The hair, the nose, and the perfectly symmetrical eyes were virtually identical to someone he’d seen recently. He didn’t have time to ponder who, though. He had to get to his feet before he was trampled. On the way back up, he was kicked in the ribs. His lungs were emptied of air, but that didn’t stop him from spinning a complete circle with his blade held out to buy himself some breathing room. Around him the violence raged on.
Gasping for breath, Vanx hacked into the neck of an ogre and spun away. He saw, more than felt, the effects of the thick-bone club that shattered to pieces on his skull. A burst of light, a shade of lavender not so different from the wizard’s protective sphere, engulfed his vision. Emerald and sapphire stars exploded as he tumbled to the ground again. He was dazed to near unconsciousness. He thought he heard the young blond warrior scream, but he couldn’t be sure. Then his eyes focused long enough to see two of the king’s men fleeing in terror and the twisted yellow toenails of the dirty green foot that violently met his body and sent him all the way into blackness.
Trevin finally severed the big ogre’s tendon and sent it to its knees. After that, the mounted swordsman came in and stabbed the creature full of holes. Finally, it fell over and lay still. More ogres erupted out of the forest, some right into the group pressed against the trees, some well clear of the jumble of butchered bodies.
Trevin didn’t register it at the time, for he was trying to put down the other of the over-sized beasts, but later he would reflect that the expressions on those ugly, pug-nosed faces that were just arriving were looks of fear, not rage. The ogre with which he was engaged kept him from seeing why they would be afraid. It was intent on pounding him into the dirt, or tearing him in half, as it had just done to another man.
When the new wave of ogres came, the bowmen lost their clear shot of what was left of the horde pressing the king’s men at the forest edge. That didn’t stop them from loosing at individual targets, though, and then there was a moment where everything stopped just long enough to draw a breath.
All of a sudden the forest itself came raging out of the forest. Half a hundred or more wolf-riding Kobalts and a dozen enta caused the archers to flea in utter terror. The rest of the men, and some of the ogres, just stood slack-jawed as the wolves, their mounts, and the living trees of legend laid waste in a very unpleasant fashion to every green-skinned creature that remained.
The beast before Trevin looked determined and hungry one moment, then wide-eyed with terror. An enta’s grasping branch-like hand reached over Trevin and took hold of the ogre’s upper arm. The mounted horsemen around them couldn’t keep their well-trained animals from bounding away. It was all Trevin could do to roll clear of the enta’s massive root-footed leg as it came down next to him and gripped the earth.
What happened next defied everything that Trevin understood about size and strength. A strand of limb no bigger around than two of Trevin’s fingers squeezed the monster’s bicep until the flesh pulped. The ogre jerked and screamed, but the enta held it fast. The enta screamed back at the ogre from a knothole maw, and then took a wide stance with its earth-grasping root-feet. How the enta could see, Trevin couldn’t imagine. There was no semblance of eyes to be seen anywhere. The ogre thrashed and wailed like a child about to belted by his father, but the enta held it firm. Then suddenly, with more strength and power than Trevin could imagine, the enta yanked the massive ogre up off of its feet and swung it overhanded only to slam it back into the earth with so much force that it shook the ground. The ogre didn’t so much as twitch after that. Trevin didn’t care, though. He darted in and ran his sword hilt deep into the ogre’s chest.
“Appreciate it,” he called up to the tree-beast as he fought to yank his blade free.
The sound of cracking wood, repetitive and powerful, like that of a falling tree crashing through other trees on its way to the ground, erupted from the enta before it turned and awkwardly lumbered away. Trevin couldn’t be sure, but he had a feeling that the ancient forest creature had been laughing at him.
Looking around, Trevin saw that the ogres had either been killed or had fled. Immediately his thoughts went to Gallarael. Unceremoniously, he half begged for, half pulled a man off of his horse. Before anyone could think, he was riding back toward the Wildwood to find his love. He didn’t have to go far. The young haulkatten came bounding excitedly out into the clearing. On its back, Gallarael’s limp form was sandwiched between Darbon and Matty. The wizard Quazar was nowhere in sight. As Trevin approached he was overcome with relief and didn’t see the young, blond-haired king’s man come limping up to the reunion, but Matty did.
