Biondine, Shannah

by Shadow in Starlight(lit)

  He took up his pack and set out for another long day on foot in the wastelands.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Their campaign might have failed even before they reached Outer Glacia, if not for two things: Waniand blood thickened quickly in response to cold, and Preece's hidden cache remained intact at Farule.

  Preece had years before made an agreement with a sniveling innkeeper in the Dredonian outpost known as Farule. Not far from a deep mine, awash in gamblers and cutthroats, no one had paid Preece any heed when he'd visited the tavern for a few days or weeks. The innkeeper had been too afraid to challenge a Waniand warrior to risk tampering with the lock Preece placed on the trapdoor in the tavern floor.

  Preece had needed a convenient place to stay between mercenary forays, a place where messages could be left during his absence, a place to hide tangibles he did not wish to carry on his person.

  The fat bastard king must not have discovered Preece kept anything of value in Farule.

  So Preece's extra swords and shield, a bag of coins, and a couple spare tunics had been right where Preece left them.

  Ah, but it felt blessedly right to heft a sword again!

  Preece thrust, feinted, thrust and parried once more. He allowed himself to spar with his own shadow for an hour before mounting up and heading back to the Waniand encampment. He'd left the caravan in a sparse grove some leagues southeast of Farule.

  Now he reined in his horse and tied it to Taroch's wagon, thumping a fist against the wooden side of the conveyance. The rear door swung open.

  "What is it?" Taroch hissed, peering out into the gathering dusk. "Ah, you're back. Good. Keep your voice down. Vulpina's sleeping."

  Preece frowned. Abed so early? "The sun barely went down an hour past. Has she taken ill?" He prayed the woman hadn't fallen ill with a fever or ague, as had many of their party. Most of the Waniands reared in island warmth had suffered bodily ills now that they found themselves in this bitter climate. And the weather would be harsher still once they began the ascent to the higher wintry climes of Glacia.

  Taroch leapt nimbly to the ground, eyeing Preece's pack as he unloaded his trove from behind the horse's saddle. "She's merely tired. What have you brought us?"

  "She's always tired lately. Is she suffering chilblains?"

  "Nay, she bears my young in her womb."

  Preece muttered the ritual congratulatory phrase he'd heard other Waniands offer at such news, but felt an odd detachment. A queer pang of pain...or something akin to jealousy.

  Why he'd experience such emotions, he could not begin to fathom. Taroch would have his nightly rest disturbed, be forced to aid his mate in the birthing, and find his next rut cycle prolonged in arriving. Taroch himself would not suckle at Vulpina's breasts any longer, his child would.

  What was there to envy in any of that?

  Preece shook off his errant notions and opened his pack. "I used my coin to barter for a handful of swords. They're not the best of any armorer's craft. One's half rusted. But even a dull sword - "

  "Can be knocked against thine enemy's skull, hilt first. Or might trip him as he advances, or skewer his liver in a well-aimed thrust," Taroch finished, grinning again.

  For once Preece welcomed the sight of that damned grin. As much as he was gladdened by hearing his arms lessons recited by rote. "I thought you discounted the value of arms practice, Tarochin. Meseems you hearkened well enough."

  "I want the Glacian crown, Warmaker."

  In the language of Glacians, Preece was called Warmonger - meaning a seller, peddler, bringer of war. But in their native Waniand tongue, Preece made war.

  Not a subtle difference. One that could mean life or death to his adversaries. Preece smiled back, as wickedly as he knew how. "You will show me just how much, young cousin. And soon."

  Some few days hence, Preece ordered Taroch, Jareth, Kluft, and Bevan - those enclave clan leaders Preece determined were in possession of the sharpest wits or fighting prowess - to ride with him into Crispin's Cup.

  "What manner of strange name is that?" Bevan asked.

  Preece lifted an eyebrow. "The religious zealots aver a martyr called Crispin rode for twenty days and nights through the Dredonian wastelands - before the warren of outposts and mine shafts which now exist around us had been established - with naught but a stale loaf of bread. This hovel we visit was the only place at that time where a thirsty man could get a drink."

  "Amusing tale, First Preece," Taroch responded, using his equivalent of the appellation Preece had given him, a title of respect and clan honor. "But why do we visit this accursed outpost now? We have cow's milk and plenty of fresh water."

  "You will soon discover my reasons," Preece replied.

  Taroch still appeared vexed as they tied their mounts to a long rail and Preece gestured for them to precede him into a raucous gaming tent.

  "We've no disguises!" Jareth hissed, jerking back on Preece's arm.

  "None. For it is time my followers learned how to dominate in an unfair fight. And time for Tarochin to show us all how well suited he is to being king."

  The instant the five Waniand warriors stepped through the sagging tent flaps, conversation and wagering ceased. Through a haze of grimy smoke, stony eyes - dozens upon dozens of them - signaled hostility. And the short Raviner who ran the gambling pits scrambled down from his tall stool, scowling ferociously.

  "Out! I don't abide you white Worm-iands in my place!"

  Preece leaned down to squint into the short fellow's beady dark eyes. "Grubs and maggots are pale white. Worms are dark, like pig dung. As you should well know, shit breath."

  Fists, knives, cups, and chairs began flashing and flailing. Preece stepped on splayed fingers here, thumped a noggin there, but never once pulled his blade. The others in his company threw themselves wholly into the fray.

  'Twas a sorry band rode back to the wagon camp late that night, but Preece had the proof he'd needed. His long-lost brethren were fiercely determined, if graceless, battlers. What they lacked in finesse, they made up for in spirit. And they were mayhap just hardy enough to win back a crown.

