“Come,” Sir Ardunn said, “what news?”
“My lords,” one of the boys said, giving a short bow, “We’ve searched everywhere and there is no sign of them in the castle or in the town.”
“What do you mean, ‘no sign’? They must be somewhere.”
“No, my lord. The cook said Lady Portia came down to the kitchens around midnight, and that this morning there was food missing from the pantry. She believes that our lady must have taken it.”
“But, why—” Sir Ardunn was rubbing his forehead.
“The prisoners are gone as well.” The squire added.
“Escaped!” Sir Eris roared, knocking over his mug and spilling the remaining beer onto the floor.
“No, my lord, begging your pardon. Someone let them out. We found the jailer and his men passed out drunk. The doors to the cells were open and the key was still in one of the locks.”
“And, we found this,” the second boy held up the jester’s hat.
“You,” Sir Henri said, pointing a finger at Blayde. “You know something about this. I’m certain of it.”
“Something about what?” Blayde asked.
“Lady Portia and her brother, Finn, have gone missing. No one has seen them since last evening and neither of them were in their rooms this morning. I think you know what has happened to them.”
“They probably went with Ander and Loth,” Rayzer said, plucking an apple from a bowl and taking a noisy bite. All eyes, including Blayde’s, went to him.
“And just where did Ander and Loth go?” Sir Ardunn asked, his eyes hard and bright.
“They went to find the sorceress.” Rayzer said the words as if he were reciting a grocery list. “To stop her from doing whatever it is she’s supposed to be doing.”
“When did all this happen?” Blayde asked. “You might have mentioned it back at the church.”
“You didn’t ask.” Rayzer chewed a bit of apple and swallowed. “They wanted me to go, but I couldn’t just leave you. Then it was all Sir Veryan this and Sir Veryan that. I suppose they left without us, and the two young lordlings must have gone as well.”
“This is outrageous!” Sir Eris growled.
“But how did they get out of the castle?” Sir Henri said, looking at his knights with something akin to reproach. “For that matter, how would they get past the orcs? The city is surrounded.”
“The guards on the gate said the elf entered just after midnight,” said the second boy, “but no one saw him after.”
“It was Finn.” Sir Eris growled. “The damn boy knows the hidden ways better than any of us. I’ll wager he had something to do with this madness. I’ve been too soft—”
“We must go after them,” Sir Henri said.
“We can’t.” Sir Ardunn said. “There is an army between us and them.”
“And more on the way,” Blayde said, “thousands more.”
“Why are you here?” Sir Jon demanded, his face darkening. “All you do is cause trouble. None of this is your business.”
“I’m making it my business,” Blayde said. “I came to fight—”
“We have no need of a woman who has decided to dress up and play knight. We have the situation well in hand—”
“You’re a fool if you believe that,” Blayde confronted the knight, her hand on the hilt of her sword. “Who’s brilliant idea was it to pull everyone back and abandon the city’s walls? Yours, I suppose. You’ve allowed Nachtwald’s lord to be attacked and skewered by an orc spear. The baron is dying, and now you appear to have lost the heirs to his kingdom, one of whom you were sworn to protect! You have an army sitting outside the city and you’ve done nothing for two days but hide behind these walls and eat the baron’s food.”
“That’s a lie,” Sir Jon’s face was purple with rage and his dark eyes were hard as stone.
“Now,” Blayde said, her voice ice. “Do it now, Father.”
Unnoticed by any of the knights or men-at-arms Father Moram had waited at the back of the hall, his head bowed, as if in prayer, the great hammer clenched in his gnarled hands. Now the priest raised his eyes and lifted the hammer as well, holding it above his head. It burned with fire and a brilliant white light filled the room. He brought it down, striking the floor, and in a low voice said, “By Aedon’s will, I command you to reveal yourselves!”
“Magic!” Sir Eris shouted, alarm in his voice, “Father, what have you done?”
And then the light faded and the dimness of the hall closed in around them once more, darker and more ominous than before. For a moment no one moved. The Briar Knights blinked their eyes, stunned looks on their faces, as did Sir Eris. The soldiers gathered there all turned bewildered stares on Father Moram, then looked at one another, and finally at Sir Ardunn.
