"I hope you found what you were searching for," she said.
Braxton put down the piece of cheese he was nibbling, "Yes, Master Gilbert was very helpful. But I still have some reading to do yet."
"Can I ride the white horse?" Chureal asked anxiously.
"Chureal, you ride dragons," Braxton made a funny face that made her giggle. "Who am I to tell you that you can't ride a horse?"
"I think the princess just wanted me to ask you so that we could have a chance to check up on you," Chureal confided in a not so quiet whisper.
Braxton looked up to find Princess Trava blushing fiercely. He smiled at her. "Thank you for the food." Then to Chureal, "Yes, you can ride the white horse. Just don't ride it too close to Cobalt cause he might eat it."
The princess smoothed her dress. "My uncle said that you would attend the council meeting later?" she asked.
"Yes," Braxton nodded.
"He is going to ask you for help in defending Grey Rock from Prince Venom."
Braxton figured as much. "Why does the prince want you and your brother so bad? Surely the full might of Perdun will eventually be summoned to take this place."
"No," she said, looking away. "King Valdier, Prince Venom's father, won't let him molest this place outright, so he uses his personal guards and hired bounty men to harass us."
"Why?" Braxton asked, now more confused than he'd been before.
"I think it's because my father holds something in his treasure room that Prince Venom wants badly. At least that's what High Wizard Jorvan once told me. It's a big secret and Sir Jory and my brother think that the only way my father would let it go is if he was forced to ransom it for me, or maybe my brother."
"King Noffa, the king of Pelonia, wants it, as well. That is one of the reasons Ormandin is at war with them and why we are hiding here. We were fine until my stupid brother had to go look at those horses. Now everybody probably knows we're hiding here. King Noffa supposedly made a deal with Prince Venom. King Valdier must not know about it or he would have forbidden his son to strike such a bargain."
"If King Noffa made a deal with the Prince of Perdun to capture you, then both of them knew you were here even before you or your brother went to that village," Braxton said. After a moment, he added, "It seems more than a coincidence they found you with a remote band of horse traders. They would've had to know you were going there before you left."
"Oh no," the princess said as his words sank in. "That means there is a traitor among us."
"Yes," Braxton said. "Probably more than one."
"But who?"
"Until we know, I want you to stay close to Chureal," Braxton said, wondering if they should be getting involved in all of this. His instinct told him that he should be seeking the Staff of Aevilin, not chasing traitors here, but he had a good idea who at least one traitor was. He hoped he could manage to help, so that he could ask for help in return.
"When is the council to take place?" Braxton asked.
"You and Lord Cryelos are to sup in the Hall of Lords this evening. It is a private room, and as you dine, the council will convene."
"Then I should like to talk to Sir Jory before then," said Braxton. "You two should enjoy the horses and pretend this conversation never took place."
"I'll have Sir Jory sent here at once," the princess said worriedly. "I thank you, Lord Braxton. You seem to be trustworthy, and I will do as you say and not mention this conversation to anyone. Our traitor must be found and removed."
"They will only cover their tracks and hide if they know we suspect them," Braxton said with a reassuring smile. "Cryelos, Sir Jory, and I will see to it. If we can't, then we will tell your brother before the council this evening."
Sammani, the princess's handmaiden was no maiden, and her tear-filled sobs filled the library with her fear, but they filled Sir Jory with disgust.
"She is innocent of any wrongdoing," said Braxton to the knight, whose blade was pressed at her throat and already drawing blood. "All she is guilty of is a loose tongue."
"And even looser skirts," the knight added. "It is the merchant named Holmberg who is the traitor."
"No, please. He is no traitor," Sammani wailed. "I love him." Sir Jory pushed at her throat with the blade a little bit harder.
"But he doesn't love you," Cryelos said gently. He pinched Sir Jory's blade between his fingers and pulled it away from her neck. "If Holmberg is the only one who you told of the trip into the Green Sea to buy horses, then he is the only one who could have alerted Prince Venom's men to your destination."
"No," she sobbed. "Please, no, no, no."
"Sir Jory," Braxton asked, "Are you completely sure no one else knew of this excursion out of the stronghold?"
"The prince told me of his desire to go see some stud stallions that he heard were the most magnificent of beasts. He was told of the horses by Hern Holmberg, I might add. The princess had been complaining about being cooped up here in Grey Rock so she was invited. For obvious reasons, Sammani goes where the princess goes, as I go where the prince goes. Besides them, she was the only one who knew we were going, though Holmberg probably figured the prince couldn't resist. The trip was planned in secret in order for me to better protect them, and not even Lord Amicuss was told beforehand." Sir Jory scratched his head and moved his sword away from Sammani. "But that part was because Prince Trovin knew he would be forbidden to go."
"You and Sammani have posed as the twins before?" Cryelos asked the knight.
"Yes, several times in Ormandin," he said. "There are many factions of people who would like the gold King Noffa would pay for either one of them. That is why I didn't wear any armor on the trip. Sammani knew a full day before we left when and where we were going."
Sammani sobbed. "I didn't think answering his questions would bring anyone harm."
