Knight and Champion

by Steven J Shelley

  “I thought there was only one left,” Duskovy said, turning to wander the floor. “One la Berne to haunt the Southern Reaches. I was mistaken.”

  Hadley felt her confidence seeping away. Who was he referring to? Tanis?

  “I’m not sure if you should be speaking of honor, Miss la Berne,” the Baron went on. “Not while your sister continues to ply dark, filthy magic with her orcish consort.”

  Now it was Hadley’s turn to freeze. Her first thought was Catelyn. She knew instinctively that Duskovy had failed her in some way.

  “You expect me to take you at your word?” she asked, but her voice had lost its former authority. The Baron had stabbed her with the only weapon he had left. The wound could well be fatal.

  “No one here gives a damn about your “expectations,” he said. “Your hideous blood should be examined for the same foulness the orcs appear to have.”

  That was it. The coup de grace. All eyes were locked on Hadley, the accused. The sudden enmity in the room was like a hammer blow. Duskovy’s revelation was so unexpected, so devastating in its righteous power, that she had no effective reply.

  “I invite you to prove these assertions, Baron,” she said at length. “All I see is a deserter doing his best to squirm to safety.”

  Stalemate. It was a cheap shot, sure, but the only way she could leave the hall alive.

  “We have achieved nothing this day,” Sandor said. “This meeting is closed.”

  “I have often petitioned our King to install royal blood at Overlook,” Duskovy said. “Never have we needed it more.”

  The Baron nodded curtly at an offsider. One by one, his soldiers began filing from the chamber.

  “This isn’t over,” Duskovy muttered, following his troops up the central aisle. “I’d caution against showing your face in Lakeshore, girl.”

  “Full dress inspection in twenty minutes,” Sandor barked when the Baron had gone. The Andrian officers also withdrew, leaving the pair alone. The Governor looked at Hadley, his breath somewhat shallow. His flaccid cheeks carried a hint of rosiness. Hadley instinctively braced herself.

  “When were you planning to tell me about your sister?”

  “I didn’t know she was alive,” Hadley retorted, entering the argument on the front foot.

  Sandor shook his head, clearly not knowing what to believe. He was slipping away. If Hadley didn’t pull another rabbit from her hat, it was all over for her.

  “I don’t know where Catelyn is,” she said, “but I know she isn’t a traitor. I also feel that what Duskovy said about dark magic is true. My sister is tainted. Somehow I’ve always known that. I’m tainted. I’ve carried a strange charm with me since I fled Guill. An orb of the blackest black. It fills me with the idea of decay. Logic tells me it’s a filthy, hideous thing but still I keep it close. I can’t let it go. It reminds me of my family, but its tendrils run deeper than that. Sometimes I feel like I could explode, turn everything around me into dust. When I’m holding that thing, the nightmare is real. It will never go away. So kill me if you wish. Do it here. Now. I don’t know what I’m carrying inside. It scares me. And if it scares me, you can be sure the orcs won’t have it all their own way.”

  Ballist’s smile was faint in the gloom. Hadley was certain he was about to break her heart.

  “Marry me.”

  “What …”

  “I said marry me. I’m not in the business of repeating myself.”

  Overcome with emotion, Hadley found herself rushing toward Sandor. He received her as if they’d been apart for centuries.

  “We had Duskovy cooked,” he whispered in her ear. “You were magnificent. Until he squirmed free.”

  He held her at arms length, looking at her intently.

  “This … taint you carry. We must explore it. Nay. It must be encouraged.”

  “I’m yours,” Hadley said, exhausted. She’d thought she’d lost everything she’d painstakingly built. “Always have been.”

  “I had the Cardinal act upon Karla’s annulment. I’ve been a bachelor all day.”

  The pair laughed together in the cavernous space, their music dancing off the ancient walls.

  “Milady?”

  It was Bagley, standing pensively at the top of the round.

  “What is it?” Sandor asked, annoyed at the interruption.

  “It’s the Rufaa woman, milord.”