The knight took a step back, a faint smile playing across his lips. Sir Ardunn was a tall man, but he appeared to have grown taller and thinner if that was possible, with skin now white as marble. Long tapered ears poked out from beneath the folds of his black hair and his age had diminished by at least a decade. But he was not the only man in the room to have undergone a transformation. Among the men-at-arms Blayde counted three more of the pale, dark-haired figures.
“Well then,” the creature whom they had all known as Sir Ardunn said, his voice sounding softer, more deadly. “This is awkward. I knew I should have killed you long ago, priest. Now, look what you’ve done.”
The Briar Knights looked at one another, and the realization of what had just happened slowly grew on their faces.
“Dark elves,” Sir Henri said, reaching slowly for the hilt of his sword.
“What fools you all are,” the dark elf said. “What blind, self-righteous, and quarrelsome fools. For years I have watched you and listened to your pathetic quibbling and sniping. You bicker like children and never see the real danger that is right before your eyes.”
“Traitor!” Sir Eris shouted and reached for his sword, just as every man in the room reached for theirs. But none of them was nearly fast enough. The dark elf’s sword leapt into his hand and he swept his steel in a whistling arc that removed Sir Eris’s head in a single stroke. It bounced across the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind it. Then, before anyone could intervene, the dark elf faded and disappeared. Blayde looked around as the other three dark elf spies faded as well.
“Where are they?” Sir Jon said, his long sword in hand as he slowly turned, scanning the room. “What has happened to them?”
“They’re still here,” Blayde said.
“Guard the doors!” Rayzer shouted. “And the windows. Don’t let the dogs escape.”
Even as he said this, there was blur of motion behind Blayde. Whether it was her own premonition or some warning shouted at her by the spirit of Sir Veryan she could not say, but instinctively she ducked and rolled to one side just as the dark elves’ sword swept out of the shadows, missing her by a hair’s breadth. For a moment the dark elf was there, crouched before her. Blayde lunged, driving her sword at the grinning face, but then it was gone.
Father Moram had moved to block the door, along with Sir Ducar, and other men stood before the tall windows. The atmosphere in the room was tense. No one spoke, all ears listening for the scrape of a boot heel or the creak of leather. A low rumbling laugh filled the room, a disembodied sound that could have come from anywhere or nowhere at all.
“You are all dead men,” the voice said, sounding far too much like Sir Ardunn. “It is only by our master’s grace that any of you are still alive. But even he cannot prevent the doom that is about to fall on you.”
“And on you,” Blayde said, moving slowly, following the disembodied voice as it moved around the room. “You don’t really believe any of you will get out of this room alive, do you?”
Sir Jon wheeled, just as the traitor appeared again. The dark elf aimed a savage cut at Sir Jon’s exposed head, but Blayde was there to meet it. She caught the edge of the dark elf’s sword on her own as Sir Jon fell back, tripping ov
er a bench and crashing to the floor.
The dark elf snarled and hewed at Blayde like a woodsman chopping at a tree. She danced backward across the floor, the blows ringing off the edge of her sword as she countered them one after the other. Sir Veryan’s sword felt light in her hand. It throbbed with power, sending a surge of energy down her arm. The feeling was exhilarating, but she forced herself to quell the emotion, to settle and focus on the task at hand. She returned the dark elf’s attacks with a volley of her own, driving him back. The creature was bigger than she, taller, potentially stronger, with a longer reach, but she was fast, quick as lightning from the sky, and she struck at the dark elf with blows that sounded like cracks of thunder.
Another of the dark-haired figures appeared and drove its sword into the belly of one of the men-at-arms. The room exploded into chaos with dark elves appearing and disappearing, stabbing at men from behind, while the guardsmen darted about, slashing at the air. Some of the men-at-arms fell back, confused, unable to strike at their unseen foes. Some few managed to engage the assassins, but only for a moment before they faded once more. Servants, maids, and cupbearers scrambled to get out of the way of the fighting.
