by Mark Smylie
Before the two women retired behind their makeshift screens, Stjepan caught Arduin’s attention and spoke to the three of them.
“I do not want to impose myself more than is necessary, but obviously we need to know when new parts of the map might choose to reveal themselves,” he said in a low voice. “Lady Annwyn, Mistress Malia, do you think you could familiarize yourself with the images that are currently appearing? If you could perhaps inspect the images each evening, as you prepare for sleep, and see if there is anything appearing that seems new and different, then you can alert Lord Arduin and myself that the map is changing and we can arrange another . . . viewing.”
Annwyn and Malia exchanged a glance, and Malia nodded to Stjepan. “We will let you know the moment that anything new appears, Master Stjepan,” the handmaiden said. The two women curtsied to the two men, and then drew their curtains closed.
When the Dawn Maiden arose the morning of the 19th of Emperium, they gathered themselves and set off at as fast a pace as the coach could manage west-southwest along old, seldom-used paths at the very limits of the domain of the Barony of Araswell, paralleling the Vessbrae as it rose into the foothills of the Manon Mole. By the time the sun had fully risen, they had already covered several miles, which Erim thought was a pretty good pace all things considered. Erim had been curious to note that only a handful of the knights—the Urwed brothers, and Sir Clodin—and the two squires, Brayden and Wilhem, joined together to say some quick quiet prayers to the Dawn Maiden in the morning dark, and then again to greet Islik the Divine King when the sun arose. The other men were all business and no piety, at least until Arduin called for a mid-day prayer for young Herefort on the Path of the Dead. “The household will hold the vigil for him at Araswell for his Seven Days, but we should offer our prayers to guide him on his way,” Arduin said. “We are the ones that knew him best.” And that prayer they all joined in on.
The local lord, Sir Percy Perwain of Ferham, distantly related to the main Orwain lineage and father to Sir Clodin in Arduin’s entourage, was in charge of making sure the paths were tended and cleared, and Arduin was thankful to note that they appeared to have been well kept during the winter. They would occasionally see well-built stone farmhouses scattered on nearby rises or in the river valley, but the land here was not terribly hospitable and people were generally scarce. Lord Percy’s hold was a stone tower on a crest to their north at the end of a better road that ran twenty miles back to Araswell, but they passed far enough to the south that they never even saw his keep. “Surely we can stop there,” said Sir Clodin.
“Your father has likely ridden out to answer the levy call from Araswell,” noted Stjepan. “And the fewer people that know where we went, the better.” Arduin had nodded at that, and so on they had went, though Sir Clodin favored Stjepan with dark looks from then on.
Across the Vessbrae they could occasionally glimpse the start of the Hada Wold, and the low peaks of the Manon Mole were becoming visible in the distance to the south, and scattered around their path they were beginning to see the peculiar, trademarks stones that gave the Plain of Stones its name.
As they began to cross into the Plain of Stones itself, Arduin urged his horse forward until he was riding side-by-side with Stjepan. “We have reached the limits of my personal experience,” he said, taking a swig of weak wine from a skin. “I have crossed the Plain of Stones many times, but always on the West King’s Road, and have traveled my father’s lands extensively. But I have never taken the high paths that skirt the Manon Mole.”
“And normally I would never suggest that we take this route,” said Stjepan. “It’ll be hard on the coach, and there’s some risk from the bandit knights of the hills. But those risks can be managed more easily than the risks we would have had on the West King’s Road.”
“I’ve fought the bandit knights before, but never on their own ground,” admitted Arduin. “We chased a band of their raiders off several years ago, but called off the pursuit right back there,” he said, indicating a spot they had passed several hundred yards back. “We’d already killed a dozen of them in some tough fighting, and it had seemed folly to chase them further.”
“A wise choice, my Lord,” said Stjepan with a nod of his head. “You should never enter the Manon Mole unless you absolutely have to.”
