Kings, Queens, Heroes, & Fools

by M. R. Mathias

  In the morning, while rummaging through the barn, he found a crossbow and a handful of dull, but usable steel-tipped bolts for it. Before he had taken his injuries, he had been quite handy with the sword, but now his body felt a hundred years old. He could wield his blade if he had to, and he still wore it at his hip, but the crossbow would make even a well armored bandit wary of him.

  He saw no bandits that day. He did see a herder with seven goats out in a soggy green field, and a man on the wall of a keep that sat a good distance off the road. He saw a few folk who looked to be planting corn or maybe wheat behind a mule-drawn plow too. When he passed they huddled together and stared at him as if he had a golden horn sticking out of the top of his head. When he finally came into the outskirts of what used to be the city of Castlemont he saw nothing but destruction.

  Half a hundred proud towers had once reached toward the heavens from the base of the city. Now there was nothing but ruin, a stubbed tower here, the taller stump of one over there, and a few other broken structures jutted up from the rubble like broken teeth. Lord Gregory figured that winter had preserved some of the meat of the dead, for hundreds of thousands of carrion birds swarmed over the piles of brick and stone and fractured wooden beams looking for another meal. It was the idea of what had happened here, more than the smell of rot in the air that made his stomach turn. He couldn’t understand how Pael and King Glendar could have orchestrated such total destruction.

  He had no doubt now that Valleya had fallen as well. Dreen had naught but a clay brick wall around it. If that’s where the Westland army had gone, then they had taken it.

  Why would they sack Wildermont and not try to hold it, though? Glendar probably had no idea that Westland would fall behind him, so he hadn’t been concerned with guarding his rear. But still, any good military tactician would want to hold the source of more than half the realm’s supply of iron ore. It just didn’t make any sense not to.

  Thoughts of King Glendar, and more specifically of his beloved Westland, began to consume Lord Gregory. He spurred his horse southward, stealing glances across the river between the crumbled buildings on his right. In places he could see the wide, powerful flow and his homeland across its span.

  A wooden tower rose up from the Westland bank where the destroyed crossing bridge still stuck out like some fancy half-finished dock. Men were pulling lines in from it as if it were just that. Other men were on the tower, and there were people moving about beneath it as well. Behind them, the city of Locar seemed to be carrying about life as if nothing had changed. Dull gray smears of smoke still lifted toward the sky, and the occasional clang of tack and the faint smell of cooking meat carried in the air. It all looked pretty normal and hopeful, but only for a moment. Lord Gregory then saw a giant breed beast being pulled in a huge wagon carriage by a dozen men. Climbing to the top of a pile and squinting with his hand visored at his brow, Lord Gregory watched as the driver, a man, lashed at the pullers with a whip until they quickened their pace and disappeared beyond some buildings. Fluttering up on the wooden tower, and from several other places across the river in Westland, was an unfamiliar banner: three yellow lightning bolts crossing in the middle on a field of black. Lord Gregory reckoned it looked like a wicked golden snowflake.

  Enslaved Westlanders, breed giants loose in Westland, and under the banner of some self-proclaimed Dragon Queen. Lord Gregory shook his head in dismay. King Balton would roll over in his tomb if he knew of this—if he even had a tomb. Lord Gregory, however, was filled with a newfound hope that Lady Trella might have actually survived the Dragon Queen’s invasion. He had to get home and find out if she was all right, but there was no way to cross here. He needed to go south to where the river widened and split, then he had to find a boat to get across.

  When he topped the hill that led down into the town of Low Crossing he saw a dozen men loading a flat barge with crates. Suddenly he was feeling uneasy. The pings and clanks of a few smiths’ hammers could be heard, but Lord Gregory didn’t dare stray from the road. On the southern side of a small bridge that crossed a tributary just before it met the main flow, he hurried past four well tended horses tied to the post of a fully operational tavern. As he was about to leave the town behind him, a pair of horsemen came out from behind the last riverfront building and blocked the road. By the insignia on their breastplates he knew they were Dakaneese sell-swords. He had run into them before on the docks of Southport and Portsmouth in Westland, but this wasn’t Westland. Here he was nobody; his lordship meant nothing. He found, as he brought his crossbow to bear on one of the men, that he was more than just a little afraid.