Out of the corner of her eye, Blayde caught a glimpse of Rayzer as he vaulted over a table and slashed at a dark elf who suddenly appeared within reach. Sir Henri and Sir Ducar had one of the assassins trapped between them, but the dark elf managed to trip up Sir Ducar and faded as he sprang past the fallen knight.
That was all Blayde had time for. Her own foe was fighting fiercely, desperately, trying to find a way past her guard. Given the chance, he would fade like the others, flee the hall, but she wasn’t going to allow it. The two traded blows, swords singing, the sound echoing off the walls of the great hall. The dark elf managed to put a table between them. Blayde slashed at him across the expanse. He kicked the table over, hoping to trap her beneath it, but Blayde sprang nimbly over it, only to find empty space before her.
“Come back and fight, coward!” Blayde shouted. “Or are you afraid to face me in the open?”
Laughter again, low and near, but where? Blayde turned slowly, watching the shadows, the handle of her sword gripped tightly in her fist. There was movement on her left and she turned to meet it, too slowly she knew, but someone else was there, in her path.
Sir Henri had leapt in front of her and caught the edge of the dark elf’s sword on his, twisting it aside and bringing up the point of his sword, slashing the other’s cheek and drawing blood. The dark elf brought up his boot, striking Sir Henri in the chest with his heel. The knight was thrown backward and hit the floor with a thunderous crash of steel.
Blayde lunged forward, but the dark elf darted to the left, away from her, and faded as he ran. She saw one of Nachtwald’s guardsmen lying sprawled across the floor in a widening pool of blood. Sir Ducar appeared to be wounded, blood splashed across his armor and white tabard, but he was still battling another of the assassins.
The dark elf appeared again, halfway across the room. Rayzer sprang to intercept, but the dark elf lunged to the left, kicked over a table in front of Rayzer and Sir Henri, who had regained his feet and gone in pursuit.
In that brief moment, the dark elf pulled something from his belt pouch, a metal disk of some sort. Blayde could see that it was made from a combination of precious metals and set with purple gemstones. The outer ring was solid, but the interior had been cut, by what tool she could not imagine, to form an intricate network of overlapping runes. Sir Ardunn held the disk up, speaking words in Lunovarian. A space on the wall, or possibly just in front of it, opened. Light spilled from the opening and began to swirl, faster and faster, spiraling inward to form a translucent cone. Lightning danced along the edges of the cone, crackling and popping. The dark elf, whom they had known as Sir Ardunn, dove head first into the opening. Rayzer was only a step behind, but before he could reach it, the opening closed with a soft pop, residual light dancing over the stones. Rayzer struck the wall at nearly the same moment, rebounded, and crashed to the floor. The dark elf had escaped.
Rayzer sprang to his feet, snarling and cursing, slashing at the empty air with his swords. Blayde looked around. The other three dark elves were dead, slashed and stabbed by many swords. The dark elf Sir Ducar had been fighting lay at his feet and the knight leaned on his sword, mopping sweat from his forehead.
“Dark elf spies in Nachtwald,” Father Moram said, moving away from the door. “I would never have thought such a thing was possible. To think that I served with that man for nearly a decade and never knew what he truly was.”
Blayde knelt beside the body of Sir Ducar’s opponent. The creature was dark elf, without a doubt, the face pale and rigid, a cruel sneer on the lips even in death. Why were they here? What did they have to do with the orcs? Were they working for the sorceress? It seemed unlikely. Sir Ardunn had been in Nachtwald for years. Unless, of course, the real Sir Ardunn had been slain somewhere along the way and a fetch put in his place. There were more questions here than answers.
A dark shape on the dark elf’s skin caught Blayde’s attention. She reached down and lifted the dead hand, examining what at first she had taken to be an ink stain or smudge of dirt. But the mark on the dark elf’s hand was actually a tattoo, drawn in black ink. It was a simple enough design, a circle with a single sharp point protruding from the upper right side of the curve. Curious. But what did it mean?
Blayde dropped the dark elf’s hand and rose to her feet. She looked down at the headless body of Sir Eris. It lay in a pool of blood beside the table where he had fallen. His head lay on the floor 10 feet away, eyes still open, with an expression of shock etched forever on his features. A poor ending for a knight of such devotion, even if he was a bit of an ass.
