Fatigue suddenly overwhelmed him, as it had often of late. He slumped into a chair, sitting motionless until his breath returned. He again threw the charts aside, cursing Keeper Martin as he did so; immediately, he unrolled a piece of parchment and began hurriedly scribbling.
Hours later, as he finished the scroll, he placed it with the other scrolls of his account, careful to secure them with lock and key in a small chest, which he placed back into the larger trunk. The page hesitated before entering, clearing his throat to ensure that it was okay to come in.
The page set Jacob’s lunch on the table, meager as it was. Rations were extremely low even for one of Jacob’s stature. Jacob had insisted on equal rations for everyone including himself. With his face set in a mask, Jacob ate and for a time cleared his thoughts of all matters, even those of a pressing nature. As he finished, the page came back and took the plate, exiting without uttering a word.
The food sat thick and warm in his belly. Jacob sat still for quite some time, staring emptily at the wall of the tent. Anxiety and exhaustion coupled with internal turmoil brought him to the verge of collapse yet again. He had not slept in days, as was evident by the hollow shells of his eyes.
“Was it all for nothing?” he asked himself as his world faded to blackness. The camp was at the brink of depleting its last food stores; the little they had would only last a few more days at the most, and that only if they continued the strict rationing. They had only enough wood to maintain meager fires for cooking and little else. Water was the only thing they had in abundance.
Images played through his mind. He recalled distinctly the day they departed Imtal, the sojourn to Quashan’, the trek across the dark waters, reaching the Eastern Reaches, but most clear in his mind were the emotions in Keeper Martin’s face as he triggered the ancient device and disappeared. Jacob could not tell if it was surprise or shock or horror; nonetheless, Martin was gone now, and he, Jacob, was alone.
Chapter Nine
As Lord Serant broke into the courtyard, clutching Calyin’s hand followed by the venerable chancellors, his mouth fell agape. In astonishment he watched as the sun was swallowed by darkness, piece by piece. Frenzied thoughts ran through his mind. Thoughts of escape suddenly became secondary.
Calyin jolted to a halt as she stumbled into her lord. “What is it?” she asked, before she registered what was evident. She raised a hand to her mouth. A flicker of movement caught her eye on the far side of the courtyard as she peered heavenward.
Chancellor Van’te sank to his knees because of the agonizing pain in his side but also from awe. Chancellor Volnej quickly followed. “Father?” he cried, the word springing from his lips before he could cut it short.
The air turned cooler and a light breeze moved in as the shadows swept toward them. On the far side of the courtyard, a figure ran toward them, exhaustion clearly showing on his face. Lord Serant paused, also regarding the figure moving toward them. From a distance, Lord Serant couldn’t tell positively who the figure was. He did not know whether to flee or stand and fight.
As the figure approached, Lord Serant became certain that it was Swordmaster Timmer, as he had thought. The swordmaster dragged his right leg and draped his sword over his shoulder as he moved toward them, surprise and relief on his face.
“My lord, you are safe!” he hailed. “Thanks be to the Father.”
“Swordmaster Timmer, what has happened? Where did they all come from?”
“I do not know, my lord, but we shall make them pay for the treachery; this I promise.”
“Where are the garrison troops? The palace guards? Pyetr?”
“A few of the guards were with me, as you know. We have fought our way from the armory. I am afraid it was the first to be taken; only a few of my good men survive. We escaped the ambush. They are pushing into the inner castle as we speak. We did not know where you were, my lord.”
“The garrison troops, are they not in the city?”
The swordmaster shrugged his shoulders; he had dispatched men to inform them, but they had not returned although he thought that the garrison troops had surely seen the siege. “Where were they?” he thought to himself. “Come, we mustn’t delay here. It is not safe,” spoke Timmer, eager to move from the vulnerable position of the garden area.
“Where is Pyetr?” demanded Lord Serant.
“I do not know; come my lord, princess,” said Timmer with concern in his voice. He cast his eyes often to the sky as they retreated.
“Where is there safety?” asked Lord Serant. “Is the whole of the palace under attack?”
“I am afraid it is. There are so many. Damn it, where are the reinforcements!” Timmer cursed. “Are there others yet in the great hall?”
“I pray so,” said Serant in hushed, reverent tones.
“We will reach them, don’t worry. It will be just a matter of time as reinforcements arrive.”
“How many men do we have now?” asked Lord Serant.
“Scattered pockets, I am afraid. We were taken by surprise. Vile treachery, I tell you. We had no warning.”
“In all?”
“Several detachments, four squads in all, managed to escape with me; they are within the palace now.”
“Is that all?”
“I am afraid it is. They descended upon us in a swarm from all directions. It is a miracle that any of us escaped at all.”