“Ha!” She barked out a satisfied grunt of a laugh. “I bet every last coin in my stash that I could tell you who Gallarael’s real father is now.”
Trevin looked at her askance, and then turned to see the approaching young man. His jaw nearly hit the dirt. He was looking at a gore-covered, battle-hardened young man who could have been Gallarael’s twin. The resemblance was beyond all doubt. Only siblings could look so much alike. Then he saw the insignia on the young man’s breast and it all fell into place. This was Prince Russet Oakarm. Gallarael’s real father was the King of Parydon.
Without another thought, he fell to a knee and bowed to the prince of the realm.
Her name was Itchy Witchy, and her arse was always twitchy,
but her tits made the sailors forget to care.
The first mate tried to fit her, but her bush was full of critters,
and the captain made him cut off all his hair.
– a sailor song
Vanx opened his eyes back in his mother’s humble abode. It was just like it had been when he was a boy. As he rose from his padded floor mat and yawned, she turned and smiled that wonderful smile and her golden eyes lit into sparkling jewels. That smile was love incarnate and he hoped it would always be with him.
In the back of his mind he knew he was either hallucinating or dreaming because his mother had died a dozen years past. Vanx forced that thought away, though, and decided to revel in the warmth of his vision.
On bare feet he ran to her. When his arms wrapped around her waist and he had to look up to see her loving face, he realized he was in his boyhood form.
The comfort and familiarity of the vision shifted and he was skipping along the flower-lined path to Master De Xava’s grove, which was in a copse of ancient iron oaks near the river. Vanx had part of a cheese wheel, some fresh-baked bread, some dried venison, and some green apples in a sack thrown over his shoulder. His mother always packed enough for both him and the lesson master.
The feeling was carefree and intensely joyful, as if the whole world would eventually bend to his will. Just before he entered the copse, a pair of young Zyths a few years older than Vanx stepped out of the afternoon shadows and surprised him. Before Vanx could catch the breath they scared out of his lungs, they started pelting him with rocks and insults. Fists and booted feet soon followed.
“You’re not Zythian,” one of them barked as they sat on Vanx’s chest. “You’ve dirty hair and green eyes. You’re one of them.”
“He’s a mud-bug’s shit pile, is what he is,” the other boy said. “And his mother is just a man-loving whore.”
“Tainted boy.”
“Half-born.”
“Stupid half-human.” And so it went for a good long while.
Vanx remembered hitting up into the jaw of the bronze-haired, yellow-eyed boy on top of him. He’d struck with all he had. He remembered feeling a hard-toed boot hit him in the temple and the explosion of light and pain that it caused. Then there was the horrendous beating that followed. He also remembered that the idea the two boys were right, that he wasn’t like any of the other children on the island, so distracted him that he hadn’t even cried.
Master De Xava carried him back to his glade and boiled up a brew of thatchle root, lichen extract, and cherry bark.
“It is the custom that you decide the punishment of your assaulters,” the thin, s
ilver-haired teacher told him as Vanx sipped the pain-relieving tea.
“What would you have done to Zeezle and Dorlan Croyle for attacking you unprovoked?”
“But they’re right, Master,” Vanx said through swollen lips. “I’m not like them—or you. I’m not a Zythian.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” the old amber-eyed scholar asked. “The blood of Zyth and man do not mix well. Nearly all children of that sort of union die at birth, or shortly after. As far as I know, Vanx, you are the only one of your kind.” Master De Xava smiled kindly. “I’d say that makes you especially extraordinary.”
“I don’t want to have them punished for what they did, Master Xava,” Vanx said with a shrug. “I’d rather have the chance to face them one at a time on the practice yard. Or better yet at the center ring, at the Fairy Fest, before the council of Elders and all the clans.”
“What if one of them beats you? They are both bigger and older than you.”
“Then they will be shamed all the more for having both jumped me in the forest.”
