The Heron Kings

by Eric Lewis

  Ulnoth nodded. “We’re good at hiding and running, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It is, exactly. We’ll need transportation, and I think I might know someone who can help us….”

  * * *

  “Who’s going?”

  Corren’s words echoed down the walls of the cave then faded away to nothing. They worked to make the place suitable as a permanent hideout, but it was slow-going. A crude gathering hall had been hacked out near the mouth, and the faces looking back at him in the torchlit gloom were stretched gaunt and threadbare, desiccated mockeries of the people they’d been. “It’s closer to certain death than anything we’ve done before, so we’ll only take volunteers. Lessi and I’ll go alone if need be, but I hope we won’t have to.” He described Vinian’s plan as best they could understand it, trusting to hope that certain details would prove less insane in execution than they sounded. Corren was about to speak again when Ulnoth rose.

  “I, uh, don’t need to tell you what we been through – you all lived it. Only half of us made it through to now, and I can’t say for sure which half is the luckier. I don’t see us weatherin’ a second winter. If this plan – using the term loosely, mind you – has even a chance of putting this shitshow of a war down, I owe it to Athewen and Lisette, to Plisten, and all those we’ve buried, to try. Won’t speak for any other, but that’s what I say.”

  “Thanks, Ulnoth,” said Alessia.

  He shrugged as he sat back down. “Not like there was any doubt, o’ course.”

  “All right,” said Corren, “who else?”

  Silence. Haggard eyes looked left, right to see who else would volunteer. From the back came a bitter voice that’d been heard all too seldom these days. “I’ll go.” Heads turned, bodies parted, leaving the speaker standing out for all to see.

  “Dannek,” said Alessia, her heart searing for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  He nodded. “I’m sure. Like Ulnoth said, I owe it. To Alixe.”

  “If he’s going so am I,” said Nan. “For Crander, and all of Wengeddy.”

  “And me,” said Gant, “for Staphenil.”

  Emony stood also. “For Allard.”

  Alessia shook her head. “No, Emony. This is my burden – I have to see it through. But if I fall the others will need you to help keep them alive. I’m sorry.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll go.” Banwick laid a hand on Emony’s shoulder. “I’ll go for Allard.”

  Unable to make a counterargument, Emony nodded and sat down.

  “Anyone else?”

  When it seemed no others would, Kuther and Verrell came forward together. “I guess us,” said Verrell, “for anyone else ain’t got someone to stand for ’em. I guess.”

  “Good,” Corren said with a nod. “Then I’d say we got a fighting chance. Rest of you, especially the new folks from Firleaf – stay out of sight. Practice your drills. Raid only when you absolutely have to, and above all stay alive. Better days have to be ahead – they can’t get much darker.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Fleshold

  Cold. Cold and wet and dark and pain was their universe as they held on for dear life while the ship plowed toward Fleshold. It would’ve been rough enough atop the pitching deck, but unwelcome guests such as they clawed at the outer hull instead, frozen knuckles clamped like barnacles with only a few stretches of rope to secure them.

  “Lying pirate,” Ulnoth spat into the roaring ocean, over and over though no one would hear it. “Said it’d be a short trip. He said it.” Next to him Nan – or was it Alessia? His brain had gone numb – seemed to shout similar epithets that were largely swallowed up by the wind and the waves. Maybe on a calm summer day it was a short jaunt across the water, but tonight it seemed like the gods themselves ached to keep Arnaud’s little cargo vessel from reaching port.

  Another wave crashed into the ship, thrashing Ulnoth in a furious attempt to drive him into the deep. Let it try, he thought, I’ve stood worse. Maybe that was true, maybe it— Aaargh! Cold!

  When it seemed he could take no more and the urge to let go and hurl himself into watery oblivion was its most seductive, everything stopped. It was shocking how suddenly it stopped, as though those ornery gods now shrank in fear at the great black lump of island before them. The wind ceased, the roar of the waves grew silent. Harbor.

