by E. V. Greig
There was a loud crash as both Skegyl and Spellsnitcher hurtled back over the battlements and smashed into the roof of the main tower. Dozens of broken tiles rained down upon the cobblestones, causing the denizens of Briersburge to run for cover. The combatants scrambled down to the courtyard: panting.
“Cousin, there is an army of the restless dead approaching thy keep!”
“Old friend, my wife is an adulterous slut twice over! I demand to send her to a nunnery!”
Ranulf ran Skegyl through in one clean strike. Kicking the lycarne off his sabre, he turned his attention to Spellsnitcher. “What army?”
They all hurried to the battlements, leaving Skegyl alone to regenerate. Spellsnitcher pointed southwards. “There!” He shifted back into his smaller form and rubbed around Naomi’s ankles.
“It’s Ravin.” Naomi shaded her eyes. The first of the army’s banners had now become visible. “He’s coming after us again, and by the looks of it, he means to seize Briersburge!”
Chapter Nine
Slo’annathorys screamed as the cold iron studded flail came down again across his bare shoulders. His captor had sent in two of her minions after she had left him. They were wyrmblooded, to judge by their thin build and taloned hands. Both were also a little too inventive in their work for the sylvanth’s liking, but he hoped to use their vindictiveness against them in order to escape.
“Mercy...!” He forced himself to beg.
His tormentors laughed and moved closer to where he cowered. “Aw, is the poor little sylvanthi mercenary hurt?”
He grabbed them both: one hand around each of their scrawny necks. “Not as much as you pair will be by the time that I am done with you!”
∞∞∞
Naomi frowned. “Well, Ravin is certainly a determined foe. I dread to think how difficult it must have been to transport such an army over such a distance within mere days! I suppose that he must have used sylth to do it. Still, we don’t need to worry about them getting in: the wards will protect us from that, at least. We have plenty of water too; it’s food that troubles me. The storehouses hold enough to last us for six months. An army of the restless dead will easily outwait that.”
“Then a siege is not an option, niece. We must take to the field and drive them off!” Ranulf much preferred that option anyway.
“At least we have the high ground.” Elharan pointed at the map. “They can’t come at us from behind unless they find a way around those mountains and then back down.”
Luath shook his head. “This is the only pass into those mountains from the entire south.”
“Good.” Naomi patted him on the shoulder. “Then we only need to set up a defensive perimeter here, and here.” She indicated with a series of small pins. “We shall use pikes to stand against their cavalry. And then position the artillery behind the pikes: on this ridge.”
Ranulf marked another section. “Our own cavalry should be here: they can attempt to charge into the flank of the enemy. That will weaken their attack upon our pikes.”
“That will depend upon our cavalry being successful in their charge, Uncle. There would be a better chance overall of that were we to divide them, and utilise a two pronged assault upon both flanks.”
“Removing their restless regent would really render them rueful, my Lady.”
“Indeed, my love, but how to do it?”
Skegyl gave a snort of indignation at that. “I thought he was supposed to be a witchfinder! What’s the matter: did you miss learning how to kill? Perhaps you were too busy seducing other men’s wives!”
Naomi stepped around the library table then and walked up to Skegyl. She tilted her head back slightly to glare up into his eyes. “If you ever even as much as think of speaking to him in such a way again, I shall carve out your tongue with a silver knife. Now – do you have anything useful to add to this discussion? Or would you prefer to leave it?”
The berserker scowled down at her and cupped her face in his hands. “I have restless dead to kill, but we will be talking of this again, my wife!” He turned away and strode out of the room.
Misericord made to follow him. Elharan and Gyrfalcon picked him up by his elbows and set him on the nearest chair. “Stay put witchfinder.” Elharan glared at him. “Ravin knows he can get to you.”
“What of my Lady’s wayward lycarne?”
“Spellsnitcher will keep an eye on him.” Naomi gestured vaguely. “And I doubt that Ravin would be able to control Skegyl’s mind anyhow. He’s immune to such things.”
“I shall put my griffins to good use. They can carry riders armed with water skins of blessed water and buckets of quicklime!”
“Good thinking, Uncle Ranulf.” The Mistress of Briersburge shook her head. “I must attend to the wards. Excuse me please.” She swept out: Misericord following close at her heels.
Luath cleared his throat. “What of Kaiwan? Might she help?”
Ranulf avoided his question. “We should be able to defend the keep without her aid.” Drat – we never did find that girl, did we? Best get around to looking for her once this is all over and done. “Now then: who do we have available to bless water?”
∞∞∞
King Gilvaneous Shadowhawke opened his eyes. Slo’annathorys was alive, which he supposed was good. He had become such an arrogant whelp though: almost as ungrateful as his mother Yllyeria!
The black armoured sylvanth glanced towards his queen. “Our eldest son is alive,” he informed her coldly. “No thanks to your foolishness!”