"It's okay, Sammani," said Cryelos. "He used you, and that is not your fault." He looked at Sir Jory and conveyed that he should try to understand the girl's feelings. Sir Jory sighed deeply and put his sword back in its sheath. He nodded his understanding begrudgingly.
"Sammani can't be trusted anymore, and as a sworn protector of the twins,” Jory made clear, “it is my duty to see that she is replaced."
"Someone should fetch Hern Holmberg," suggested Braxton. "He may have had help."
The search for Hern Holmberg lasted until the royal twins matched pair of white horses trotted in from Grey Rock keep's large wooded riding haven. They were lathered in sweat and rider-less. Princess Trava and Chureal, who had been riding them, were nowhere to be found. All of the areas inside the keep's walls were searched thoroughly once, and in the process of being searched again. Lord Amicuss's personal guard was conducting a room-by-room inspection of the keep and all of the outbuildings, and if that proved fruitless, then the furious lord had sworn to empty the keep to a man.
Braxton and Cryelos, along with Sir Jory, helped with the initial search of the Wood Haven, as it was called. It was a simply a walled in section of thinly forested land inside the greater walls of the keep. After finding no sign of them, Braxton sat himself down and forced out all of his worry and anxiety and slipped into the void to search for Chureal there. He spent quite a while calling out to her in the emptiness of that strange place where their magic sometimes met, but she did not answer. A final try produced the same results, then Braxton pulled himself from the void in a near panic, and with Cryelos on his heels, headed for the open bailey where Cobalt was still sleeping. After Braxton told Cobalt the situation, Cobalt wasted no time taking to the air to search for her from above. He was somehow bonded to her as her protector, but the bond of friendship they shared was far more powerful. Cobalt, too, should have been able to sense her magic out there, no matter how far away she was, but he couldn't.
The only reason Braxton could come up with for this was that she was unconscious, or worse. He chose not to think about what worse might be. He had a little faith in Chureal's ability to defend herself and a little more
faith in the medallion's magic, which would try to protect her on its own, but he felt responsible for the situation since she'd asked him if she could go riding with the princess, and he’d agreed.
He took a breath and looked around deciding that the only ones he knew he could trust at the moment were Cryelos and the dragon. He asked Cryelos to help Sir Jory search the stronghold and interrogate witnesses and suspects while he found a quiet, secluded place and tuned out the chaos around him. He sought out the void one more time, this time, though, he split his soul and left his body as the snow-white falcon. He circled his way up high into the sky where his keen avian eyes could see for leagues in all directions.
He first searched northeasterly, the direction Cobalt had gone. He figured the growing blue dragon would be easy to find and hoped that maybe Cobalt had already located them. The dragon never appeared to the northeast, so Braxton made an arc over the Green Sea using the Grey Rock keep as his center point and scanned from the north to the east, then to the southeast in turn. Then he came back again, only closer to the keep. He saw nothing other than a pack of orange and black brindle-striped dog-like beasts carving a group of lines through the Green Sea far to the south.
Not knowing what else to do, he soared along the edge of the rocky cliff the keep was built against. The face of it extended as far as he could see to the northeast, it's sheer edge eventually meeting the foothills of the northern mountains, but to the south, the cliff only continued for a few leagues more before it was split by a craggy canyon that gradually fell away toward the grass. The Green Sea cut into the crag like a riverbed cutting through the mountains, and Braxton realized that was exactly what he was seeing. All of this had once been underwater. All the infinitely flat grassland surrounded by rocky mountains and sheer cliffs was once a lakebed, or maybe even the bottom of a sea.
It occurred to him that since the water level of the world's oceans were continually rising that it would probably be underwater again at some point. This made him wonder if the rising sea was a new problem, or if the sea falling away from a place like this was an old one.
Something in the valley caught his eye, and he swooped low to investigate it. What at first looked like a herd of large animals turned out to be a band of ogres. Big and green-skinned, wearing crude animal skins, and carrying axes and swords that looked far too small in their giant hands. They were leading an even bigger man-like beast of a type Braxton had never seen. It was hunched over in chains. Its legs were the size of rock trolls, and its head was as big as a wagon wheel. It took six of the giant ogres to hold the chains, one at each hand and foot, one from the creature's waist, and the last from a collar around its neck.
Was this a true mountain giant?
They were working their way down into the grassy riverbed from up high in a seemingly orderly fashion and with some haste, and Braxton made a mental note of their position with respect to the stronghold. Something about them set off warning signals inside, but he had to ignore them because finding Chureal was his priority. For a moment, he felt shame for not including the princess in that thought, but he didn't let it distract him.
From the band of ogres and their giant captive, he began to circle back into the sky, rising higher and higher as he went. He was so high that the edge of the cliff was only a line across the land below him, the area inside Grey Rock stronghold's walls only a speck.
Once he was there alone in the wide-open sky, he let go of his consciousness and trusted in the magic of the void. So far it had always guided him true and he let it guide him now.
With eyes closed to all but the emptiness around him, he felt the air rushing over his feathers and the strong winds coming off the mountains to the west, tilting him until he could feel the heat of the ground below again. Then he opened his avian orbs, and after orientating himself to the horizon and the mountainy forest below him, he saw smoke.