  “She escaped?” Hadley asked, her gorge rising.

  “No, milady. The plunge mechanism failed. She’s dead. Drowned.”

  Neither spoke until Bagley had gone. Hadley felt nothing, not even the dull ache of regret. Giving her body to the Rose Cartel for one night had been harder than giving her soul away for the greater good. The faces of Shalin Rufaa’s children flashed through her mind, but only fleetingly. The day’s events loomed so large, seemed so far-reaching, that the death of an innocent woman in her custody could be neatly tucked away into the general chaos. Still, a tiny voice in the back of her mind insisted on committing this moment, this first real transgression against the moral code she thought she possessed, to a place where it could not easily be dislodged.

  “Mind, body and soul,” she said, resting her head on Sandor’s shoulder. “They either go to you or to the Devil himself.”

  Darkness had fallen when the last sighting of Duskovy’s army was reported from the north watchtower. The Baron had wasted no time in continuing his stubborn march up the Ebbe. As expected, at least a thousand civilians followed in his wake. The only reason it wasn’t more was the promise of inclement weather. Trekking on foot to Runesveld was a difficult proposition for the average family at the best of times.

  Sandor had arranged for a small, humble marriage ceremony in the cathedral, canceling the usual dusk service with a hefty donation to the Church of the Eleven. Wearing a modest lime green dress and a garland of wildflowers, Hadley waited, tired and raw, as her husband-to-be made his entrance through the back doors. Bagley and his wife, Rhand, were the only witnesses to the Cardinal’s brief, colorless Recital of Binding. Deprived of its congregation, the church was otherwise deathly silent. Never in the history of Andra had a ruler taken a wife with such little fanfare. And yet the service perfectly reflected the clandestine, rebellious intent of the principals. Hadley had always pictured a sun-kissed church full of flowers and laughter, but this had the thrill of an elopement, a forbidden liaison. One look at Sandor’s contented, gloating face told her he felt the same way. Here was a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. She honestly never thought she’d find herself mirrored in a man.

  “… that the years, soft like rain, will not degrade this union. And on, into the darkness, discovery as one.”

  “As one,” Sandor said with conviction.

  “As one,” Hadley echoed, tears welling in her eyes.

  A low boom drifted in from beyond the Nook, possibly from the south. A gust of wind pushed one of the nave doors open. The acrid smell of pitch filled Hadley’s nostrils.

  “It begins,” Sandor murmured.

  “Aye,” Hadley said, conversing with her husband for the first time. “It begins.”

  13 - Catelyn

  The first thing Catelyn noticed about her new home was that it thirsted for blood. The siege camp outside Andra, stretching for more than three miles and growing larger by the day, was thick with violent expectation. Having triumphantly taken Castle Duskovy, the orcs abounded with restless energy. Victory over the sleepy, riverside town was apparently assured.

  Perhaps it was just as well that Catelyn be confined to Zan’s rude pigskin tent along the camp’s southern perimeter. She’d be torn apart if she set foot outside. There always seemed to be high-spirited orcs passing by. Jabbering, carousing, arguing, rutting. Catelyn’s prejudice against them had taken a black, shriveling turn now that she’d been denied her sight. All she had, cooped up in the stinking, furnace-like tent, was a frightening, intimidating wall of alien sound to keep her company. At least the journey from Duskovy Castle
had been mercifully brief. Leveraging what power he had, Zan had insisted on claiming Catelyn as his “flesh block”. As such, she traveled on horseback, arms wrapped around the mage’s slight waist. The roughshod curiosity of the orcish rank and file was a constant threat, but Zan had lingered in the rear of the column to spare his “prisoner” as much as possible.

  The orcish army - nay, migration, for it included men, women, and children - was frightening in its single-minded motion. A stirring victory, one that orcs might never have thought possible, had given this army that most valuable of wartime commodities - momentum. Riding high in the bristling vanguard, Tibus had driven his people with furious zeal, establishing the riverlands siege camp days after his earlier success.