She did not answer: it appeared that her lessons had at last begun to sink in. Gilvaneous continued. “He would never have abandoned his position were it not for your wild tales. You need not hope that I shall permit you to damage our second born. I shall take him away from you at weaning. Then you may return to your father’s household. I shall not keep you in mine once I finally have my heir.”
Yllyeria raised her pale face to gaze at him then. She was golden haired, as were both their sons, but her eyes were palest blue other than black. “My Lord, I swear that it was not I who poisoned our beloved son’s mind so! I only wish that you would believe me...!”
“I care not for your lies, or for your wishes!”
He turned his meditations to the par’anthir at Briersburge. Luath was proving a useful window into the behaviour of the inhabitants of the otherworldly keep. They talked to him readily, and Gilvaneous saw and heard all that Luath did. Then there was little Althanor: the youngster observed far more than those around him supposed. Gilvaneous sensed from them both that the Ca’Ryln was still safely within the walls of Briersburge, although he had gathered that those who ruled it knew that she was important now. The one that had taken her from the Vale had left more than a month ago, as had his son’s adventuring companions.
A sudden rush of terror from Luath reached him then: had the humans taken the bard adventuring again? Gilvaneous had been stunned by their bringing both Luath and Althanor to Anyosia. No, the threat was coming from outside of the keep: King Ravin was marching to take the keep and its inhabitants, including the Ca’Ryln, and his own mongrel grandson.
Gilvaneous rose to his feet at that. “Ready the army! We are going to war against King Ravin.”
His officers bowed and hastened to obey.
∞∞∞
Naomi turned from realigning the wards in time to see Elharan closing the door of the hidden chamber behind Misericord. “Where is he off to?”
“Your uncle needs someone to bless water for his scheme. So – let’s talk about this mess.”
“Which one: our misplacing Kaiwan, the army headed towards our gates, or my stupidly complicated relationships?”
“I’ve taken the liberty of sending a small unit of troops to search for the girl, and the defences are well in hand. Your suitors however are another matter. What are you going to do, Naomi?”
“I don’t know, Elharan.” She looked as small and frightened as she had the first time that he had laid eyes on h
er. “I am still Skegyl’s wife.”
“Technically, you’re also Bandhir’s.”
“I suspect that that marriage is utterly invalid now. Between Skegyl being still alive and Bandhir’s other treachery, there is nothing left to save it.”
“No soft feelings on your part then? Good – you are all too often kinder than you ought to be. Still, that leaves Misericord. I noted what you called him earlier, by the way, everyone did.”
Naomi stared around her at the curved walls of the warding chamber. The runes shifted beneath her gaze: glowing with a light that only the Mistress of Briersburge could see. “I love him.”
“How long has this been going on for?” Elharan seated himself atop one of the sacred crystals.
“Years now: long before we left Alnaiea.”
“Before you even met Skegyl you mean.” He sighed as she nodded. “Damn it, Naomi! Why did you take up with the northerner in the first place then?”
“I never expected that Misericord would reciprocate my feelings! He was a witchfinder, and I was the first woman in the watch. Improper, don’t you know. I buried what I truly wanted. And then Skegyl came along and I...he just swept me off my feet.”
“More like he isolated you from all the rest of your friends so that he could turn your head! You were just a pretty young watchwoman to fawn over him in his adventures.”
“I never would have regained my memory, and discovered who I really was, if he hadn’t persuaded me to go with him. It was Skegyl who introduced me to my uncle, after all.”
Elharan shrugged. “Maybe the spoilt noblewoman was the lie in all of this, and you needed to lose your memory in order to find the real you; the brave young woman that dared to sign up to the watch. Did you ever think of that?”
Naomi gasped at his accusation. “Spoilt, am I?”
“You act the part well enough, at times.”
“I should – I could...!”
He raised his eyebrows at her spluttering. “What?”
“Fine, I deserved that! Thanks for your candour, Elharan.”
“Aye, sure someone has to talk sense into you!” He got to his feet and patted her on the shoulder. “So – are you going to be a noble or a member of the watch?”
“Can’t I be both?”
“I don’t know, Naomi: can you?”
“I believe that I can.”
“Well then, that just leaves your love life to sort out. Who’s it going to be?”
His favourite pupil pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. “Skegyl did take advantage of me. He thought me to be beneath him. Once the truth came out, he’d little choice other than to ask for my hand. If he’d truly wanted to, he would never have left me behind when he left. Misericord respects me – perhaps a little too much, if I’m honest. I fear that I’m not good for him, Elharan.”
“That would be because you aren’t.” Her mentor was as blunt as ever. “You pander to his oddities. He’ll never improve if no one challenges him. He’s like a dog that’s too petted on its mistress. That weakens him. It weakens you too, for you’ll fly to him at a moment’s notice, as Ravin has already proved.”
“But I love him, Elharan! I don’t want to give him up!”
“There’s that damned noble blood coming out again.”
Naomi looked for a moment as if she might actually scream. She took a deep slow breath, held it for ten heartbeats, and breathed out. “You are right, Elharan. I must let him go. I must let both of them go to get on with their own lives, whilst I attend to Briersburge.”