About a league north of Grey Rock stronghold, but hundreds of feet above it on the top of the cliff a forest began, as did the western range of the Grey Rock Mountains. It was there, a half days walk back from the cliff's edge, that a grey column of smoke rose out of the trees only to be sheared off and blown away near their tops by the brisk wind.
Braxton dove for the smoke, and he closed off the growing worry and fear, for just beyond the smoke was a long line of broken trunks, all of them leaning in the same direction, and all of them pointing to a sparkling mass of blue scales. His worst fears were confirmed when he came around and saw Cobalt sprawled and twisted in a tangle of broken trees where he'd obviously crashed into the forest with some force. A great swath of blood poured down the side of him where an actual spear still protruded from his side.
There was a wagon there. That was what was burning, and the ground was littered with a half a dozen bodies, but it was only one body he could see that concerned him. The little one in the brown dress that lay just a few feet in front of Cobalt's hind claw.
Braxton's anger and anxiety and fear for the lives of the dragon and Chureal, both of whom he loved dearly, and had sworn in his heart to protect, took him back into the void. The emptiness there wasn't black as it had been before. This time it was blood red, and the glow of the tiny little diamond-like jewel that he envisioned there was radiating magic more powerful than any he'd ever felt.
When he pulled himself out of the void he was no longer in the secluded area of Grey Rock’s keep, nor was he in the form of the falcon. He was standing there in the forest beside Cobalt and Chureal with eyes so thick with tears he could barely see.
Chapter Nine
Cryelos and Sir Jory searched and searched, but not a trace of the princess or Chureal was found. Even more alarming to Cryelos was that Braxton had gone off somewhere and no one had seen him either. Cryelos checked the gate houses and no one had been allowed in or out since the search for the princess started. He checked their rooms but found no one there. Lord Amicuss's personal guards were searching through all of the rooms in both of the towers, so Cryelos checked the library, then the kitchens, and he began to grow very worried, for Braxton had disappeared now as well.
Sir Jory was so uptight is his search for the princess that, at first, he paid Cryelos no attention, but the elf persisted and finally the knight listened.
"First the princess and Chureal, now Lord Braxton," Sir Jory cursed. "Who is going to disappear next?"
Cryelos couldn't answer the question, but a cry went up in the area of the royal chambers and Sir Jory was off to see what is was about. For lack of not knowing what else he could do, Cryelos followed the knight across the bailey yard. Sir Jory pushed his way past a huddle of weeping servants into the prince's quarters, and Cryelos nearly tripped over him when he fell to his knees and cried out.
Prince Trovin had been butchered in his bed. Stabbed dozens of times through his sleeping clothes. He laid pale on his thick bloody feather mattress. The linens and stuffing spread about in the scuffle had soaked up most of the blood, but a few places on the stone floor were puddled with what was left dripping off the bed covers. The room smelled coppery and metallic, and Cryelos had to fight not to heave.
After steadying himself, Cryelos approached the bed and took a closer look. He found that the side of Prince Trovin's neck had been ripped open. It looked like a bite wound, and it brought back a not so distant memory.
"Sir Jory, look," Cryelos said softly. "I know this is hard for you, but you should see this."
The knight wiped away an anguished tear from his eye. It was clear by the mixture of guilt and rage brewing on his face that he was on the edge. "They…it bit him," he said. Whether it was a question or a statement, Cryelos wasn't sure, but he answered yes anyway.
Cryelos pointed to the bloody white orb of Prince Trovin's eyeball dangling along his temple on glossy strands of blue and purple.
"I should've run him through," Sir Jory muttered. "I never thought he would survive."
"I think it's a clear message," said Cryelos, remembering the captain who'd
lost his eye to Jory's finger.
They thought they'd captured the prince and princess.
"I wonder how he…they…it got into this room, much less the keep. I spoke with the gate men while looking for Braxton, and they said that no one came in or out since the feast, save for the regular patrol."
"Your friend, Lord Braxton, that has gone missing, would he…?"
"If Lord Braxton wanted the Prince of Ormandin dead none of you would be here right now," Cryelos said, biting back offense as best he could. “You’d still be in that wheeled cage, or worse.”
"I didn't…" Jory looked into Cryelos's eyes. "I meant no disrespect, but I had to ask."
Cryelos could see the pain in the knight's eyes, and he also saw a spark of something dangerous deep down in them, but he knew it was only the truest of admiration and love for the prince and princess that could ignite such a vengeful light. If he were in the knight's boots, he might have suspected, if not asked the same question.
"No offense taken," Cryelos said. "I'll have you know that Braxton would never do such a thing, but if he wanted this whole garrison to be destroyed, not one of you could stop him."
"The whole garrison could not stop whoever did this," Jory said. He reached up and pulled the canopy cloth off its supports with a yank and covered the prince with it. "Let's hope that Lord Braxton is alright, for I'd have him aid me. Whoever did this made the exact same mistake I did." The knight wiped another stray tear from his cheek. "And I pray to the gods, to all the gods of men, that the princess and your young friend Chureal haven't met a similar fate."
Warrior of the Void (Fantastica Book 4) Page 8