by D. H. Aire
“And just what do you think you’re doing?” Farrel exclaimed.
“What?” the elflord turned and saw the warhorse’s owner and his cousin. “Uh, Janielle, what brings you down here?”
“I wanted to reward the stallion with an apple or two. He helped save me, you know.”
He frowned. “Father will not like this.”
“Really?” she replied. “Exactly what is this?”
Farrel glared, “It looks like he’s stealing from me.”
“Father, is not a thief!”
“I have not agreed to a stud fee. And certainly haven’t agreed to have any of his mares breed with him.”
“Oh, Father knows you shall… He’s going to offer you a more than satisfactory price tonight at dinner.”
“Then why are these grooms here?” Farrel asked.
“We just wanted to introduce them.”
“Fine. They’re introduced. Now, leave him alone.”
Janielle shook her head, “Was this your idea, Rathian? Or your father’s?”
“Mine…” he replied with a hooded gaze. “After all, they’re going to need to spend a bit of time together before… Lady Farrel goes on her way.”
“I will have a conversation with Uncle about this later. Now take that mare back to her stall and leave Farrel and I.”
Rathian turned, looking both angry and fearful.
#
“Hey, Fush,” Farrel said as they came up to the battle steed mare, who looked wary, but quite happy under the circumstances to see her.
‘It’s safe.’ Fush shared.
Farrel smiled, “Good… good to see the grooms, at least, are feeding you well.”
The stallion looked at her as Janielle offered him an apple. “Sorry, about that.”
He nickered back.
‘You saved my life,’ the stallion replied, knowing Janielle couldn’t hear him, but Farrel did and smiled.
Fush, head leaning over the stall door, glanced at him. ‘She definitely did.’
“Somehow I don’t believe that was your cousin’s idea,” Farrel said.
“No, Mother told me that the family here… could be difficult.”
Farrel shook her head, “Difficult?”
“Mother was very happy to get away from here.”
“Then whyever did you come here?”
“Any port in a storm— and, as you know, a lot of ships come through this port.”
Farrel sighed, thinking about her sword hidden in her saddle pack with her mare, who was the best guard imaginable. “Uh, what are you thinking?”
Janielle frowned, “My uncle’s up to something… and I’m not a fool. Do you have an extra dagger?”
#
The mare stood aside as Farrel retrieved the black hilted sheathed sword from her pack, affixing the sheath to her cloak’s straps. Janielle frowned realizing she was having difficulty seeing what had looked to her like a sword. The mare met Janielle’s gaze and Janielle lost the memory, seeing instead Farrel remove from her pack a leg harness with two daggers. “Janielle, do you know how to use these?”
“Yes.”
“Put this one on, then.”
Farrel glanced at the mare as Janielle strapped on the harness. ‘Lord Tane has imprisoned a Haydenese detachment that claimed their wanted to protect Lady Janielle.’
‘We’ll look into it… and if true?’ the mare mentally shared.
‘I’ve a feeling Janielle made need their aid… rather soon,’ Farrel replied in kind.
#
No sooner had Farrel and Janielle left the stables than the two battle steeds looked at each other and the stallion nodded. Mal sniffed the air, pushing up against the stall door, which creaked under the pressure until the latch broke, allowing him out. The noise brought a groom, who raising his arms stared, “Hey, fella.”
The groom’s eyes suddenly grew heavy as the stallion met his gaze, making him forget what he had just seen. The steed sniffed the air and followed the scent of old forgotten magery to the back of the stables. The wall was half hidden behind barrels of water.
The barrels rippled as the portal reacted to his presence. He strode forward and vanished without a trace.
#
“Well, Captain, this was a great plan,” one of the young Haydenese prisoners said, sitting in the straw covered floor of the old cell.
“Not much to say for this stale bread,” another commented, chuckling.
“It could be worse,” an old guardsman admitted.
“How?” another muttered.
“We could be in the dungeons in Hayden,” he replied.
