by T. O. Munro
However, all present had seen the blistering effect of the Helm when it came into contact with the Vanquisher’s enemies, the blasts of energy which could kill those close and stun those far away. So no chances were to be taken as the Bishop manoeuvred the object to enable the antiquary’s closer inspection.
“I’m hardly likely to throw this at you,” Udecht muttered glancing around at the taut bowstrings and the even tauter archers.
“Even so, your reverence, set it down on the bench here. There’s a few orcs now drinking in the eternal feasting halls that are telling a tale of how a mad bishop clubbed them into the afterlife with an old basinet.”
“That was simply self-defence.” Udecht set the Helm down on its back in the middle of the bench. It rolled a little to one side on the curved tail plate. The Bishop reached forward instinctively to steady the item, but thought better of it with his fingers still an inch or so short of the metal. There was a whisper of exhaled tension, and a creaking of slackened bowstrings around the room.
“It may have been self-defence, but it was in the midst of a prisoner’s escape attempt.” Haselrig reminded him as he lowered his head to peer more closely inside the Helm. “Who’s to say you will not try to repeat the artifice?”
Udecht shook the chain on his wrist drawing a complimentary rattle from the other end around the antiquary’s arm. “I would be a fool to try to kill you, Haselrig, and land myself chained to a dead weight.”
“Sound logic indeed, but there has been much lack of wisdom in your actions to date, your reverence. Such folly would not be out of recent character for you.”
“Says the man who betrayed an entire nation so he could become slave to an undead abomination. I’ll take no lectures in wisdom from you Haselrig.”
The antiquary gave a weary sigh. “Here, bring that lantern close, let us shine a light inside the Vanquisher’s dark place.” Udecht did as he was bid, illuminating fully the inner surface of the Helm. It was a simple basinet. A solid metal aventail provided some projection for the neck. The frontispiece extended down as far as the tip of the nose, shielding the eyes with an unbroken sheet of metal which would effectively blindfold the wearer. The light inside showed a lining of rich red leather, providing the Helmet’s wearer with some cushioning and comfort against the hard metal and any blow that might be struck against it.
“The lining is perhaps not part of the magic. If you could peel it away there may be an inscription beneath that will make sense of its dweomer.”
“You want me to put my hand inside that thing and try to tear it apart? My I remind you that my unlamented brother put his head in it and two dozen orcs scrubbing have still not got the stain out of the marble throne room floor.”
“My I remind you that we have thus far spent over a week in fruitless study and each sunset my Master’s disappointment is a shock to both of us,” Haselrig rattled the magical chain that bound them together. “You will have marked no doubt how the lightning bolts which this binding conducts grow stronger with each day of failure. There will come a time, before too long, when the persistence of our inadequacy will prove fatal.”
“I’m not afraid of death. You should have let him kill me when he wanted to.”
“You’re an ungrateful sod. I risked my Master’s displeasure to intercede on your behalf, to save you from your brother’s fate.”
“Why did you do that then, Haselrig?” Udecht challenged the antiquary. “If I were to scratch away the sheen of your magnanimity I am sure I would find crude self-interest where it has always been, the beginning and the end of all your motivations.”
Haselrig made no reply. He gave the prisoner a cold glare of malevolence, which assured Udecht his words had struck home. “What happened to you, Haselrig? You were a priest once like me. How could you turn so far from the path of the Goddess?”
“It is my place to ask questions and yours to answer them,” Haselrig growled.
“I know no more than you of the workings and the wielders of the Helm.”
“You know much that you do not say, your reverence. The secret passages into which you led your guards to their deaths at the assassins’ hands. The self-same paths by which you led the intruders to their escape. It would require the painful taking of many lives to recompense my Master for a betrayal of such magnitude and you have but one life with which to pay.”
Udecht shrugged. “My life has been a nightmare these past six weeks. Death would be like waking up.”
