,” said the officer.
“The best,” said Obbree, standing up at once. “And he was my friend.”
The officer removed a gauntlet. “I'm General Mor Coel, first in command of the empress's Northern Continent forces,” he said, offering his hand.
“I'm Obbree, austringa.”
“Out of the great grassland across the salt sea?”
“The Strah...”
“Yes,” said Coel with an appreciative nod. “I see your great birds now. I've heard tell about the Elven terror bird warriors in spiked leather like unto you. Now, could you tell me who's next in command? Empress Spitemorta is dead and I find it pointless to continue this madness.”
“Our captain Stanley fell on the beach, so I'd reckon Prince Herio would be your man.”
“Prince Herio?” said Coel. “She never told me he was a prince.”
“Beg your pardon?” said Obbree.
“So where would I find Prince Herio?”
Obbree looked this way and that into the air above. “He seems to have found us,” he said as he began waving to Herio and Flame.
“Dragons!” said Coel, patting the neck and withers of his shying unicorn. “I got word about them.”
Flame swooped down from the sky and trotted to a halt. Herio dismounted at a run and saw Bernard on the ground the moment he came forth, removing his helm.
“You're General Coel,” he said, offering his hand.
“Yes I am. And you're the Herio who once waited on the empress?”
“She was the queen of Loxmere-Goll at the time. I'm surprised she had reason to remember me long enough to tell anyone.”
“Oh she remembered you, all right,” said Coel with twinkling eyes. “She decided that you were a spy, and she wanted you dead for making a fool of her.”
“Well good for her,” said Herio, with a hard squint at Coel. “I've wanted her dead too. Her stinking army burnt Ash Fork to the ground and hanged my mother and forced me to watch as they hanged my little brother.” He took a spit and resumed his squint.
“Now you don't look like someone evil enough to do a thing like that. But I sure do wonder how you could serve someone like Spitemorta.”
“I've had those very thoughts myself for quite some time, Prince Herio. And now I come to surrender her army unto you.”
“Well now what's she going to say to something like that?”
“Not one thing when she's dead.”
“Whoo-eee!” cried Herio as he gave his helm a great heave into the early morning air. “Well General. Come with me and we shall announce to all that this war is over.”
Coel scratched behind an ear. “Now pardon my slow wits Prince Herio, but it doesn't sound as though you're taking my officers and me into custody.”
“Are you telling me that I should? Now here I'd allowed that you all had the honor to stay nearby in case someone needs to question you. Could I have been wrong?”
Coel had never been one to stammer, but when he said: “No Your Highness,” he had very wide eyes.
***
Karl-Veur and Yuna's apartment was the entire top floor of a wing of Darcastle which overlooked one of the castle's two enormous formal gardens. Yuna spent the night here under guard with her windows open, her curtains tied back for the warm breeze as she paced about from room to room. When it was light enough for the warbling blackbirds to begin singing down in the garden, the guards allowed her to order breakfast.
She was sitting at the board, carefully groomed and dressed when they brought her tea, grits and fried chicken livers. As she began eating, a racket of hammers commenced just below, driving away the blackbirds as they started knocking together the very scaffolding and racks for the drawing and quartering of Karl-Veur and Yann-Ber. She smacked down her knife, knowing exactly what it all was. “No!” she said between her teeth as she picked up her knife and bread again. “They shall not get to me.”
There was a knock at the door. As she was hurriedly wiping her mouth to call out, she looked up to see Captain Caradog already walking in. “Even the lowliest of the help know to wait for an answer before entering a lady's chamber, Captain,” she said as she put down her napkin.
“I have good news for you, my dear,” he said, taking a chicken liver from the platter. “I've decided that you'll not be dying today alongside your traitor son and husband.”
“And I see you've no better grasp of what I might deem good.”
“I've decided instead to have you at the execution as my guest, so you'll have the closest seat,” he said with an eager bounce on his heels. “And certainly your loved ones will take comfort in your being there to watch them crying out as they're being cut open, don't you think? Aye?”
Yuna lifted her chin and stared.
“Nothing to say? No matter,” he said through his teeth as he cruelly clamped hold of her arm, yanking her to her feet. “It's time to be going.”
“Why it's awfully early...” she said as if he were gently helping her from a coach.
“Not for the feast,” he said as he dug in his thumbs and gave her a shake.
“Feasts are for piggies!” she snarled, heaving in her dirk to its hilt under his ribs.
