Jareld discovered that if Thor had to guess, he’d been out for almost a full day, but since there was no sun, moon, stars, or hourglasses in the Caves of Drentar, he had no way of knowing. Then, of course, came the ugly question:
“Do we know where we are?” Jareld said, timidly.
“In the Caves of Drentar,” Thor said.
“Yeah, I got that part,” Jareld said.
“Also,” Corthos added, “We’ve moved a bit since you were out.”
“Aye,” said Thor. “I mean, yeah. The Turin started shooting arrows at us through the floor. Or ceiling. Depending on how you look at it.”
“And when we tried to rest, we found we were near a scorpion pit. Nasty buggers.”
“After that it got more confusing,” Thor concluded.
“So, neither of you happened to keep a map of his own, did you? A simple record of number of paces and direction.”
Thor and Corthos shook their heads.
“So, what hope do we have of finding the Saintskeep?”
“Look at it this way,” Thor said. “We have only marginally less hope than we did when we started.”
Chapter 53: Men of the Kingdom
Traveling through the smoking door was not nearly as exciting as Michael had hoped. You see a door in front of you, suggested by smoke, and you step through. You’re immediately on the other side of the door, as though you had only stepped through smoke, except the world is completely different. Also, you feel mildly dizzy, as though you had crossed your eyes for about a minute.
The dizziness is the result of a repositioning problem. Inevitably, your altitude and orientation are changed slightly by moving through the door, so the world makes you pay in the form of discombobulation. In this case, there was also a change of time zones, and it was now two hours earlier. There would be some smoke-lag.
“Well,” Michael said, “Here we are.”
By “here,” Michael meant several miles outside Anuen. They were at the limits of a city of tents, in which an army was scurrying about. Almost as soon as the four of them were through the gate, a small patrol came up to them.
“Stop there and declare yourselves,” said the oldest and most senior member of the patrol.
“My name is Count Michael Deliem,” Michael said, “And it is urgent that I speak to…” he looked at the patrol uniforms… “Lord Timothy, of Brimford.”
“There is a Turin man amongst you,” the patrolman said, “What business does he have in your company and in our land?”
“He is with me, and as you see fit, he can be bound for your safety,” Michael said. Halmir rolled his eyes and held out his wrists, for cuffing.
“You don’t seem too concerned about him,” the guard said.
“I’ve chosen to be worried about other things.”
The patrol did cuff Halmir, unaware that he could use magic, and that these restraints would be meaningless. They blindfolded him, and led him in front of the company, as Michael, Flopson, and Vye followed behind.
They were led into the center tent, where Timothy Brimford waited at a war table. On the table were maps, little figures representing armies, and little model ships representing the navies.
Behind Timothy, sitting in the corner in the only comfortable chair in the tent, was Emily Rone, the last of the royal family. She was dressed all in black, still in mourning for the loss of her family.
The patrolman approached Timothy and leaned across the table to whisper to him. Timothy looked over the table to Michael, sizing him up. Finally, he returned some whispers to the patrolman and stood.
“His Majesty, King Timothy, will see you now,” the patrolman said.
The patrolman left the tent. Timothy walked out in front of the war table and stood before Michael.
“Your Majesty,” Michael said, and bowed. Vye, more out of surprise, also bowed. Flopson did not.
“Why will your fool not bow?” Timothy said.
“One man’s fool is another man’s foil,” Flopson said.
“Is this your way of showing insolence?” Timothy said to Michael. “You bow, but you mock me with your jester? Have the clown removed.”
Guards dragged Flopson from under his armpits. He smirked all the way out of the tent.
“It is the fool’s prerogative,” Michael said, “To show us humility. But while I don’t share his level of insult, I do share his sense of purpose.”
“You are Count Michael, of Deliem,” Timothy said. “I don’t think we’ve even met before. Have you come to pay your respects to the new King?”
“No,” Michael said, “At least, not inasmuch as I don’t think there is a new King.”
“I could have you executed for treason.”
“With all due respect, Sir Timothy, so could I.”
“I am the King.”
“You’ve named yourself the King,” Michael said. “So has Castor Rone. Neither of you has earned that title.”
“You do not earn that title.”
“Neither should you take it by force.”
“There is no authority higher than the divine ascension.”
“There is the King James Standard.”
“Which is silent in the matter. I am the husband of the only living child of our previous King. Emily gives me the right to the throne.”
Michael paced around Timothy, coming to the side of the table, where he could face Emily. She looked up at Michael. Through her veil, he could see her eyes narrow.
“Your Majesty,” Michael said, bowing to Emily.
Emily stood. She was not used to being addressed. “Your Grace,” she said, curtsying back.
“I am sorry about your loss,” Michael said. “I knew your father, of course, and your brother. Both honorable men.”
“Thank you,” Emily said.
“You, I have heard, are an honorable woman.”
“I like to think so,” Emily said. “But flattery will get you nowhere.”
“What are you doing?” Timothy said. “Why are you speaking to her?”
“If you are going to use her to claim the throne, I think I’d like to hear what she has to say,” Michael responded.