Haselrig gave a snort. “You clearly know too little of death and nothing of dying. For now, we have a riddle to unravel, set by your ancestor. Where in lies the power of this helm and how could it be unlocked?”
“Peer into the blasted thing all you like Haselrig. You’ll get no help from me.”
The antiquary turned to the nearest archer. “Shoot him,” he said. “Somewhere painful but not fatal.”
***
Abroath bowed low before Prince Rugan as his father had told him to. “My name is Prior Abroath. I bring the host of Oostsalve to your aid, my Prince.”
The Prince of Medyrsalve ran a thumb along his jaw, the black beard precisely trimmed despite the privations of an army camp on the march. “How many men?” the half-elf demanded.
“Five thousand, your Highness.”
“What kind of warriors?” Rugan queried sharply. Abroath felt the Prince’s keen scrutiny of his own monastic robes.
“Hobelars, your highness and five hundred mounted archers.”
“No knights? No cavalry!” The Prince’s eyebrows shot up as high as the tips of his cusped ears.
“These are a mobile force, your Highness. We can ride to where we are most needed before we dismount to fight.”
Rugan sighed. “I had need of cavalry. There’s none can shatter an enemy like a charge of heavy horse.”
“Indeed, your highness, but we may stand and hold a line against the foe.”
“I need to break a line, not hold one. I have delayed precisely to await your re-enforcements that I may be sure of overwhelming force. We have this one chance to break into Morsalve before next spring. Your father sends me half the force I expected with a priest to make his apology.”
Abroath stood dumbly before the Prince’s ire. He knew the arguments well enough, he had rehearsed them in his head so many times before conferences with his father. The half-elf was pacing the tent, his swarthy complexion assuming a darker hue as he ruminated on their predicament.
“Where is your father in this lad, and your brothers?”
Abroath gulped. His father was busily crating up the family treasures and clandestinely commissioning all the fast merchantmen for an escape to Salicia and the Eastern Lands. His eldest brother drunk or gambling or both in an inn. The other doubtless preoccupied in a whorehouse. “My father is not well, your highness. He is much troubled in his stomach. He wished that my brothers stayed to comfort him.”
“Your father’s belly is big enough to trouble several men, though I would think your priestly healing would avail him more than your brothers’ ribald humour and uncivil appetites,” Rugan growled.
Abroath blushed deeply red for shame, not at the insults but at their accuracy. “I came to serve your Highness, for the honour of my house,” he said stiffly.
Rugan paused in his pacing and looked anew at the prior, scanning him from blond tonsured head, past wispy boy’s beard and white robes to sandaled feet. He nodded. “Do you carry a weapon, Prior?”
“I have my staff,” Abroath thumped the butt end of his quarter staff on the hardened ground. “And I have the Goddess’s blessing,” he pulled out his crescent symbol on its chain about his neck.
Rugan sighed and ran his fingers through his anthracite hair. “Listen well, Prior Abroath. A handful of refugees have told us of the abomination in command of the enemy, a vile creature who has captured Listcairn and sets her orcs to test our defences. There is one tribe in the plain below, which has been creeping forward this last week, probing ou
r positions, chasing my skirmishers. They are over reaching themselves moving too far ahead of the rest of their allies.”
“We can attack them, cut them off!”
“I will attack them, and cut them off. The arrogance of the creatures leads them into the trap I have set. Tomorrow it will be sprung and I will destroy this overweening tribe and send the few pitiful survivors screeching back to spread panic in the tribes that follow. With the Goddess’s blessing we can trigger a rout that will not stop until the gates of Listcairn or beyond.”
“A noble plan, your highness. What part may I play in it?”
“There is a valley a mile south of here, the Torrockburn. Your hobelars can take that route down out of the hills and circle round to take the enemy unawares in the flank.”
“I will lead my soldiers to glory, for Oostsalve, your Highness.”
“Do not lead them boy. You are a priest not a warrior. I am sure your father did not send you without some captain to take the soldier’s part, if not I have people I can spare.”