“I . . . I had been offered a commission to ride with Duke Pergwyn this coming summer in the campaign against the Rebel Earl,” Arduin said, brooding. “I suppose that is unlikely to happen now, unless we return with Gladringer in hand.”
Stjepan looked at him carefully. “That would have been a great honor for you, my Lord Arduin,” he said. “Perhaps it may still happen. If it does, then we may well be riding together again, as I am expecting to be summoned again to the campaign when the Grand Duke commences it in earnest this summer. Assuming I am not exiled or in jail, of course.” He paused and pointed up the trail they were following. “The old roads and paths ahead were deemed insufficient for large bodies of troops, but we used them all the time last year to run messages down toward Truse or Therapoli.”
“Yes, I remember our Lords of Ferham and Riverguard reporting that men bearing the seal of the High King and the Grand Duke were passing through their lands,” said Arduin. “And then we received an order from the Court to provide fast boats at a small riverside dock where the Hada Wold ends, so that men could head downstream with ease. Do you mean to say you were one of those men?”
“Yes, my Lord, I have traveled your father’s lands before, and enjoyed his hospitality, though I never had reason to personally meet him, or you for that matter,” said Stjepan with a nod.
Arduin shook his head and snorted under his breath at the weave of the Fates in the world. “I don’t remember the Grand Duke’s main companies coming through our lands, though,” he said.
“No, my Lord, they marched the West King’s Road to the Danias,” Stjepan said. “The launch point for most of the army was Reinvale or Stonham, coming from the western side of the Mole, but then most of the lords summoned by the Grand Duke to last year’s campaign were Danian or from the Watchtowers anyway, and most of the fighting was in the western half of the Mole and down into the Neris Wold. But I know the roads ahead of us sufficiently well.”
“Shall the bandit knights cause us trouble, then?” Arduin asked.
“I do not know, my Lord,” Stjepan said with a frown. “I would hope we do not see another living soul until we reach the outskirts of the Earldom of Erid More. But if we see the knights of the hills, there may be alternatives to bloodshed.”
“Oh?” said Arduin skeptically.
“Like most men, they can be bought,” said Stjepan with a simple shrug.
They ate on the move, stopping only to rest and water the horses along a stream that fed down to the Vessbrae behind them, or to find some favorable spot to squat and undo their breeches and codpieces; Erim was always careful to find a spot well away from the others if she had to piss or shit. The landscape had shifted to a bleak semi-wasteland. Very little seemed to grow in the earth here besides short small shrubs and fuzzy lichens; the primary feature of the Plain of Stones as it overlapped the rolling foothills of the Manon Mole were the stones themselves, thousands of wide flat roughhewn slabs like paving stones scattered over the earth as far as the eye could see, at least until up in the hills where the ground was free of them. Their shape and placement seemed too regular to have been mere accident, and they bore some hint of the touch of man. Erim felt a vaguely creepy feeling beginning to tug at her spine and the hairs on the back of her head, and she noticed the Aurian knights starting to shoot nervous looks about them as they went. Cursed by your own birthrights wherever you go, she thought to herself, with very little sympathy.
With so little high growth around them, the paths through the stones were relatively flat and clear, and the coach was able to pass through at a relatively good pace. Several times they had to slow to be careful about one obstacle or another, but by the end of
the day Erim guessed they’d made close to thirty-five miles. As the sun began to set behind clouds in the west, they made camp, setting a picket line for the horses; the women stayed in their coach, and the men set up several tents being carried on the carriage. Erim had noted earlier that the horses seemed content with munching on the short shrubs that grew around the flat stone slabs, and that was a bit of luck, as they could save their supply of feed grain for spots where there was nothing for the horses to eat.