  The man he was aiming at spat a thick brown wad of slime from his mouth. “Let him pass,” he said gruffly. “He’s no absconded slave.”

  “But Dreg said to stop anyone that looks suspicious,” the other man argued. The conviction in his voice fled when the crossbow moved from the first man to him.

  “Look there, Lem, at his hilt. That sword’s worth more than all of your sisters in a bundle. This man ain’t suspicious, Lem, he’s armed,” the first man said. Then to Lord Gregory, he said, “What’re you doing passing through here?”

  Lord Gregory’s heart was hammering in his chest. He could barely breathe, but knowing that these men were only second-rate sell-swords he said the first thing that came to his mind and hoped for the best. “Is Dreg paying you enough to mind my business?” He asked the question in a way that suggested not only that he knew who Dreg was, but that he was in the man’s favor. He hoped that the extreme quality of his nervousness didn’t show through his façade of annoyed confidence.

  A moment of silence ensued, then the man spat another wad of brown slime from his mouth. He grinned with rotten teeth as he backed his horse away from his companions. “See, Lem,” he said as he motioned for Lord Gregory to pass between them. “He’s not suspicious.”

  “Nay, he’s not,” the other man said, his eyes never straying from the crossbow that was still trained on his gut.

  As soon as Lord Gregory was out of their sight, he spurred his horse and rode at a mad gallop for a good long while. He thought that this man Dreg might send somebody snooping after him and wanted to put as much distance between him and Low Crossing as he could. He doubted that the two men guarding the road would even say anything about his passing, but he couldn’t be sure. If they did, the fact that they’d noticed the value of his sword meant that men would surely come looking for him sooner or later.

  Just before dark he spotted a wagon train approaching from the south. There were three horse-drawn wagons surrounded by at least twenty mounted men. Probably just more sell-swords guarding a cargo, he thought. Not knowing what else to do, he left the road for the hills that rose up off to the east. He hated to leave the road. He was so close to Seareach he could smell the marshes already. Even so, he needed to come up with a story, or a plan, or both. He needed to know what the sell-swords were about, who had hired them, and what the political climate was between the Dragon Queen, the Dakaneese, and those Westlanders who had survived, but he didn’t want to get robbed, captured or killed doing it.

  Seareach was the last place he could find a boat to take him swiftly across the river to Settsted. It was less than half a day south. If he had to go farther south than that to find transport, he would have to travel all the way to O’Dakahn and catch a sea ship. That could take weeks.

  He found a low place in the hills and dared to light a small fire that night, for it was still chilly, even this far south. The beginnings of a plan began to form in his mind and he fell asleep turning the ideas over and over again.

  He woke to the sound of voices—voices far too close to him. He reached slowly—as if he were just shifting his sleeping position—to where he’d lain the crossbow before he’d fallen asleep. It wasn’t there. Panic shot through him, but he didn’t overreact. He saw that the sun had barely reddened in the sky when he cracked open his eyelids. He felt a heavy booted man step close to his head, and coul
d see three others. Two of them had longbows drawn and trained on him.

  “Come on man, wake up,” a voice said. “We’ll just have a word or two with you.”

  The accent was Dakaneese. The way the man spoke told Gregory that he was no lackey; this was somebody who had authority.

  “Who are you?” Lord Gregory asked as he sat up. He was glad he had used his saddlebags for a pillow. Had these men found all of his gold he would already be dead. The thought of the wealth in his packs gave him an idea that added well with the story he had come up with last night.

  “You don’t recognize old Dreg?” the man’s tone was full of irony. “My men said that you told them you knew me.”

  “You need to hire better men,” Gregory calmly replied. Though he showed no fear outside, inside he felt as if his heart might fail him. “How did you track me at night? My fire was too small to be seen from the road.”

  “With sorcery of course,” Dreg said with a nod toward the silhouette of a robed and hooded figure who was sitting on a horse near the other men. “What were you doing up north?”