Abroath blushed more hotly than before. “I did not come to play the coward.”
“Do not mistake caution for cowardice or impetuosity for bravery, Prior Abroath. I have manoeuvred long and hard to get in position where I can strike a single killer blow against the enemy. Your men may serve a part and I am grateful to you for bringing them. There will be many have need of your healing powers before tomorrow nightfall and that will be service enough.”
Abroath struggled to marshal a counter argument in the face of bitter disappointment. A third son, his was always to be the way of the cloth. He had embraced both the separation and rigour of priestly training with a resolute commitment that his brothers had never given to their martial duties. In his monastic order he had found something of the companionship he had lost when his mother died. The same event which had plunged his father and his brothers into a prolonged and communal exploration of all the vices to the injury of both mind and body.
Now, at last he had found the chance to serve a worthy master, the impeccable Prince of Medyrsalve, his four hundred year reign a model of how a Prince of the Salved should conduct himself. And now, on the threshold of such fulfilment, he was to be consigned to serve as hospitaler, rather than lead the small division he had coaxed out of his reluctant and recalcitrant father.
“Your Highness…” he began, a cogent entreaty fully formed in his mind. But it evaporated as the tent flap was flung back and a tall silver haired woman strode in, unannounced.
Her presence stunned the imperturbable Prince of Medyrsalve. He stood, jaw dropped facing her. She smiled at the impact of her arrival.
“Grandmama Kychelle,” the Prince muttered. “What has happened, what brings you here at such an hour? The Lady Giseanne she is….?”
“She is well,” Kychelle assured him.
“And….” He did not dare complete the question.
“You have a son, my boy, a healthy son, to be called Andros in tribute to his great grandfather.”
Rugan heard not her pronouncement on the name of his heir. His lips split in a broad grin and his eyes widened in joy. He spun round and seized Abroath in a bear hug of surprising strength. Then breaking apart he seized the monk’s two hands in his own and pumped them ferociously. “I have a son!” he declared. “I have a son.” Then just for the avoidance of doubt he added, “a son!”
“I wish you joy of it, your Highness,” Abroath found the Prince’s smile infectious.
“Joy indeed,” Rugan agreed. “Now we truly have something to fight for, when tomorrow comes.”
***
Kimbolt swayed easily in the saddle his cob trotting alongside the destrier of Willem the outlander. A few yards in front of them Barnuck’s wolf and Dema’s palfrey rode close enough for the Medusa to maintain a guttural discussion in orcish with the chieftain of the Bonegrinders.
“Tomorrow will be a great battle,” Kimbolt called across to Willem. It was, as ever, a fruitless effort to stir the taciturn exile into conversation. Kimbolt shrugged his indifference and turned his attention to the path ahead. The Palacinta hills loomed close and high to the East. Deep valleys were cut in their flanks where trickles of streams awaited only the rains to turn them into raging torrents draining into the placid River Saeth. The great Eastway climbed steadily upwards into the Gap of Tandar. The saddle shaped pass named after the first Prince of Medyrsalve, right hand to the Vanquisher and his lady and the founding father of the dynasty which had culminated in Prince Rugan.
Athwart the Eastway, within two bowshots of the lower reaches of the hills, was the camp of Nagbadesh and the Redfangs. As they approached Kimbolt noticed with professional approval, the close spacing of individual guards around the camp’s perimeter. One sentry made a disciplined challenge to the unmistakeable figure of the Medusa. Dema let Barnuck respond with the day’s password.
As they made their way into camp, the squat figure of Nagbadesh shouldered his way through a cluster of curious orcs to greet his commander in chief. “Good, lady,” he growled. “See, Redfangs ready for blood and battle. Tomorrow we slaughter many pink squealing humans. Tomorrow I cut down their half-breed general myself.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Dema told him as she dismounted, closely followed by Barnuck. “You’ll follow the plan exactly as I’ve told you.”
“Redfangs not cowards,” Nagbadesh protested.