“You men,” Father Moram called to some of the guardsmen standing close. “Take Sir Eris from the hall and lay him out in the cellars. When there is time, we will prepare him properly for his journey to the halls of Mirid.”
As if a spell had been broken, men and women began to move. Tables and benches that had been overturned during the fighting were put right. Candles were relit and sticks of wood added to the fire. Several of the maids went to fetch buckets and water to clean away the blood. Nachtwald’s soldiers draped Sir Eris’s body in a cloak, then lifted him reverently from the floor and carried him from the hall. Another man wrapped his head in a cloth and followed his companions.
“That was well fought,” Sir Ducar said, coming up and offering Blayde his hand. She took it, appreciating the gesture.
“Are you hurt?” Blayde asked.
Sir Ducar considered the cut on his arm. “Only a scratch. I’ve had far worse.”
“This changes nothing,” Sir Jon said. “Yes, you fought well enough, but you allowed a traitor and deadly enemy to escape. Who knows what damage he will do now?”
“She saved your life,” Sir Ducar said.
“And you would never have known about these spies in the first place if not for Blayde,” Father Moram pointed out.
“We’ve no time for debate,” Blayde growled, fixing Sir Jon with her gaze. She had so wanted him to be one of the traitors Sir Veryan hinted at. The Apportioners were cruel mistresses indeed.
Rayzer leaned against a pillar, his arms folded tightly across his chest, looking thoroughly bored with the whole affair, but Blayde could tell that he was still agitated at the dark elf’s escape.
“With Sir Eris dead and Baron Cedric confined to his bed, it is clear that I should take command,” Sir Henri said. “The Briar Knights—”
“Have nothing to do with this,” Blayde said. “You came here to fetch a bride, not fight a war, and you failed at that as well.”
“And just who do you think will lead Nachtwald’s soldiers in the coming battle?” Sir Jon said. “You? You’ve no right to command Nachtwald. It is under the protection of the Briar Knights—”
“Look, you pig-headed son of a cow!” Blayde raised her sword, fighting the urge to plunge it i
nto Sir Jon’s heart, assuming he had one. “You’ve been sitting on your hands for two days. These people need our help! I’m not about to let them die without a fighting chance, and I’m not leaving the city undefended!”
“I will not take orders from a woman,” Sir Jon said, averting his eyes with an air of superiority that made Blayde’s blood run cold. She glared at him, momentarily at a loss for words, but aching to crush his pompous skull between her fingers.
“Perhaps...” Father Moram said, moving cautiously between them, “it would be best if we put this argument aside and try to work together. Surely we will need every sword.”
“This... woman,” Henri said, “seeks to usurp my authority. I will not have it—”
“You have no authority here.” Father Moram’s voice sounded unusually stern. “These are my people and this is my city. Baron Cedric is dying and Sir Eris is most unfortunately dead. I am the only one left with any authority here.”
Blayde and Sir Henri looked at one another, both of their faces displaying the same startled expression.
“If you are to be of service,” Father Moram continued, “you must answer to me. Our young lord Finnan said as much ere he departed the city. I am the head of the church and spiritual leader to the people of Nachtwald, as if that was not obvious enough. After Sir Ardunn and Sir Eris, I am in charge, Aedon grant me strength.”
Sir Henri’s face took on a stricken look. He started to speak but Father Moram interceded before he could.
“It is true we are in desperate need of your help, but this endless bickering serves no one. Blayde will lead us in the coming battle and I will hear no more arguments against her. You should be reprimanded for your shameful views regardless. Blayde has proven that she can handle a sword as well as any of you, and I for one believe she has been chosen by Sir Veryan to protect Nachtwald. However, the responsibility for that lies with us all. If you disagree with my decision, you may leave us, although where you might go with the city surrounded is beyond me.”
Blayde began to feel a new appreciation for Father Moram. She might have laughed out loud at the scowls on both Sir Jon’s and Sir Henri’s faces, but she did not wish to do anything that might break the spell.
A Way with Magic (The Draakonor Chronicles Book 1) Page 25