  Gregory sighed. Here it goes, he thought, all or nothing. “I escaped the Dragon Queen’s breed beasts through the Reyhall Forest and wintered in a cavern up in the foothills.”

  “You’re high-born, don’t deny it,” accused Dreg. “Is there a reward for you?”

  “Reward?” Lord Gregory chuckled nervously. “If there is, it’s not a big one, I assure you.”

  “The quality of your steel says otherwise,” Dreg’s tone had become curious. “Where did you come by such a piece?”

  “I pulled it off of a body at Summer’s Day,” Lord Gregory lied. In truth his father had given the sword to him, as his father had done before that. It had been in his family since it had been forged nearly three hundred years ago. He didn’t want to lose it, but it wasn’t worth his life.

  “I’m a man of inspiration, and I have a weakness for survivors,” Dreg said coolly. “Inspire me to leave you to your fate and I may do so, though I doubt it.”

  Dreg would probably let him live if he gave him the sword and some coin, but Lord Gregory had a better idea. “Get me on a boat to Settsted or Southport over in Westland,” he said. “If you do, I’ll make you rich—rich beyond imagining.”

  “Granddad’s coin chest?Mam’s jewelry box?” Dreg smirked. “You’ll pay me when we get there? I said inspire me. I’ve heard this drivel hundreds of times. Just last week a man offered me an entire herd of goats to spare his young daughter from my men’s lust. I agreed, and being a man of my word my men never touched the girl. I did though, and after I killed her, we feasted.”

  “Still eatin’ them fargin goats,” a man chuckled. Another laughed with him from the darkness.

  Lord Gregory reached behind him and pulled his saddle bag to his lap. He heard the laughter suddenly stop as the men around him resituated the aim of their bows. He didn’t stop what he was doing, though, because he knew that Dreg wouldn’t let them shoot him just yet.

  “Slowly, man,” Dreg cautioned. “Itchy fingers all around you now.”

  “You’d be wiser to let me show you what I’ve got in private,” Lord Gregory said with enough confidence that he saw Dreg considering it.

  “And be pricked by some poison dart, or caught up in some ludicrous charm spell. I think not.” Dreg trotted his horse up a little closer. “I could just kill you, fool, and take what you’ve got. Now out with it.”

  “Kill me if you like,” Lord Gregory replied boldly. Most, if not all of his confidence had returned. “But if you do, you’ll never know where this came from.” He pulled the fist sized chunk of raw gold ore out of his pack and held it to where it caught the breaking light of dawn. All around him the gasps of Dreg’s men could be clearly heard. Dreg himself let out an audible “Ooh” and his eyes grew as big as coins.

  “It appears that I owe you an apology, sir,” Dreg finally said, with some sincerity in his voice. “I have indeed been inspired. Now what was it you said you needed? A boat to Southport? Is there anything else?”

  Chapter Six

  Shaella, the Dragon Queen of Westland, daughter of the recently deceased demon-wizard Pael, carefully tipped the vial she held until a single drop of glistening crimson fell from it. The blood landed with a ‘plop’ in the clear water basin cradled in her lap. She stirred the concoction with a finger, sucked the liquid, then sat perfectly still until the swirling calmed.

  On the surface of the stuff in her bowl she saw her reflection first. Her dark eyes contrasted with the angry pinkish-red burn scar that started at her temple and ran back over her ear, leaving one side of her head hairless. The rest of her thick, black mane could be laid over the ugliness so that it didn’t show, but she chose to let the ruined flesh be seen. A dragon had made that scar, the dragon that she tricked and enslaved, and then used to take over the biggest kingdom in the realm. Another scar, from a knife fight that had happened long ago in a Dakaneese tavern, ran down her cheek like a permanent teardrop. The scars were nothing to be ashamed of. Though they marred her beauty, they reminded those who came before her of her violent past, and her vast capabilities. The scars made it easier for her to be taken seriously, and she displayed them like badges of honor.

  The people of her new kingdom, the struggling humans, the slithery zard-men, and the huge hairy breed beasts, all thought that the dragon was still hers to command. They didn’t know that she had lost her controlling collar, and thus the ability to command the great red wyrm. She didn’t discourage the notion that she could call it forth on a whim, though, and her appearance kept questions from being asked.