“Of course not, but you want to kill humans and plenty of them?”
“Yes, yes, lady.”
“Then you’ll follow the bloody plan and I promise you, Chief Nagbadesh, you’ll spill enough human blood to swim in.”
“How plan work again?”
Dema sighed and shook her hooded head. She turned to Willem and Kimbolt. “Give us a minute, maybe ten.”
The outlander and the bed slave nodded their acquiescence and left Dema and her orcish lieutenant re-explaining the finer tactical details to Nagbadesh. Willem dismounted to exchange a few words with the handful of outlander humans assigned to serve embedded roles in the Redfangs tribe; their task was to ensure no ambiguity or misunderstandings at company level should impede the execution of Dema’s strategy.
Alone Kimbolt urged his horse onwards towards the Redfangs forward lines. The orcs eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and hunger, but the discipline of Dema was armour enough to protect him against their vile instincts. The grey green humanoids serving under the Medusa’s command had quickly learned to work with their human allies, rather than to eat them. Kimbolt felt as safe riding through this tribe of three thousand orcs as he had been walking the corridors of Sturmcairn in times so distant as to be almost forgotten.
The setting Sun behind him lit up the slopes of the Palacintas. Kimbolt urged his steed onwards, beyond the vigilant cordon of orcish archers, and walked his horse slowly up the Eastway. The horse’s hooves clopped loudly on the smooth cobbles of the greatest straightest road in the Petred Isle. A normal evening would have seen a bustle of traffic, carts thronging the road in both directions, particularly in the years since the fall of Undersalve had cut off the river route from Morsalve to the sea. But now the busiest road in the Salved Kingdom, the road that never slept, bore but one solitary horseman.
Kimbolt hauled lightly on the reins to bring his cob to a halt, a little pressure from his knees and the horse turned full circle on the spot. To the East lay Rugan’s lines, skirmishers and archers hiding behind boulders and trees barely a bowshot away lining the pathway into the hills with a honeyed trap. To the West lay the Redfangs’ camp, their fires glowing, their own archers poised.
For a long minute Kimbolt stood there, midway between the two front lines in the great battle that would be joined when morning rose. He understood something of Dema’s exhilaration. What soldier did not dream of such a moment, of a single day when the fate of a nation would depend on their generalship. He shook his head ruefully, clicked his tongue and urged his horse back towards the Redfangs’ lines.
&
nbsp; Willem was waiting for him, “where did you go, bed slave?”
“To have a look at the enemy,” Kimbolt replied.
***
Abroath was late, the last to join the council, but the other captains parted to allow the robed prior a place at Rugan’s campaign table. The Prince had conjured a three dimensional image of the battleground more vivid and compelling than any map. At his shoulder the Lady Kychelle nodded her approval as he recapped his dispositions.
“Here is the great Eastway,” the half-elf was saying. “The Redfangs have crept closer and closer to our outliers, without realising what steel jaws they have placed themselves between. This salient they have created is a weak point in the centre of their line. The main body of the enemy is too far behind away to the West just this side of the Saeth. Tomorrow at dawn we launch our assault. The Redfangs will break or be destroyed. We will pursue their remnants.”
“But sire, what of the nomads here on the enemy’s southern flank?” an officer queried. “If we charge into their centre, the nomads can wheel round to take us in the flank, yet if we spread out along the enemy line, we will dissipate the force of our charge.”
“Quite so, Major Darbon” Rugan agreed. “That is where the force of Oostsalve, so recently arrived, will prove invaluable.” He nodded towards Abroath. “The prior’s mounted infantry will shadow our path along the Eastway as they come down the valley of Torrockburn just south of the Gap of Tandar. They will then deploy to guard our flank and prevent any envelopment by the nomads.”
“We will be honoured to do so, your Highness,” Abroath assured him with alacrity.
Rugan paused in his discourse and gave the prior a curious stare. “Tell me Prior Abroath, you did find a man suitable to lead your force on the morrow as we discussed earlier?”