Lord Serant hung his head; his thoughts were grim. He stopped just before they reentered the palace, looking at the shadows play upon the sun. It is an unnatural thing, he thought. It can only be an omen, an omen of ill tidings. He raised a defiant fist at the sun, and shook it angrily. He swore under his breath; he would make all who were responsible pay.
Movement through the halls proceeded slowly and cautiously; constantly they changed directions, moving away from the sounds of fighting. Slowly, they were being led around in a circle, being pushed back out into the courtyards. They were too small a group to venture an encounter. They could escape only if they avoided engagement.
As they entered a section of the old palace, ascending many floors and backtracking through the old private hallways and corridors, Calyin took the lead since she knew this area the best. Although she had not wandered these paths for many years, she still knew every detail from the time she had spent in them during her childhood. She brought them to a place where they could look out at the front courtyards, which lay behind the palace gates, and see the square just opposite the wall.
The sights from both views were ominous. A large contingent of black-clad warriors poured from the square through the gates. Within the courtyard was turmoil, a sea of bodies moving and clashing, mostly waves of black with tiny sections bearing the green and gold of the Great Kingdom. Lord Serant staggered back from the window, confused and dismayed. Fatigue swept through him, a sudden weariness that came from his soul.
Carefully circumnavigating the open passageways, Calyin brought them back to the old sections of the palace and to windows that looked down into the courtyards of the armory and a section of the garden. Although they noted no movement and no signs of the enemy intruders, the scene was nevertheless startling. Fields of bodies lay scattered across the grounds as if they had fallen from the sky.
Lord Serant closed his eyes. He considered plans for escape, which seemed the only alternative left to them. The odds were definitely not in their favor. He wondered about the fate of those they had left behind in the hall. He thought them perhaps lucky. They did not have to look at what he saw now.
Suddenly, Chancellor Van’te clutched Serant’s hand. “How did my brother die?” he asked. The weariness of his voice spoke volumes.
Lord Serant said with great sincerity, “He died with honor, honorable sir.”
“Good,” weakly responded the chancellor a glint of pride in his eyes. “Good-bye, my friends.”
Van’te collapsed, still holding Lord Serant’s hand as he fell. Lord Serant remorsefully closed the old man’s eyes. The last
expression fixed on the chancellor’s face was happiness, and Serant felt that the chancellor had indeed found peace.
“Look!” cried Calyin, as she stared out the window, not in disrespect for the chancellor, but because her eyes had welled up with emotion. “There!” she said pointing. Although the sky was shrouded in darkness, a beam of light bathed a section of the courtyard. In the midst of the light sat the white gazebo of the garden. They took this as a message and hurried to that spot.
Oddly, when they came upon the open walkways, none thought to look for danger before entering, for in such beauty they knew there could be only safety. Shadows lingered in the air above them. As they drew nearer, the ray of light diffused and became many patches of light, one of which was on a window high above, though none of them was aware of this.
As the day turned into night, all the warmth was drawn from the air by restless breezes. The small company stood upon the dais of the gazebo and gazed upon a raven-hued sun. Its light was no more. They did not look at it, knowing that they might be blinded.
“Please forgive my transgressions this day, Father,” crossed each of their lips more than once in the moments that followed; but still they waited, standing still upon the platform, for the thing that had brought them here had not yet arrived.
Shards of glass struck the stone of the palace and plunged downward. Raised eyes could make out the figures stepping onto the ledge even in the darkness. Those that remained constant saw the others emerge from secret places within the courtyard as the force that drew them gathered all.
Timmer raised his sword in his trembling hands, facing those that approached. Lord Serant was quick to catch movement out of his periphery vision. He stepped in front of Calyin, raising his sword, placing himself between those that approached and his beloved.
“Your weapons will do you no good. We have long since passed and they will do you no harm,” spoke a voice, crisp and clear, with melodic hints of song in the words. Hesitant, Serant, Timmer, and the chancellor lowered their blades. Calyin’s stance had not changed at all. She had noted the arrival but was not afraid.
“Who are you?” demanded Lord Serant.
“Listen close, and listen well,” bade the voice again, wavering in rises and falls as it spoke. “We have only a short time before we must leave. Do not fear us, but do heed us.”
“But—” interrupted Serant.
“Foolish one, be still. Wait and I will tell. With three you are free and you are seven. Find it destroyed by the first, and you will endure the second.”
“Yes,” said another, as Lord Serant made it clear that he wished to speak.
“What is it we seek?”
“He that is learned, and he that is wise, and he that you despise.”
“Find the place of old. There then will your answers lie,” chimed another.
Lord Serant attempted to speak again, and another began to speak. Her words flowed cool and soothing, gentle to their ears, “When you find him, he will know.”
“How do we escape?”
“You have only to try.”
“Where is it we must go?”
“Through the rain and towards the sleet, beneath the toil and the heat, downward, inward, outward, upward, under your feet.”