  It was anticlimactic really, when Arnaud’s ship drifted almost softly casual toward the single pier built only the week before. Ropes flew out, were caught by men no more concerned than if they were threshing wheat in autumn, tied off then forgotten. A plank was thrown over starboard and more men unloaded barrels and crates. One crate in particular proved especially hefty, needing six strong men to move. Throughout this Ulnoth and the others clung to the taut foot- and hand-hold cables portside – despite all they’d endured, this was the most critical test. Still. Still and silent. Hold. Still.

  Only when the sounds of activity ceased and the lamps and torches were carried far away did Ulnoth try to relax his grip. After using his teeth to force his fingers open, he reached up toward the bow of the ship, the only dry thing on him the oilskin-wrapped bow on his back. Arnaud pulled him aboard and didn’t spare a moment to listen to his shivering insults before moving to the next figure strung along the hull, and the next. Dark forms crawled up then collapsed, coughing up water and breathing hard to warm fingers.

  “Is everyone here? Did everyone make it?” Alessia flitted among the gathered to match faces to names, limping on her not-quite-healed leg. When the count came to only nine, she grew frantic. “Who’s missing?”

  “Kuther,” said Corren without hesitation. He didn’t know how he knew, but live with people so close for so long and you can feel their presence. Or absence. “Kuther’s not here. Damn!” He slammed his fists onto the planks. Barely begun and already they were reduced to nine.

  Verrell looked once into the dark sea before them, the Bergovan coast and Kuther lost somewhere in that expanse. “What do we do?”

  “Keep going,” Corren answered. “We’ve a job to do, and if nine can’t get it done I doubt ten could.”

  Finally Arnaud pulled Vinian onto the deck. “Ah,” he said with a smile, “be you yet alive and spitting, my dear?”

  “J-just barely.” Vinian shivered. “Tell me it was worth it.”

  “Indeed,” replied Arnaud, “it was as I suspected – so suspicious they searched us stem to stern. You’d have been found, no doubt of it.”

  “And my special cargo?”

  Arnaud nodded gravely. “Safe on its way, compliments of the friends of Reynal. ”

  “Thanks, captain – there’s one more I owe you.”

  “My dear.” The smuggler put a finger to his head. “Arnaud keeps the tally all up in here. Accomplish what I think you seek tonight, and it pays for all.”

  * * *

  The ship shoved off again and was enveloped by the night. Ahead loomed the audience hall built just for its current purpose atop the steep slope, glowing watchfires from the walls to guide them. The squalls they’d cursed only minutes before muffled their steps, now joined by rain and thunder. Tired as they were, they climbed, far from the well-guarded footpath over flesh-shearing stones toward the dark structure. It was mostly wood but a wall of stone blocks protected it, like a tiny castle. Every few seconds each pair of eyes flicked up at the ramparts. Surely they’ll see us! They must by now. But no alarm went up, and they pressed on.

  Far above, two soldiers discussed everything except the weather, for what was there to say about that except that it was nastier than a witch’s tit? One of them broke off a stream of bored insults when his young comrade went suddenly silent, staring out to sea unmoving. “Uh, boy, you all right— Aargh!” The slightest nudge sent the lad clattering to the deck of the wooden parapet, and in the fleeting lamplight the older soldier glimpsed the stra
ight line of an arrow shaft bisecting his throat.

  “What the fu—” An arm enveloped his own neck and he had the briefest sensation of breathing through a hole in his trachea before blood loss sent him to his knees, then to nothingness.

  “Nicely done,” said Corren as the others clambered up the hooked rope and over the battlement.

  “Lessi might be the physic,” answered Ulnoth, “but in this work I’m the chirurgeon.”

  “You flatter yourself,” said Nan, her face still wet and corpse-white from the journey. She yanked her shaft from the body and returned it still bloody to her quiver. “I did the hard work.”

  Quick and quiet and dark, the Heron Kings spread across the battlement. The last member of their party crept over the wall. “Is all secure?”

  Ulnoth sneered at Vinian’s question. “Secure? Never heard the word. We ain’t dead yet though, and that’s miracle enough.”