The old man’s laughter was cut off a few moments later when Vanx continued. “…But neither will win, Master. Dorlan called my mother a whore. His insult will be returned tenfold. You can wager on it.”
The scene shifted a little bit. They were in the same forest glade, only it was many years later. Zeezle’s expression was hollow. There was none of the mirth in his eyes that Vanx had come to associate with his close friend. All that could be found in Zeezle’s dim amber orbs were tears of anguish. Dorlan, Zeezle’s brother, was dead. Killed when the notorious young dragon attacked the herd of big-horned billies that Dorlan was shepherding. Vanx knew that it would be a few more years before Zeezle found the portions of life’s joy that were charred away on Dorlan’s pyre. Zeezle’s passion, though, the grim subject of his work, and the focus of most of his attention, had been determined that day.
Suddenly Vanx was at a cozy candlelit table and Duchess Gallarain was purring in his ear. She licked his cheek with a huge, sandy tongue, and Vanx rolled awake instantly.
The young haulkatten was hovering over him and purring loudly. Around him, the horrific sounds of the injured men, and others shouting and bustling, came to his ears.
“You’re alive then?” Darbon asked with relief showing in his voice. He and Matty were crouched down near where Vanx was lying in the grass.
“He’s too pretty to die,” Matty said.
Darbon smirked at her but grinned when Matty looked at Vanx.
“What happened?” Vanx managed. “Where are Trevin and Gallarael?”
“They’re on their way to Dyntalla with half of the Crown Prince’s escort, no less,” Matty snorted.
Vanx tried to sit up, but instantly regretted the attempt. His head swam and his stomach clenched into a tight knot. A hot, pulsing throb began hammering at his temple in double taps. “Where are we?” he asked weakly.
“Shhh.” Matty patted his chest. “Lie still. The goose egg on the side of your head is as big as my nub.”
Darbon offered him a waterskin. “We’re out among the crows and corpses, waiting.” Darbon’s tone showed that he wasn’t pleased about it.
Vanx took a sip and was happy that it was wine he tasted. “Waiting for what?”
“Prince Russet’s return,” Darbon answered. “He and some men have gone off to find those who were following us. We are to all travel to Dyntalla together when they get back. Take it easy, and rest while you can.”
After a few more sips of wine, Vanx fell back into his half-conscious daze. He drifted off, contemplating the fact that the wild-haired warrior was the Crown Prince. He’d pictured the Prince of the Realm as being like the pompous young noble-boys he’d come across in the past. Prince Russet, though, was as bold and dangerous as they come. He dreamt this time of the night the duke’s men had hauled him out of the Golden Griffon’s common room and put him in chains.
He’d been playing the instrumental portion of “The Ballad of Lady Zepple”. He was lost in the pain-filled melody of the diminished chords and was about to start into the final verse. The room was crowded, and thick with pipe smoke, but the smell of roast boar and spilled ale dominated the senses. It was a scent that lingered in his nostrils long into his incarceration in Highlake Stronghold’s dungeon.
Most of the people in the dimly lit common room were dreamy-eyed, or lost in the melody behind closed lids. Only the barkeep, Vargoron, and his humongously fat wife weren’t enthralled by the tune. Vargoron was filling a trio of mugs held in one expert hand, while the slab of fat hanging below his wife’s upper arm swung back and forth as she wiped up a spill further down the bar. A pair of dwarves, ore seekers from the far eastern land of Karr, were swaying and sloshing in time. They’d been rude and unruly at first, but after Vanx played a few of the ditties he knew from their homeland they became enraptured in the music with everyone else.
Vargoron’s eyes darted nervously to the door, then to Vanx. Vanx had known what was happening. He could have bolted up the stairs and leapt out of a window. Twice before he’d used that sort of escape. Both times had been on Parydon Isle where the wives of the wealthy merchants offered him gold and jewels to share his bed. There, there were always so many people about that it was easy to fade into a crowd. It wasn’t the lack of people in the street that kept him on the dais, though.
It was the song.