With a look of shock, Caradog stepped back, sat down hard on the floor and collapsed onto his back.
“Pig!” she said, standing over him for a moment as she caught her breath.
Quickly, she pulled out the dirk, wiped its blade on the slashed blouse of his sleeve and sheathed it. She slid the stud from under the daybed in the parlour and quietly barred the door. There were guards beneath the windows over the garden. All of the windows were guarded, except for one at the far end of the apartment, overlooking a roof a storey down.
She hiked her skirt and raced to a coil of rope she had found and tied to a timber cruck in the middle of the night. She threw the coil out the window, climbed over the sill and down to the roof. She sighed with relief when she saw that she could push in the window below on its hinges, after all. “Aah!” she squeaked, finding her way through the curtains to bump into the chamber maid.
“Princess!” gasped the maid, dropping her armload of linen.
“Oh please, please!” hushed Yuna. “I'm in trouble, Adela. Please don't tell anyone that you saw me!”
“I never saw you ones at all...”
“Thank you, thank you!” said Yuna as she grabbed Adela into a hug and raced away to stop short at the door. “Adela? Are there many people in the hallway?”
“Why it's much more quiet than it usually is...”
And with that, Yuna stepped out and raced to the end of the vacant hall, down all the steps of a long stairwell and outside to the armory door. It was open. There was no one to be seen, only row upon row of crossbows and armor in storage. At the far end, she startled a page next to the armory stairway.
“Where could I find Lieutenant Joran?”
“Uh...” he said, pointing up the stair. “Clean to the top.”
At once she was racing up the steep stone steps, stumbling in her skirts in a place or two and scrambling on in spite of the painful blows to her shins and knees. With her heart in her throat, she pounded on the low door.
“My word!” said Joran as he opened the door.
“I think I killed Captain Caradog,” she said, chest heaving.
“That's an improvement,” he said. “Where is he?”
“In our apartment, and I tried to make him bleed as much as I could when I pulled out my knife...”
“Well good for you...”
“But people might know. He came for me to force me to watch them draw and quarter Karl-Veur, Yann-Ber and Azenor.”
“Yea. Someone might well know that he came to get you. But who told them about our rising?”
“I have no idea...”
“Come inside,” he said, standing aside for her. “Now, no matter what happens, stay in here. Keep the timber across the door until I come or someone you trust comes for you. See? Use this peephole. All right?”
Yuna nodded with frightened eyes.
“Now look 'ee here. Theah's nobody going to be drawed and quartered this day.
Ye hear?”
“Fates' speed, Lieutenant!” she said.
And with a nod, he closed the door, clattered down the steps and began racing about, getting word to the rebel soldiers. At once he ordered two small squads of crossbowmen to go throughout the castle, slaying on sight every single guard and soldier under Caradog's command. He gathered sergeants from each of the squads under his own command and sent a pair of runners to the dungeon to find out what was being done with the prisoners. They weren't long in returning. “Azenor, Karl-veur and his son and Lieutenant Argan are being taken up to the garden, if they're not there already...” said the sergeant.
“Argan?” said Joran. “No wonder I couldn't find him. And the garden's a big problem. There are scores upon scores of Caradog's men up there already, all boxed in by the garden wall. We can't just go into the garden and take them by surprise. And not only that, if they've got Argan, most of his men are undoubtedly still out in the country on maneuvers. I want men with two set crossbows apiece in every second story window. At my command, we'll shoot twice, taking out as many men as we can next to the prisoners.
At the same time, I want a squad, each man with two set crossbows apiece in place, just inside the castle at the door to the garden catwalk. At the very moment that Caradog's men respond to being shot, I want the squad to run out onto the catwalk and loose two volleys and go back inside. While that is going on, I want the window men and everyone else inside to storm the garden. Now Sergeant Gwenn. I want you and Sergeant Kiger to make another run. Find Argan's men, tell them what's happened and send them here to reinforce us as fast as they can travel.”
Caradog's men continued to arrive as the kitchen set up boards on trestles and began bringing out steaming roast hogs. Azenor, Karl-Veur, Yann-Ber and Argan were tied to posts on the front of the scaffolding for the quartering. Joran's men quietly scurried to take their places at the windows. The officer in charge at the scaffolding, who had been glancing at the sun, sent two soldiers inside to find Caradog. Just as the door closed behind them, Joran's men ran them through.
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 217