“It doesn’t matter,” Timothy said. “I am the King. My word is law.”
“Your carriage is a bit ahead of your horse. You can’t claim the Kingship by rule of your own law as King.”
“There is no legal argument for the Kingdom. There is only the force of might. I am going to destroy Anuen, if I must, to defeat Castor Rone. Once I am unopposed, no one can deny me.”
“You’re right,” Michael said. “There is no legal argument. But neither do I believe that it was the intention of Rone the Great, nor King James after him, to allow the throne to go to the victor of a pitched battle. We are all men of the Kingdom, except of course, for those of us who are women of the Kingdom.”
Vye couldn’t help but smile. Emily, too, turned her attention to Vye, then back to Michael.
“We are men and women of the Kingdom, and we must fight. But not for command of the Kingdom. We must fight for the Kingdom itself. Lady Vye, if you please.”
Vye approached the table with the armies. She had led enough troops in her life to organize her demonstration quickly.
“You see what you have here? Your army in Dalton is going to be crushed by Castor’s cavalry, coming from the south. Yes, you can batter down Anuen, but both you and Castor will lose three or four full units. Your archers will be depleted.”
Vye grabbed several dozen spare unit markers. She started placing them, one at a time, in Trentford, the heart of the Kingdom. She finally placed ten of them, all facing Avonshire and Brimford.
“This is the invading Turin army,” Vye said. “Thirty thousand strong, or so I’ve been told.”
Timothy and Emily couldn’t help but look at Halmir, who, though blindfolded, was clearly a Turin.
“If you and Castor Rone continue this fight for the next two days, you’ll come down to less than two thousand men. And t
hose men will be weary.”
“This is some trick,” Timothy proclaimed. “Castor sent you. To get me to lower my guard. What has he promised you? I can make you a Duke.”
“As I’ve said before,” Michael continued, “You can’t. I’m not here for glory or titles. I just married a beautiful woman and I want to live in peace with her. I want this war to end. And I want us to win.”
“What do you propose?” Timothy asked, though his tone was still full of trepidation.
“We must be men of the Kingdom, you and I. We must do what is best for the Kingdom, not ourselves.”
“If we stop fighting this instant, I mean, if the orders went out within the hour, I think Avonshire and I have a combined force of twenty thousand, give or take.”
“With supplements coming from Ralsean, Arwall, and my own County,” Michael said, “We might be able to pull through this.”
“Even if I agree to stop fighting, what of Castor? He will not surrender.”
“I won’t ask him to,” Michael said. “I will tell him the same thing I’ve told you.”
“Which is?”
“We must be men of the Kingdom.”
“But someone must lead,” Timothy said. “Who will bring us victory?”
“If we are going to be men of the Kingdom,” Michael said, turning to Emily, “Then some of us must be Women of the Kingdom.”
“Who? Me?” Emily said.
Chapter 54: Problem Number One
Jareld started counting problems in his head.
One, they were running out of food. They had packed a fare amount of dry goods to chew on, but Thor had lost his pack in the fall, and they no longer had a timetable for the completion of their quest.
Two, they no longer had a timetable for the completion of their quest. Jareld had calculated, based on average human walking speed over uneven terrain, that they would be underground for approximately five days. He packed food and water accordingly.
Three, they were running out of water. See problem one.
Four, there were many things under the earth that wanted to kill them. Some of them, like the troop of Turin soldiers, wanted to kill them specifically. Some of them, like the deadly scorpions and the Great Wyrm, just wanted to kill them indiscriminately.
Five, they were lost, with no hope of regaining the trail. This might seem to be another way of restating problem number two, but Jareld counted it as entirely different. There was a good chance, now, that not only would they fail, but also there was no longer the option of aborting the mission to try again later. Everything they had learned would die with them in the dark and lonely caves.
“Why the long face?” Corthos said, making out Jareld’s face in their one remaining torch. Six.
“I’m running out of fingers,” Jareld said.
Chapter 55: The Worth of a Man
It occurred to Gabriel that he hadn’t slept in three days. He had gone to bed several times, and he had rested his body by sitting, but he had not slept. His mind had been occupied with so many problems, it was a miracle he could focus on any one at a time.
But at this particular sleep-deprived moment, he was standing out on the catwalk, contemplating himself. He was not accustomed to being on the balcony. He preferred the depths of the castle. The armory. The furnace. His quarters. The height of the catwalk made him dizzy. The wind whipped through his scraggly hair.
Gabriel was trying to judge his own worth. He had lived a long life, and he had met a lot of people, and whether he wanted to or not, he judged those people. He rated them, in his mind, according to how useful they were. They didn’t have to be important, so to speak. They just had to engage in the world around them. Count themselves as part of a society.
A farmer, for example, could be of great use. He planted the crops for people to eat. If he had a family, and was kind to his neighbors, he could be counted amongst the useful people of the world.
A Lord, for example, could be of no use. He could have a lot of money, a large army, and a lot of influence. But if he never raised a finger to help anyone, what good was he?