They set two campfires that night, one where the knights and squires clustered, and then one where Stjepan, Erim, Gilgwyr, and Leigh gathered. It was as though once out in the open air, with the space to spread out a bit, that the natural social division of the group automatically reasserted itself by unspoken agreement. No one seemed to have an issue with that. As the others set tents and fires, Leigh began marking a perimeter around them, a wide circle of small stones and chalk dust that he poured from a leather bag. He found and marked a rock at one of the cardinal points of the circle with a rune. “Ward this place against magic! Ward this place against ghosts and spirits! Ward this place against the Wild Hunt and the Black Hunter! They are not welcome here, where we make our mark upon the World!” he whispered, and moved on to repeat himself at each of the cardinal points around the circle that he had inscribed around them.
The Black Hunter was only loosed from the Underworld once a year, with certainty, on the Night of the Wild Hunt before the first day of winter, and that night every mortal would find themselves behind walls or campfires ringed with protections such as the one that Leigh had just set or risk becoming the hunted. But the Wild Hunt occasionally slipped from its chains in the Underworld on other nights of the year, and just in case the wise and the prudent and the paranoid protected themselves after dark when in the wilderness. And Leigh was perhaps all three.
When all was finally settled and they had settled to eating their evening meal, Gilgwyr stretched out his legs by the fire. “By the gods,” he groaned. “The next time I suggest that it’s a good idea that I leave the comforts of city and home, just stab me in the fucking balls.”
“Not enjoying yourself?” asked Stjepan with what could only be described as a smirk.
“What’s not to like?” Gilgwyr asked. “I’m in desperate need of a bath, as is everyone around me; my ass hurts from riding that coach as though I’d been beaten and flayed by the Inquisition’s best; and that young fellow Brayden has to be one of the most boring sods I have had the misfortune to encounter. How a young man can have no interest in any of the finer things in life is beyond me. He doesn’t laugh at any of my jokes, and he just says ‘Please, sir, mind your manners!’ if I try to talk about anything remotely interesting, so I’ve had virtually no civilized conversation for the entire day. It’s enough to drive a man mad.”
“A man mad? A madman? Are you talking about me?” asked Leigh, peering at Gilgwyr with suspicion.
“Um; no, Magister,” said Gilgwyr slowly, a bit puzzled. “I was just saying that I can’t get the young squire driving the coach to listen to my stories.”
“Then stop telling him stories about your cock,” said Leigh with a snort. “Tell him stories about his cock. He’ll probably find that much more interesting. Probably.”
“Well, we’ll have to cross a bit of the Trubrae tomorrow,” said Stjepan. “We can all take a moment to bathe then. That’ll solve one problem, at least. Perhaps you and Leigh can sit in the rumble seats of the coach together, and let the squires sit up top?”
“Aye, I think I make the other lad nervous,” said Leigh. “Can’t figure out why for the life of me.”
None of them said anything, munching at their bread and dried figs in silence, until Leigh started to giggle under his breath. Then soon the four were laughing loud and hard into the night.
After their meal and a bit of wine, they settled into two small tents around the dying campfire as they prepared for sleep, Erim and Stjepan in one, and Leigh and Gilgwyr in the other. Gilgwyr had the flap of his tent open so that he could peer up at the night sky. The great constellation of Shebetae, the Star-Child, was ending the days of its rule and passing out of the First House of the Heavens and into the Second, and Adaral, the intertwined Serpent, was rising from the position of the Twelfth House to take its place in the First House, to rule the next cycle of the Heavens.
“Ack, I can’t believe it!” he suddenly moaned as he stared up at the stars.
“What? What’s the matter?” asked Leigh.
“Tonight’s the Festival of the Serpent! And therefore also the wake at the Sleight of Hand for Guizo the Fat, that fucking bastard,” said Gilgwyr. “Back in Therapoli, my young Ariadesma is right about now getting the shit fucked out of her in front of the assembled Princes of the Guild. And I’m fucking missing it!”
“You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead,” said Leigh sleepily. “Unless you are also pissing on their graves, that is, in which case you can say whatever you want, as that tends to confuse and distract them.”
“I told Sequintus and Siovan to think of something truly spectacular to put young Ariadesma through,” Gilgwyr said with wistful excitement. “I wonder what they came up with. I can’t believe I’m fucking missing it!”