∞∞∞
Skegyl and Spellsnitcher stood before the line of pikes: biding their moment to charge the enemy forces. “There’s something I need to know, Spellsnitcher.”
“And what is that, lycarne?”
“When I first took up with her – you were there, pretending to be her pet. Why did you not tell her the truth? Why leave it to chance?”
“Mine cousin is cursed, lycarne. Whilst I may watch over her, I may not intervene in her fate.”
“You intervene all the time!”
“Aye but that is to be expected. Cats never do obey instructions.”
“That makes no sense at all!”
“There is no reason to any realm, I reckon.” Misericord stepped up beside them then. “Only death and decorum and duty do definitely endure. Life and love and liberty – all are loathsome lies!”
Spellsnitcher looked askance at him. “Doth something trouble thee, witchfinder?”
“I serve the Lady. I am her blade: her mask – nothing more is to be mentioned, beast.”
Skegyl whistled. “She’s ended your romance then? Good to know!”
“She sets you aside also,” the witchfinder informed him icily. “For ‘tis only fair to favour us both with our freedom.”
The northerner snarled and began to shift once again. “She does well to hide behind her walls!”
Misericord spun to face the northerner then. The tip of one silvered blade was suddenly at Skegyl’s throat. “As mentioned: I serve the Lady! Should you dare to do her harm, most swiftly shall I slay you!” His voice was still and cold: empty of any shred of feeling.
Spellsnitcher flexed his own long limbs and eyed the approaching enemy forces. “Mine cousin hast made her choice. Come now: we must to battle!”
The three ranked up together: witchfinder, lycarne, and whatever that Spellsnitcher was. As one, they roared aloud and charged.
Ravin laughed as the three would-be heroes attacked his front ranks. “You mortals are such pathetic creatures! Fight all you wish: I shall send enough troops to drown you beneath their bodies!” So saying, the vandreth raised his hand and summoned up another thousand dead from beneath the earth. “My beloved homeland – so wracked with famine and plague and war! I never run short of minions!”
The newly risen skeletons scrabbled and lurched as they gained their bearings. Then they converged upon the three Alnaiean champions. Skegyl simply tore at them with his jaws and talons, as did Spellsnitcher. Misericord spun and danced amongst them: a blade here, a flask of blessed water there. Ravin was almost impressed at him. He signalled to one of his favoured lieutenants: a female vandreth with a liking for blades. “Fetch that one to me. I want him as one of my guard.”
“At once, my king!”
She sped forward through the ranks and leapt at Misericord. The witchfinder whirled and ducked beneath her: stabbing upwards with one of his stakes. The vandreth screeched as she died. Misericord tilted his head to the left and held up his hands: beckoning Ravin to approach him. “Come craven coward: let us dance again – a duel to the death!”
Ravin sneered and crooked a finger towards the masked man. “No – you come to me, Misericord! Kneel and pledge your loyalty to your new master!”
“My soul is shuttered securely now: I am indifferent to your influence, malignant monarch.” Misericord understood suddenly why the Lady had spurned him. His will was what it once was again: his mind merciless and his heart hard. She has set me free to fly.
“Then I shall cut you down, and hurl your broken corpse back over the walls to your beloved mistress!” Ravin drew his own swords then, and spurred his steed forwards; a creature that might once have been a warhorse, but which was long dead beneath its barding now. The ihldhyri parted before him like a rolling tide of rotting flesh and restless shadows. Misericord merely stood: awaiting his arrival and the Anyosian monarch laughed mockingly as he galloped towards him. “Here is to your death, Misericord of Briersburge!”
As the monstrous steed thundered to within an arm’s length, Misericord flung back his cloak and whipped out a pair of twin pearl handled pistols. Springing up onto the pommel of the dead thing’s saddle, he levelled them at the eyes of the astounded vandreth, and squeezed both triggers. Two pieces of solid silver shot embedded themselves deep in Ravin’s skull: extinguishing the witch lights that were his eyes. The king howled and swiped blindly at his opponent. Misericord slipped beneath his blades and scrambled behi
nd him, holstering his pistols as he went. Twisting around mid-move, he stabbed a slender silvered blade into the vandreth’s vital spot: digging up and forwards via a gap in his armour. “Here is to your own!”
The witchfinder sprang clear in anticipation of the imminent collapse of Ravin’s steed along with the remainder of the restless ruler’s forces. Nothing happened. This gave him pause. As he watched, Ravin sheathed one of his weapons. Then the vandreth reached around behind him and drew out the dagger: laughing again as he licked it clean of his own blood. “A means to pick these troublesome specks from my eyes – I thank you, Misericord!”
Ravin dug the silver blade into his eye sockets and flicked out the lumps of shot. Turning his steed, he stared towards his flummoxed foe. For flummoxed Misericord most certainly was by now. “What witchery is this that aids you?”