A minute tracing of light fell from the sky. The figures raised their hands to the questioning eyes and crept back to the places they had emerged from. As the figures receded, so did the other creatures that had been drawn. Vile were their faces as the glee and hopes of tasty morsels faded.
“Wait, do not go!” yelled Lord Serant. “But what of Imtal? I must stay.”
A faint voice echoed back to him. It was hard to hear the words, and he strained to decipher them. It almost sounded as if the words had been, “Go you shall,” yet it also could have been, “It will fall.” As he thought about it, he decided perhaps it was both.
Under the light of a dawning day, two figures moved across the rooftop, followed by a third. It was the reflection of light from steel that brought their attention to the small group in the gazebo. Calyin started as she studied the pair closer. A sputtering of the wind caught strands of long, dark hair, and blew them as they did her own. “Midori!” she exclaimed.
Timmer squinted and stared. His eyes were old and untrue, but judging from proportions in the changing light, one was a woman or a very thin man. Chancellor Volnej was sure as he looked closer, as was Lord Serant—the long, flowing black hair was a distinctive trait of all three sisters.
The fastest way to reach them was to move straight through the central towers, which is what they sought to do. Lord Serant took the lead and Timmer took the rear, hobbling along but still able to move surprisingly quickly. The stairs were more difficult for him, but with Volnej’s assistance he was able to make the climb at a fair pace.
“The roof, how do we get to it?” he demanded of Calyin, without thinking of the effects of the bluntness of his words. His anxiety was at its peak, and the aggressiveness of his soul had taken over his actions. Calyin glared at him and walked around him, taking him to a window that offered a ledge.
“Take care,” she whispered to him while kissing his cheek as he moved out of the window onto the ledge.
“Stay with her!” he barked back at the other two, who had been unsure of what to do.
Without giving it another thought, he turned to look for the others to mark their progress, nearly falling from the ledge as he did so. Calyin shuddered as she watched him inch along the edge, slowly disappearing. Lord Serant cursed the slickness of his boots and his own shortsightedness as he stumbled a second time, clinging to the masonry above only by his fingertips.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the progress of the third as well as the first two. It was difficult at best to make out the forms without stopping to turn to look at them, but he did not have time for that. He was sure that one was Midori and the other the captain. The closest window they could escape into lay midway between him and them, but the other was now only a few feet away from them. He thought about shouting a warning to them but decided not to do so lest they be discovered.
He waited until they had passed the corner. Perhaps then the time would be right. He checked the sword sheathed at his side, both out of habit and to insure that it was near. If only they could reach the window, he thought, then he would surely have a chance at stopping their pursuer.
Midori was the first to see the approaching form in front of her along the wall. Her hand faltered along the wall, causing her to lose her balance and slip. Only the captain’s agile hands were able to catch her, nearly pulling himself from the wall as he did so, but his grip held firm.
Lord Serant gasped, and called out, “Watch out! Behind you!” The sound of his voice brought alarm to Captain Brodst’s ears at first because he had not realized anyone else was on the ledge with them, but as he registered the sounds, he placed the voice. The timing of Lord Serant’s alarm couldn’t have been more wrong, for as the captain’s attention was distracted, his fingers slipped.
He pushed Midori against the wall as he fell. His eyes went wide with fear and desperation. Captain Brodst scrambled, clawing at the very air about him, attempting to grasp anything that lay near. Pain numbed his bloodied fingers as they tore into the lower ledge where his feet had been.
“Be gone!” cursed Lord Serant. “Death will be too good for you if you harm him!” Lord Serant shimmied as fast as he could, mustering all the strength and dexterity he could manage. “I warn you do not move!”
Lord Serant’s heart dropped to the bottom of his feet as the figure approached Captain Brodst, leaning down to pry his fingers from the ledge. “Midori, get in the window! Hurry!” called out Lord Serant. He paused long enough to draw a thin blade. He reached back, taking careful aim, preparing to release only when he was confident he was direct on target.
For the first time as the figure leaned over to offer the captain aid, Lord Serant saw the man’s face. “Geoffrey? Can it be?” he a
sked himself. Abashed, he dropped the blade. It fell tumbling, clinking against the stone as it plummeted downward.
“Oh, thanks be to the Father,” he cried out, as he thought, with three you are free, and you are seven. Utterly amazed at the revelation, he did not move for a long time. He stood frozen in deep thought, contemplating the many things that had seemed foolish to him moments before. The words, he thought, the words were not gibberish; they held meaning.
The captain and his rescuer had already gone through the window and were calling back to him before Lord Serant regained his senses. Filled with emotion, he grabbed them both in a mighty bear hug and immediately afterward swept Midori off her feet. A heavy burden had been lifted from his heart.
Complete In the Service of Dragons Page 44