Gabriel had always been very conscientious of how useful he was being. He never went out to win any personality contests, but he always tried to help his friends along. But he felt age creeping up on him. Father Time was a relentless asshole. Was he still helpful to his friends? Was he still useful?
Ten years ago, Michael would have taken Gabriel with him on this mission. Sure, Michael had charged him with the protection of the Castle. Of the Countess. But he knew it was because where Michael was going, Gabriel wouldn’t be much help.
Vye had long ago surpassed him as a superior warrior and tactician, but now she had tapped into something he couldn’t even begin to help her with. When the Count was near death, it was the lightning fast thinking of a deranged jester that saved his life. Had he run out of worth?
And why, oh why, did his knee ache? It was cold out, but there was no connection between it being cold and him having a knee. It was just that bastard, Father Time, reminding Gabriel that he was there. Never a dull moment.
Asshole.
And that’s when Gabriel heard a scream carried on the wind. A man was crying in agony. He was clearly in a lot of pain, and he was clearly dead when the screaming was done.
“Not now,” Gabriel lamented.
He raced as fast as his aching bones could carry him back to the parapet. He scanned over the courtyard, but couldn’t see anything. He gathered the nearest Guards and led them down the spiral stairs into the Castle.
Not now, he kept thinking. Last time one of those Turin assassins attacked, they were helpless. Vye and Flopson had saved the day, and they were both out at the moment. He made a quick calculation in his mind, and decided that there simply wasn’t enough resistance in the castle, at that moment, to stop an invader.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.
Two more screams of death echoed through the halls. The noises were coming from the Audience Chamber. He charged forward, drawing his trusty blade, running toward the cacophony of death. He barreled through the doors, and so he encountered Argos, the Master of the Turin-Sen.
He was the most terrifying warrior Gabriel had ever seen. Clad in pine green armor, with long, silver hair, he swung a gigantic claymore that seemed too large to be practical. He stood amidst a pack of dead Guards, fighting his way towards the Count’s pedestal. On the pedestal, Landos held Sarah behind his body. Gabriel briefly thought of Vye’s warning when he noticed they were both dressed for bed.
Argos cast his death spell again, eliminating the closest Guard in a tortured howl. And every time he cast the spell, the other Guards were that much slower. That much heavier in their motions. That much more dispirited. These were their friends and peers, men they had served with for years, and they were being dispatched with such violent ease and reckless pain that they had no choice but to lose faith.
But Gabriel wasn’t going to let Argos win this battle without a proper fight. If Argos was going to invade their home, he was going to remember the day.
“Hartstone!” he cried, charging in with his compliment of Guards. Argos was now fighting on both sides. He didn’t seem phased. If anything, he became more efficient. His gargantuan bade swept through two Guards at once, slicing one neck on the way to decapitating the second.
The room was painted in blood, littered with arms, legs, and guts. Gabriel ignored the pain in his limbs. Ignored the soreness in his muscles. Told the ache in his knee to fuck off. He wasn’t going to wait around for Father Time, who was probably always running late. He was going to determine his own fate.
They circled him. They flanked and feinted and flailed. But Argos was so much better than anyone they had ever seen or heard of. They fought to the last man. After the twenty-six Guards in the room were dead, that last man was Gabriel.
He knew it was coming, but it didn’t lesson the shock. When Argos’ sword sliced through his shoulder, nearly separating his arm, all
the fight left his body at once. He folded and collapsed against the wall, dropping his sword and almost breaking his back with his fall.
Argos turned to Landos and Sarah, still atop the pedestal.
“Out of the way,” Argos said, “You cannot stop me.”
Landos knew it was true. He didn’t need to see Gabriel and the twenty-six guards lying dead on the floor. He only needed to hear Argos’ voice. His command was so pure; his voice came from such depths of time that it couldn’t be wrong. Could it?
Argos ascended the steps and grabbed Landos by the arm. He wanted a witness. One person who could attest to the devastation he had caused. One person who could carry the seed of fear to his other enemies. So instead of killing Landos, he heaved the Lieutenant across the room, slamming him into a wall.
Then, he grabbed Sarah. She screamed. She flailed. She kicked. But Argos was too good to be slowed down at all by her. He whispered something quickly, and a smoking door appeared in the middle of the room. He stepped through, carrying Sarah with him.
Gabriel pulled himself up to his feet. His vision was blurred. His left arm had buckled, and his back was hurting. He couldn’t stand up straight. He limped forward, stumbling through to the portal...
---
He fell through the smoking door, watching as Argos vanished down a long, stone corridor. Gabriel knew that wherever he was, it was a far way from home. The tapestry was completely foreign to him.
The smoke door began to dissipate. He had seen it, that day at the Wedding. He knew he didn’t have long. He grabbed the nearest tapestry, tore a corner off, and lurched his way back through the smoking door.
He collapsed to the stone floor among the Guards, back in Hartstone Castle. His hand clutched the fabric from the faraway place. He couldn’t feel the pain in his knee...
And so, Gabriel proved himself to be useful, even as he died.
Book 5
Sights Unseen
Chapter 56: Insectus Jareld
“Let’s go over the plan again,” Jareld said.
Within the Hollow Crown Page 18