  Vinian eyed the bodies at her feet. Green-badged bodies. “Is this slaughter necessary? If we succeed, by tomorrow these men won’t be your enemies—”

  “Tomorrow!” Ulnoth raged right in her face. “Tomorrow don’t exist. ’Til then anyone ’tween us and them’s the enemy, and too bad for them. I’m sorry for that, but not really. Now, where’s this meetin’ at?”

  “Down there.” She pointed at the hall in the middle of the courtyard, separated on all sides from the wall. Guards ringed it and patrolled the courtyard. “They’ll be in the center part with smaller rooms around it. Looks like the same layout as the council hall at Murento where this whole thing got started. Poetical.”

  The wind died down a bit, and from the hall a shrill shout of “Liar!” rang up to pierce it.

  “That’s my queen,” said Vinian with pride. “Yelling means Pharamund’s not dead yet. He must be doing well.”

  “Let’s just hope that pirate of yours delivered his package as instructed,” said Alessia.

  “Don’t worry, Arnaud marked it as Cynuvik apple brandy, the queen’s favorite. It’ll get through.”

  They snaked their way along the parapet, snuffing watchfires as they went. In each corner a tower house was built with windows looking outward, but the doors were shut against the storm. Corren leaned against one to listen. Through the wind, a voice. Then another. He waited nearly five minutes while the others held back with strung bows. Two, no – more, he said in their improvised hand-language. He nodded and rapped hard on the door.

  After a few seconds it creaked open, and a soldier wearing Engwara’s livery poked his head out. “Wha— Who’s there? I just come up, so sure it ain’t time for relief….” When the man was fully out of the tower house, Nandine pounced. An arrow hit the soldier’s chest but impacted in the rings of a mail shirt and he staggered back. Before the man could cry out Banwick rushed forward with a rope and whipped it around his neck while Dannek shoved him clear over the outer wall. The rope tightened and the soldier’s neck snapped without him ever uttering a sound of alarm.

  Corren charged into the tower house. The place was three yards on a side and the only occupant was bent bare-assed toward the small stone hearth built into the wall. He barely had time to stand upright and shout his surprise when Corren barreled into him. This soldier – red-badged for Pharamund, one of each to a pair it seemed – went into the fire and howled. Gant burst into the room and cut the man’s cry short with a swift cleaver blow to the face. They pressed on through the opposite door, Gant taking the lead and Vinian the rear.

  Halfway along the next stretch of the wall they came to a stairwell, twisting dark and downward. They were forced to descend single file and blind. Just as they emerged into the courtyard a guard of one faction or the other turned to face them. Doubtless figuring them for intruders straight away, he drew a sword and yelled an alarm. Only the most extreme good fortune saved them when a crash of thunder directly overhead drowned out his shout. The guard swung a clumsy blow and the flat of a blade bounced off Gant’s shoulder to lodge the edge in his neck. He fell against the steps.

  “Bastard!” Banwick chased after the fleeing guard into the open courtyard, jumped on his back and twisted his head at an obscene angle. The guard fell, twitched once or twice then was silent. Banwick and Verrell dragged the body back to the cover of the stairwell, hoping to the gods no one had noticed. Gant bled.

  “We’re in,” muttered Alessia. “You go ahead – I’ll stay with Gant.”

  “Don’t bother,” said Banwick bitterly, “he’s dead.” He felt for a pulse once, then laid Gant’s limp head back as his blood gushed all around them and down the stairs. Banwick kicked the stone with a snarl. “Can’t stop for ’im though, or it’s for nothing.” They left him there. The remaining eight huddled against a shadow-draped corner of the wall, their goal within sight.

  The conference hall was ringed with guards standing shivering in the rain, their oilskin ponchos obscuring each’s loyalties. “What now?” asked Nan, raising and lowering her bow uncertainly. “I can’t shoot fast enough to take ’em all, none of us could.”

  “Verrell,” said Ulnoth, “that trick we pulled on the crew outta Fort Dunsmere? Let’s do it.”

  “You think?” Verrell fidgeted nervously. “I dunno, it barely worked last time.”

  “Perfect record then. Let’s go.”