The tracker sat, legs crossed, his back against the stone wall. He suddenly glanced up, “What was that?”
“What?” the Captain asked as the ten other prisoners jammed into the cell looked on.
Looking around, the tracker pointed. “Something’s watching us.”
“He madness waxes,” one the men warned.
The Captain frowned, uncertain, knowing the tracker’s madness added to his sensitivity, asked, “Ghost?”
“No,” the tracker answered. “It’s also far more curious.”
“Curious.”
The tracker frowned, then asked, “What do you want to know?” He canted his head, “It’s curious about the oath.”
The Captain shrugged, “My men and I would take an Oath to defend Lady Hayden.”
The tracker leaned forward and said, “Why?”
The Captain bowed, “I am Ethran Seawarden, Captain of Lord Hayden’s Personal Guard. He tasked me to protect his daughter. I failed to prevent his wife’s death... I would die before seeing harm come to his daughter.”
The tracker added, “And not a single man of our detachment is sworn to Kolter or his ilk… I know because their all share a bit of my madness.” He chuckled without humor. “My wife and daughter vanished attending one of Lord Hayden’s temple rites... one’s that Archmage Kolter officiated after our priest of knowledge’s accident after the death of the previous Lord Hayden, Janielle’s grandfather.
“My mind was lost in grief and I tried to murder Kolter with these two hands. That got me bound as a tracker… and should have left me unable to be this, well, eloquent.” He raised the jeweled chain from about his neck. “I swore I’d see Kolter dead for what he had done to my father, the priest of knowledge I mentioned, and my wife and daughter. But something else happened. I live in two worlds and my madness is merely seething anger now, split between both that of the living and the dead.” He lowered his head, “Kolter set me to track Lady Hayden. I can do no less, yet it seems I’m also her Priest of Knowledge now, which allowed me to help gather our companion.”
His fellow prisoners, all save the captain, nodded.
“Old Urnit there,” the tracker went on, “his daughter had an accident in the Temple, but he was never allowed to see her body or given it for burial. Lord Kolter handled it. Each has a similar story that he would see avenged.”
He paused, then turned to the captain, “Ethran, if we take oath to the Haydenan, we’ll be allowed to begin fulfilling it rather soon.”
The captain knelt and swore as did the tracker priest and the others.
The wall the tracker had stared at vanished. “I think our friends would like to take the oath now, too.”
#
Tett looked at himself in the mirror. “Spiro, I can’t go out there looking like this.”
“I think that’s the point,” he replied, dressed as a servant girl in a draped dress that nearly touched the floor.
“Well,” said their guide, who looked better in the dress than either of them and who hadn’t needed such a close shave, “you coming or not?”
Grimacing, Tett replied, “We’re coming. We’re coming… I just hope this stunt works.”
“It will,” Spiro said as the young dwarf woman glared back at him. “And, I promise not to make it a song. I would never live this down, either.”
#
Farrel foun
d her dress nearly as skin tight as Elvinsilk. “Can you see the sword strapped on my back?”
Shaking her head, Janielle replied, “No. I don’t even detect a hint of magery cloaking it.”
“That’s because it isn’t a magic sword.”
“Of course, not,” Janielle chuckled, not believing that for a second.
A dwarven servant knocked and entered Janielle’s chambers, “The reception has begun, Milady.”
Farrel and Janielle looked at each other.
#
They found themselves in the dark. “Captain?”
“Sound off,” Seawarden ordered, wondering if they had been tricked, even as the ceiling began to glow, revealing that they were in a vast chamber.
Names were called out, then someone said, “Tracker’s gone.”
“Cap, we’re in an armory.”
“Look at the age of some of this stuff.”
Ethran Seawarden glanced around and walked past hundreds of short handled battle axes and even more intricately carved silver short swords, all covered in dust. He came to a sheathed man-sized sword, blew on it, sending motes flying. When he partially drew it, the metal glowed.
“Captain Seawarden, is that?”