  She mumbled a few words in a musical hum and the face in the water’s surface shimmered into that of another woman. This woman’s features were rounder: slightly chubby cheeks, framed by blonde curly ringlets, pale blue eyes speckled with green and gold, and a smile that spoke of true innocence. She looked stunning for the hundred and twenty year old marsh witch that she really was. Shaella remembered the woman’s ample bosom and wide curving hips from the visions they regularly shared together. All of Queen Willa’s Xwardian court had been, and was still, completely fooled by the powerful illusion that had changed the old witch’s appearance. In fact General Spyra, the aging head of the entire Highwander Blacksword army, was in love with her.

  “What does our General have to say today, Mandary?” Shaella asked.

  “Mastress, the hawk-man departed the palace here at Xwarda yesterday on his quest for the pirate treasure,” the plump woman said in a girlish voice.

  “Did you place the finding stone?” Shaella asked.

  “Yes Mastress. A boy—an apprentice—travels with them. The stone is hidden among his things. Queen Willa has an odd interest in the youth’s safety. So I doubt he’ll be abandoned or thrown overboard. And none of those seamen will dare to rummage through his duffels.”

  “Good, good, Mandary. What else?”

  “King Jarrek is still rigorously preparing his men to try and free his people from King Ra’Gren’s slave pens. The General told me that they will all be leaving soon.”

  “And the High King?” Shaella interrupted. “When will he attack?”

  “There has still been no talk of attacking Westland, my Mastress,” the witch woman said. “I have wheedled the General’s mind well. If it is to happen, as you fear it will, then General Spyra knows nothing about it.”

  “What is it that he is waiting for?” Shaella asked aloud, but rhetorically. Before her spy could answer, she asked another question.

  “What does the young king do? He has the power of Ironspike at his hip. Is he daft?”

  “He is far from daft. Apparently he is trying to unite all of the Eastern Kingdoms.” The woman in the reflection looked away quickly. The alarm that came across her face faded as she continued. “As you know, Queen Willa and King Jarrek have bowed to him. Now King Broderick of Valleya is supposed to join them, and as soon as High King Mikahl weds Princess Rosa, her mother, Queen R
achel, and all of Seaward will no doubt do the same.” The plump woman looked away again; this time the alarm stayed in her expression. In a quick whisper she went on: “He seems content to leave you be while they rebuild what your father destroyed.” The last was spoken almost inaudibly, and before Shaella could respond, the woman’s face backed away from the reflection and a pair of plump hands came reaching in to disturb the surface of the liquid in Shaella’s bowl. As the vision shimmered away with the ripples, Shaella could still hear her spy’s girlish voice talking to the intruder.

  “Oh, Marial dear, you startled me. You really shouldn’t enter unannounc…” Then the spell was completely broken.

  My father, thought Shaella, the mighty wizard Pael. He had spent Shaella’s whole lifetime molding Prince Glendar into his puppet. To him, she had been nothing but an afterthought, or so it had seemed until he more or less handed her Westland on a silver platter. All of his bribing and scheming had been so that they might take over the realm together. It was a shame all that planning had gone over the sill when part of the demon Shokin had found its way into him. Pael’s thirst for power had caused him to rush into Highwander seeking the magic stored in the Wardstone bedrock of the place. Had he been patient and content with his original plan, he might not have been killed.

  Shaella learned from her father’s mistakes, though. She’d learned that lust and greed and power could spoil a near perfect plan. She was just glad that she had followed through with her end of things. Love had nearly led her conquest into ruin, but now that her hold on Westland was secure, she had the time, and the means, to communicate with her beloved Gerard. It was time that she might not have had if she’d done things differently. It was only a temporary inconvenience that Gerard was sealed in the Nethers with all of demon kind. At least she kept telling herself that. Together they would find a way to breach the magical bonds that held him in that dark place. It was that hope that drove her, the very reason that she spent nearly every waking hour in Pael’s tower scouring his books in search of another way in and out of the Nethers.