To stop such a powerful thing in order to flee seemed unholy. As much as his instinct told him to, Vanx couldn’t just run away.
A half-dozen of them came through the front. By the way Varogon’s eyes darted back into the kitchen, Vanx knew there were more. He didn’t hurry the song, and before the men reached the raised platform where he sat they paused long enough to listen.
As Vanx finished the tune, the heart-wrenching crescendo had him swaying. He couldn’t help but wonder who would be waiting for Gallarain when she arrived at his room later in the night, for, as the song finished, and the magic of the music was gently broken, he had no doubt that it would not be him.
The duke’s men took away the lute to an eruption of boos. They wasted no time shackling his feet and hauling him bodily to the dungeon. As the heavy iron door clanged shut behind him, he woke again.
Vanx felt a sudden lurching motion and was jostled onto his side. Matty was there, and Darbon too. But something was wrong. They were in the back of a supply wagon and they were all in chains.
A crisp, cold burst of laughter came from somewhere nearby. The voice was unmistakable and it sent icy chills down Vanx’s spine. He fought the wrist manacles and peered up over the side of the wagon to see with his own eyes, hoping desperately that his ears were deceiving him.
“I didn’t have enough reason to take his head off before,” Duke Martin joked with the young Prince of the Realm. “But the mandatory penalty for escaping a sentence of slavery is death.”
“It is,” Russet Oakarm replied. “Yes, it is.”
I’m off to make a fool of a fool,
and a fool of a king as well.
Only a fool can fool a fool,
But with a king’s wits who can tell?
– The King of Fools
“The coldhearted bastard hasn’t said one whit about Gallarael,” Matty whispered. She was leaning against Darbon on the other side of the wagon cage. “He’s not even asked a question about her.”
Vanx was momentarily frozen in place by the look the dark-clad man riding behind Duke Martin gave him. The man’s eyes were empty and black, and something told Vanx that he was very dangerous. Vanx felt as if his soul were laid open by that dark, menacing gaze. Finally, a sinister grin twitched across the man’s hawkish, goateed face. The level of comfort returning to him made Vanx wonder if he had just been released from a spell.
“If the prince is siding with the duke, then I’m done.” Vanx twisted back to face his friends. “Didn’t Trevin or the old wizard speak for us?”
“It’s not what it seems, Vanx,�
�� Matty said cryptically. “That princeling gave me a bawdy wink and told me and Darby to hold our tongues and watch over you.”
“’Tis true,” Darbon agreed. “There’s something going on here. The prince’s guards were told not to say a word to the duke and his company. All that happened while the duke rode out of the Wildwood.” Darbon’s expression changed and he indicated with a pointed finger one of the riders. “That—that hairy-looking mountain man is Bear Fang Karcher. Just like them Kobalts said, they were hunting us. He is an ogre hunter.”
“The prince knows as much,” Matty added. “I think we might be alright as long as we do what the princeling says; he seems to be a crafty one.”
“If you say so,” Vanx grumbled. He held up his wrist manacles, letting the footlong chain between them dangle. “It’s not like we have much choice in the matter.”
Matty held up her arms. She had no arm manacles. There was no way to keep one on her handless wrist. “You’d be surprised what I could get done with this lot of soldiers.” Her expression was jovial as she reached up under her pullover top and produced Vanx’s dagger from between her breasts. She showed it for only half a heartbeat before snugging it back into place. Both Vanx and Darbon considered her cleavage with only mildly surprised looks on their faces.
They rode on through the day, bouncing and bumping along on the hard-planked wagon bed. They crossed the Kimber River at a wide, pebbly shallow. Vanx kept expecting the wagon to start floating, but the water never made it over the axel shafts and the horses didn’t even have to slow.
Just before sunset Vanx began to smell wood smoke. Soon after, he saw the tiny speck of an open fire ahead in the dusky distance. Their procession headed directly toward it, following two horsemen who went galloping ahead in a rush. The landscape was mostly flat here. A few clusters of pines and wild oaks thrust up out of the sea of knee-high grass, as did a few lonely knuckles of grey stone.
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