  Judging by the modest size of his tent, Zan clearly intended to keep a low profile. Catelyn had been sweating in the badly-treated leather for three days now, the promise of open sky mocking her at every turn. Zan provided a welcome diversion when he was present, but most of his time was spent remonstrating with military leaders. He was under tremendous pressure to repeat the magical heroics of the Duskovy battle. Apparently the town’s various docks had already been secured, cutting the humans off from the river. So far, Zan had resisted with admirable zeal, claiming that he needed to “recover” his taint before he could call on it once again. He’d reasoned that Andra was a much larger area and thus required enormous energy reserves. Whilst this was a solid position, it would only buy Zan another day at most. Already the mage had detected growing suspicion among his brethren, a seed of hostility that could turn violent at any moment. The orcs were within sight of their glittering prize and they would not be denied. A traditional, non-magical siege would require patience and discipline - two qualities in short supply now that human blood had been tasted.

  Now, as dusk settled on the third day in camp, Catelyn arched her back and grimaced at the knots in her back. She desperately wanted to stand but couldn’t even do that. Heading outside during the day was clearly impossible, but the nights posed even more risk. From what she could gather, orcs tended to rise at noon and built steadily to a raucous crescendo in the early hours of the morning. The musical rhythm of their nocturnal activities left her with precious little sleep - just when she needed her wits about her.

  To make matters worse, Zan hadn’t quite gotten a handle on what humans liked to eat. He was diligent enough in sourcing nourishment for his “prisoner”, but his misfires thus far included inedible nuts, slugs and a slab of pungent ironbark. He had redeemed himself that morning with a haunch of roasted venison that single-handedly lifted Catelyn’s spirits. Such minor blessings couldn’t ease the pain in her joints or the incessant threat from outside, however, and she was growing impatient with Zan and his superiors. The mage had reconnoitered the camp perimeter and his assessment was gloomy. Even if the pair successfully walked free, foraging parties worked the surrounding fields around the clock. Their blood hounds were trained to track living flesh as well as dead.

  For the moment, Catelyn amused herself with the tassels on the tent’s faded leather. At least the gathering night made the fetid air inside slightly more bearable. Zan had been gone for more than five hours - an unusually long foray. The sounds and smells of the camp grew in intensity as darkness fell. Catelyn’s curious mind often pushed aside her gnawing fear - if she was to be denied her eyes, she’d rely on her ears.

  Whilst it was presumed that orcs liked to fight amongst themselves, she’d heard little in the way of violence, even in the chaos of night. The species seemed to enjoy sleeping close together, sometimes uncomfortably close to Zan’s tent. The sounds of sexual intercourse were common by night. Interestingly, there was no predominant gender combination. Certainly no evidence of monogamy.

  Language was still a major barrier to Catelyn’s understanding, but she sensed that the vitality of youth was venerated within the army. Older soldiers were often denigrated as “weak” and “slow”. It seemed there was constant regeneration through the ranks, at least in the infantry, where veterans were frequently demoted for younger grunts. She theorized that such practices probably contributed to the orcs’ reputation for robust, if volatile, armies.

  Now that she’d endured her third day in the camp, Catelyn could identify the sounds and smells of individual orcs. A low, urgent voice dribbled past, barely two yards from the tent. That was Mikosh. No doubt he was preparing for his nightly dice game. From what she could gather, the orc routinely lost his jade bits. There were two other neighbors - Haysat, a warrior who invariably vomited before climbing on his horse, and Zula, a lesbian cook who apparently had astoundingly bad breath.

  The orcs certainly had color and personality, but all that was secondary to Catelyn’s yearning for freedom. Mikosh’s footfalls trailed off into the night. Why was Zan taking so long? Stuck in the middle of an enemy encampment, it was easy to catastrophize.

  Catelyn had drifted into a light, agitated sleep when Zan finally returned.

  “All good?” she asked sleepily.

  Zan sighed. “All good, I suppose. General Hunsan is growing tiresome but I think we can squeeze another day out of him.”