“An elflord’s bane sword,” he replied. “Arm yourselves, gentlemen.”
“There’s chainmail over here, Sir. Elvin. I don’t recognize the sigil on the clasps. Definitely not Lord Tane’s.”
Ethran Seawarden glanced around the chamber, “I wouldn’t expect it to be… This armory hasn’t been visited in ages.”
There was a rustling sound, then ten more of his men strode through the rippling wall, “Sir?” the senior rasped.
“I take it you’ve taken your Oath?”
They nodded.
“Take your pick of mail and arms… I think we’re going to be using it, soon.”
#
Janielle and Farrel entered the Great Hall. Guards stood watching beside the array of statues of dwarves, humans, and elfbloods.
Lord Tane grinned, “Our honored guests have arrived.”
Rathian Tane frowned, watching the women cross the Hall. His father had not been pleased at his failure in the stables, and warned him not to ever fail him again. “I have plans and you are not going to mess them up.”
Lord Tane pointed at the first of the statues gracing the sides of the room. One of the guardsman strolled up to it, hefting an axe. He clove off its head to courtly applause, then smashed its arms and torso.
Farrel frowned and asked Janielle, “What’s the purpose of destroying art?”
Rathian overheard that as he came up to that, “Dwarven art isn’t art… My family has them brought here so we can prove it by ridding the city of the cursed things.”
“How does destroying beauty prove anything?” Farrel said.
“Beauty? Those things?” Rathian chuckled. “Every one of them will be destroyed before our dinner in your honor ends this evening.”
Shaking her head, Farrel said, “They look priceless to me.”
Lord Tane joined them. “Priceless, you can’t be talking about those silly statues the old dwarves made.”
Rathian grinned, “She knows horseflesh, but nothing of art, Father.”
“I must apologize for my son’s impulsiveness, Lady Farrel… Had I known he would attempt to breed our mare, I would have told him we had not yet discussed details of the stud fee.”
“That’s disinclined me from agreeing to your proposition.”
“Oh, well, I’ll just have to offer more than I had planned as recompense.” He glared at his son, who looked apologetic.
Farrel didn’t believe either of them.
Janielle frowned.
Lord Tane grinned, “Ah, the food is being brought. Lady Janielle, sit beside me. Lady Farrel, I have just the place of honor for you, too, at the High Table.”
Farrel knew she could not refuse, then saw one of the dwarf servants trying not to look at her. She smiled; she couldn’t help herself, which Lord Tane took to be approval.
#
Tett winced, seeing Farrel smiling like that. He set the fresh rolls on the table, wondering where Spiro was.
Renara, who had brought them here and still dressed as a crone, but in servant garb, jostled his elbow, “Move faster or you’ll get us all in trouble.”
He nodded and glanced at the statues, wondering which one Spiro was looking for as another was smashed to bits.
Chapter 41 - Mother Knows Best
The Riani mage edged his gelding to the right to get a better view of what was happening at the front of the now stalled and slightly smaller column of Legionnaires.
Screened by the four black robed warder mages and the ogre, the Riani mage could not see what the little human lordling in charge was being told. He drew out a charm and feigned a yawn. The spell activated and the charm unfolded and fluttered away like a moth. It flew round about and settled on the unsuspecting ogre’s shoulder.
The mage suddenly overhead Lord Niota say, “You’re sure?”
#
Se’and glanced at George, who returned her look.
The scout nodded, “Yessir, Lord Niota. There’s a line of upwards of four thousand Haydenese between us and Tane.”
Lord Rian said, “Well, Tane’s in for a rather unpleasant surprise, then.”
:George, something is impinging on my sensors.:
‘We’re on it,’ Revit mentally announced.
Terus chimed in, ‘Triangulating now.’
#
Ri muttered, floating besides the viewing mirror. “What’s 'triangulating' mean?”
“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” Terus chuckled.
“I think I’m going to regret your finding that historical entertainment database.”