  The pair staggered out into the courtyard and the tiny perimeter illuminated by what watchfires hadn’t been extinguished by the storm, babbling and swaying back and forth. The guards came instantly to alert.

  “Hail,” slurred Ulnoth, “hail the king ’n the queen ’n all th’ others! Is they the best or what? Hail! All us…we’s the best.”

  “Nah,” said Verrell, clapping Ulnoth on the back, “you, my friend…are the best. Ain’t he, boys? This guy, this is the guy—”

  The guard nearest the door stepped forward, face screwed up in fury. “What the— Are you kidding me?” He turned to the one next to him. “One of yours I take it?”

  “Ain’t none o’ mine,” the other protested. “See, who’s your captain, you drunk son’s of – you’ll be crucified for this, whoever y’are!”

  “Ahhh,” moaned Verrell, “done lots of cruci…crucia…crosscification in my time. Ever’one of ’em gone up high! Hail ’em!” He raised a fist to the sky.

  “Sure sounds like one o’ yours,” said the first guard.

  “Shit.” He waved to several others stationed along the wall. “All right, reel ’em in.” Three or four peeled off from their posts and stomped toward the pair, their anger and embarrassment evident even amid the storm. But before they could be apprehended Ulnoth and Verrell darted off toward a far corner of the compound.

  “You’ll ne’er take me aliiive!” Verrell called in a singsong voice. Two more guards broke off from their stations in pursuit, and just like that the number blocking the hall was halved.

  “Not bad,” said Vinian from her place of cover, “even if they do get themselves killed for it.”

  “What about the rest?” wondered Nan, her bow still half-drawn. “Can we take them?”

  “We better,” answered Corren. He gave the signal, and in perfect unison five arrows were loosed at the remaining guards. Five seconds later another volley took the remainder. Dannek ran forward and began dispatching those still living. Vinian shook her head in wonder at how she ever thought she could wipe out folk such as these. If they knew what kind of power they truly possessed…. But she would not be the one to tell them, not tonight.

  A second later Ulnoth came jogging out of the darkness, blood coating his face and chest. He came alone.

  Alessia frowned. “Verrell?” Ulnoth shook his head.

  Corren glared at the undefended hall. “This is it then – we don’t stop until Vinian stands before the idiot royals themselves.”

  Banwick held a fist before the large door. “Shall we knock? Worked last time.”

  “N
o!” Vinian yanked his arm away. “Don’t, not while they’re inside. If it opens and they see you and these bodies it won’t open again until an army surrounds us. We’ll have to find another way.” She stood back, took in the whole of the building. “Just like the hall in Murento….” No windows, no other doors. But the roof…. “Up there. The roof’ll be all planks. The original was thatched, but I’m betting they didn’t quite get around to…there!” She pointed to a series of beams that protruded horizontally from near the rooftop. “If we can get up there…you still have that grappler?”

  Banwick had it. After a few misses it looped around one of the crossbeams, and Vinian tied the other end around her waist. “Hoist me up.”

  In this manner they ascended one by one to the roof. They pulled the rope up after them with Banwick left behind on the ground to watch for more guards. They spread across the angled planks, searching for a loose one to gain entry. They began to despair when Nan called out.

  “Here, help me with this!”

  Corren put his sword under the mislaid board to use as a prybar. He heaved. The board creaked and groaned. “Almost…got it.” When it snapped so did the one under his feet from the reverse pressure. There was a loud crack, a crash, and he disappeared through the bright hole.

  “Corren!” Ulnoth stood too fast, and lost his footing on the wet roof. He slipped, reaching out for Nan. They both fell and slid through the breach after Corren.

  “No!” Alessia knelt over the opening, her face bathed in yellow light from within.

  Corren and Ulnoth hung from rafters, clawing at the beams with bloody fingernails. Nandine writhed on a feast-strewn table below them, clutching at her leg, and all around her stood the royal party of Engwara, Pharamund, and about a dozen shocked guards of both camps. Against the far wall a fire roared, and on either side luxurious tapestries of green and red, banners of serpent and fox, whose adherents now looked poised to kill each other.

  “Ambush!” Engwara shrieked. “All that love me, kill them!”