  “Any word from Andra?”

  Zan shook his head. “Several dozen captured civilians but no soldiers. My brethren have precious little intelligence to work with.”

  “Duskovy?”

  Zan’s expression was troubled.

  “Unsubstantiated reports of their continued march north, toward Runesveld. If you and I are to travel in that direction, we cannot use the main road.”

  “Great,” Catelyn said, deflated. She’d been hoping to leave Duskovy and his cronies far behind. Even if she managed to reach Lakeshore with Zan, the Baron would already be established in the Twilight Palace, ready to turn the King against them. Still, there was no helping that now. Their first priority had to be escaping the siege camp.

  “We should leave tonight,” Catelyn urged. “I get the feeling we’re being watched.”

  “Forgive me, but I do not think ‘feelings’ should inform our decisions,” the orc said. “The orchard to the west is crawling with blood hounds. Alone, I could pass through with the aid of dire magic but …”

  “… I’m a liability,” Catelyn finished bleakly.

  “We both need to survive,” Zan pointed out. “So this is what I propose. I will promise the General to begin my assault on Andra tomorrow night. The Kanoor will recall his scouts and foragers to consolidate his forces. Ahead of the planned strike, you and I will steal away through the western palisades. The moon will be absent. Staying well clear of the King’s Road, we should be able to move north through Felsham Woods.”

  “You’ve been looking at an Ardennian Map, haven’t you?” Catelyn asked.

  Exposed, Zan grinned. “Perhaps. Do you have any concerns?”

  Catelyn shrugged. “I have no choice but to trust you. Just so you know - tomorrow will be the longest day in the history of Elesta.”

  Catelyn woke to Zan’s heavy snoring. The tent’s pig skin was already bright with heat and light. She took a long draught from the orc’s waterskin and peed in the corner bucket. That was something she couldn’t wait to leave behind.

  “What time is it?” Zan asked sleepily.

  “Mid-morning,” Catelyn replied, itching to take a peek through the flap.

  “Not long to go,” Zan cautioned. “I will seek an audience with the Kanoor.”

  “How long will you be gone?” Catelyn asked a little too quickly. It was obvious she was fraying at the edges a little.

  “Every footstep is a dagger through my heart,” she explained quietly. “This is hard, Zan.”

  The mage appraised her for a moment before sitting cross-legged on the dirt.

  “You have nothing and no one,” he said. “No one understands that more than me.”

  “Then talk to me,” she urged. “Give me reason to believe I have at least one friend left.”

  Zan looked confused. “I am unsure what you require
of me.”

  Catelyn sighed. “What’s driving you, Zan? Where does your passion spring from?”

  “Ah,” Zan said, a smile playing on his lips. “I believe I understand. We recognize in each other a thirst for knowledge. I have studied my taint for several years now. My quest has taken me across Elesta. You may be surprised to learn that there are twelve branches of magic. Tevalo you know about. Baredain survives in the Keshar Empire. Dire magic is fragmented at best. The rest are lost to antiquity. I have limited my study to Dire magic, which is difficult enough. The wondrous libraries and arcanaries I have seen … to travel this world is a divine blessing. And yet I have come across little in the way of usable research. Dire magic is a subject mired in shadow and hearsay - nothing at all for an academic to chew on. But there are exceptions to every rule!”

  “The Isle of Light,” Catelyn murmured.

  Zan’s eyes widened. “What made you say that?”

  “My father came across a dire mage there. It sounds like one of the few places still steeped in old magic.”

  “Indeed,” Zan sighed, his voice full of wonder. “I have been longing to ask about your father - no doubt he is the source of your taint. I wonder …”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” Zan said with a private smile. “Let me tell you about the arcanery on the Isle of Light. With the help of a local farmer, I found it in a cave under the northern cliffs. It was there that I made my finest discovery - a parchment so ancient that it crumbled to the touch. But not before I deciphered the majority of its contents.”

  Zan’s radiant grin was unguarded. His study, his passion, made him giddy.