“Ri, just don’t tell Revit. I want it to be our secret.”
TRIANGULATION COMPLETE, the onboard computer announced.
“A charm in the shape of a flying insect?” Ri mused.
“Now I understand that being ‘bugged’ reference.”
‘Terus, are you locked on what I am?’ Revit asked over the commlink.
“The bug on Walsh’s shoulder?”
‘Yep.’
“It’s charmed.”
‘Suggesting a mage,’ Revit said.
Ri frowned and willed herself toward another monitor. “Aliana, the mage has to be close.”
‘I’m already on it, Ri,’ came the reply.
#
Staff linked to the warders, the anklet on Se’and’s leg, and the subcutaneous links in Lawson’s right cheek… and the one now growing in Yel’ane’s. Yel’ane twitched and Lawson’s arm tightened around her waist.
The battle steeds went still as statues.
Raven circled overhead, watching events below with an eagle-eye, yet the threat she would have wanted to glimpse was far too small. The charmed moth fluttered its wings ever so slowly.
The breeze faltered.
Staff followed the transmission of energy. It was not precisely a signal in the traditional scientific sense. But energy was energy and as a DHR model computer staff with full archeological sensors, even ones slightly twisted by the magic of this world, knew something was awry.
Down that energy his electrical sensor pulsed.
The Riani mage was looking westward, not looking at them at all as the pulse faded before reaching him.
:That’s our spy.:
‘Revit, I think we can do something like that. Not just triangulate that our spy was in that vicinity.’
‘Yeah, I think if we—’
‘Down boys,’ Aliana shared. ‘Later, we do not want to tip him off.’
:The question is, whose spy is he?:
‘Not my grandfather’s, I’ll wager,’ Ri offered.
#
The Riani mage frowned. For a fleeting moment, he felt an unusual tingling. Then he overheard, “We’re not turning back,” Thomi said, “and they don’t know we’re here.”
&nb
sp; “Thomi…” the ogre half growled.
“Well, they don’t and we’ve an opportunity to make sure they pose no future threat to the Empress or the Capital,” the lordling said.
“And you think Lord Rian will go along with this?” Lawson asked.
“He can stay behind, if he doesn’t,” Thomi replied.
The Riani mage slowly smiled.
#
Thomi stared as the warder next to him started speaking in his voice and the other replied, first as Walsh, then as Lawson.
The moth flew off Walsh’s shoulder.
:We’re clear,: Staff shared.
“Uh, let me see if I understand this right,” Thomi said. “We’ve just told a spy our plans…”
“And, we’ll see if we can’t use that to our advantage,” George said.
“How?” Thomi muttered.
Lawson grinned as Yel’ane looked just as nervous as the lordling. “Well, my young friend, that’s where I come in, isn’t it?”
George nodded, “You mean, ‘Mother knows best?’”
“We’ll set up the link as soon as we make camp,” Lawson replied. “Won’t we, my dear?”
Yel’ane swallowed as her cheek twitched and a schematic of what she would need to do flashed before her. “You can’t want me to...”
“Absolutely,” Lawson said, “with a little help from one or two of our warders.”
He glanced at the cowled George, who nodded. “We’re going to need a place we can ward.” Concentrating on his rapport with Staff, he found the site of an old fortress not too far away. “There’s an overgrown fallen down keep a few leagues that way. We should set up there. It’s slightly less exposed.”
#
“Lord Rian,” Thomi implored, “I know this is not to your liking.”
“Lad, its madness,” he replied, his Priest of Knowledge at his side. “My scyers are practically blind.”
“More like nearsighted,” the warder behind them said.
“Near…” Lord Rian muttered. “There’s a simple elixir for that.”
“Which even sugar can not make palatable,” the warder added in that rather gravelly voice.
Lord Rian nodded, “True enough said… So, rather than go into this completely blind, what do you have in mind, Lord Niota?”
“We’re going to need more scouts,” he replied, looking up at the falc circling overhead. “A lot more.”