“Well, don’t let it get to you,” said Leigh, his eyes already closed. “Just remember that if all goes well you will soon be able to command whatever entertainments you desire to your heart’s content.”
“Aye,” said Gilgwyr, his voice practically a whisper as he stared up at the sky, the image of Ariadesma’s delicious body spinning in the air above him. “Today is a great day, a blessed day, and soon, very soon, will come the best day of all. A great change is coming!”
“Careful now. How does that saying go? Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” mumbled Leigh. “Don’t count your cocks before they crow.”
“Don’t count your cocks before they cum,” whispered Gilgwyr, laughing to himself as he slowly and luxuriously masturbated, visions dancing in his head.
The next morning the new seating arrangements were taken with little objection, the two squires apparently having proposed a similar change to Sir Helgi during their evening meal. The weather seemed to be holding reasonably well for them, occasional clouds and brisk winds now that they were further up into the foothills, but the path also seemed to get a bit more difficult and the coach had to move a bit more slowly. They reached the Trubrae by late morning, and after getting the coach through the ford they stopped for their prayers for young Herefort, and then took the opportunity to refresh themselves in the waters there. This high up the tributary was not so much a river as perhaps a winding creek, perhaps forty or so feet at its widest and up to a man’s thigh at its deepest. The shrubs here were larger than the ones they’d been seeing, some of them along the riverbank having grown almost into genuine brush. They tasted the water and refilled their canteens and jugs first. Then water was brought in a basin up to the coach so that Annwyn and Malia could have some element of privacy there; but the men just began stripping and wading into the waters in turns.
Erim wandered a bit upstream, where the creek wound sufficiently that she could find a bit of privacy out of view of the others around a bend. Still wary of one of them stumbling upon her, she didn’t bother to take off her breeches or shirt, but waded into the water partially clothed. She washed her armpits under her shirt with soap, then squatted until her ass and haunches were under the water, and pulled her breeches down so she could soap and wash her loins and rear. It was a practiced move, having been in the country before, but she still thought about how odd it might look if someone were to see her. Better they think me odd than see me naked, she thought, and as she did so she looked up to see three horsemen watching her from a nearby hill.
She froze.
They were just sitting there: three horsemen in archaic, hodgepodge armor, partial plate over brigandines and bits of mail with hounskull bascinets upon their heads, visors raised. Two had long spears, on
e with a small grey and green pennant flying from it. They were several hundred yards away, with rocks and rough terrain and the creek between; as Erim didn’t see any bows or crossbows, she realized that she was not in any immediate danger. If spurred to action, those horses could cross that distance quickly; but they didn’t have a clear straight line to get to her. And they weren’t necessarily presenting as hostile anyway.
They were just sitting there, watching her.
Her fear dimmed enough that she was able to move again. She slowly pulled her breeches up over her ass under the water, and then stood, being careful not to move too suddenly. Without turning her back to them, she walked backwards to the shore where her gear was, and as calmly as she could she dried herself a bit with a towel, and slipped her boots and doublet back on. She reached down and collected her brace of weapons, one eye on the three horsemen to gauge their reaction; but they didn’t move.
Slowly she walked almost backwards down the creek bed back to the bend, keeping herself turned mostly to the riders, until she knew she stood in a place where the main group could see her. Without moving her gaze from the horsemen, she called out over her shoulder: “Black-Heart! Get over here! We’ve got company!”
She held her breath as she watched the three silent horsemen; behind her she could hear the shouts and commotion of her companions preparing themselves. She grew nervous, and the dampness on her brow was no longer just water from the creek; it was taking far longer than she would have liked. But eventually she heard splashing in the creek coming up behind her and then Stjepan was next to her on Cúlain-mal, with Cúlain-mer in tow, along with Sir Helgi and Sir Theodras, who were at least in their full three-quarter harness and mounted on their warhorses.
“Islik’s balls, bandit knights!” swore Sir Helgi as Erim swung herself into the saddle of her horse with relief.