  Preece raised his left hand, signaling the riders behind him to halt. He inched forward, sniffing the frosty air as his eyes scanned the horizon. The new Glacian ruler must be incredibly arrogant or a soft-headed dolt. At least the fat bastard Cronel had possessed sense enough to keep guards posted near all the mountain passes - even those on the far side of the glacial ring, away from the denser settlements of Inner Glacia.

  Preece had deliberately led the Waniands around the arête to the least inhabited section of icebound peaks. Not that it seemed to matter. No guards blocked the narrow gorge ahead. And no one waited behind the outcropping that marked the bottom of the wide cirque where a rock-strewn path eventually led to Inner Glacia's citadel and royal castle itself.

  He lowered his arm and started forward, twisting his head left and right. No sounds reached his ears but the stealthy rustle of his horse's padded hooves and those of the other Waniands riding behind him. He could see the unbroken layer of recent hoarfrost coating the landscape ahead. No one had passed this way in the past few hours.

  He left his comrades hiding behind a natural stone outcropping and made his way on foot toward the hulking stone battlements of the castle. He was within fifty yards of the sealed castle gates before he spotted a guard - slumped against the stone curtain walls, fast asleep at his post.

  Preece peered along the width of the battlements and caught a bobbing shadow moving off to his right. A guard paced the perimeter there. The watchman's counterpart stood to the left of the central gatehouse. As Preece watched, the second guard reached around with his sword to scratch the middle of his back. The Warmonger crept closer, waited until the flanking watchmen passed him, then darted into the shadows.

  He moved slowly and silently along the outside of the curtain walls, seeking the hidden exit, recalling Lockram said he'd used it once. It was located not more th
an seventy paces from the gatehouse. Preece pressed the stones with the flat of both hands, moving and testing until a slight give and crack in the mortar confirmed he'd found the postern. He slipped his sword blade in the vertical mortar crevice and raised slowly until he encountered resistance.

  Within seconds, he'd unbarred the gate, soundlessly slain two guards, and made his way to the dark alcove leading to the north passageway. Taroch followed close upon his heel. Behind them, a dozen other darkly-garbed warriors infiltrated the bailey and blocked the entrance to the garrison.

  Preece unerringly moved forward. He skirted guards arguing over a serving maid in one alcove, ducked into another as a drunken courtier burst out of the garderobe. At last he showed Taroch the double doors they sought - leading to the king's own private chambers. A loud cry rang out.

  "Lord Above, it's an evil spirit walking!"

  The affrighted serving woman screamed, blanched, and dropped her armload of linens to the stone floor before turning to bolt down the nearby stairwell.

  Preece shoved Taroch back into the shadows just as a pair of muttering guards came stomping up from wheren she'd disappeared, grumbling about excitable womenfolk sending them on a fool's errand to ferret out a ghost.

  "Ghosts and befouled spirits? Last week 'twas a spider big as your ass. She's ever complaining of something," the older man said with a scowl. Preece knew both of these men.

  "Everard and Vandlest. You seek the Warmonger, returned from the dead?"

  Vandlest was a spindly-legged youth, barely old enough to grow sparse whiskers on his chin. He'd delivered Preece's noontide food tray the last time Preece had stayed here at the castle, and several other times whilst Preece had been at court. The lad volunteered for the task, eager to be rewarded with another of the Warmonger's harrowing tales of bloodshed.

  The youth had dreams of conquering challengers in jousts, of single-handedly defeating all other knights in a grand melee, of hearing himself called Glacian royal champion. His actual demonstrations of fighting prowess were generally restricted to bashing in empty milk pails with his guardsman's lance. And Preece had seen the occasional milk pail win.

  "My knobby knees! 'Tis it really you, Sir Preece?" the boy gasped. "Aye, I remember seeing you once or twice whilst you were washing up without your dark head covering. The Warmonger's come back, eh, Everard? Everard?"

  His stalwart elder companion seemed to possess neither the boy's curiosity nor stomach enough for clandestine meetings with evil spirits. Everard lay collapsed on the passageway floor in a dead faint. He might have cracked his noggin, but for the bed linens and toweling the maid had spilled before his arrival.

  "Your cohort seems most weary," Taroch observed aloud, stepping out of the shadows behind Preece into the light beneath a wall sconce.

  The lad turned and swung his lance up and to the left, breaking off its tip as he misgauged and struck the stone wall.

  "You're still tugging to one side as you heft, Vandlest," Preece chided, easily disarming the foolish guard altogether.

  "You don't feel dead to me," the lad noted, reaching out to squeeze Preece's right arm - which now held his broken lance. "They said you'd been beheaded in Greensward. I was awful dismal after hearing the story, I must say."

  "Thank you," Preece replied. "But you know the tales about me are ever cross-told. I was taken aloft in a dragon's claws to my cousin's island realm. This is Taroch. He was just in a glorious brawl a fortnight past with two dozen Dredonians. Broke three noses, crippled a fellow for life, and maimed all the horses."

  "You're jesting. He don't look - " - " Vandlest seemed to take his first good look at Taroch standing beside Preece. "Why, you could be two sides of the same gold piece, I vow. Cousins, say ye? Well, I can see he's cut from your same cloth, aright."

  He glanced at Taroch and squared his shoulders. "You must be some tale-spinner as well, then. Sir Preece is ever one for a good fable. 'Course I ken he misthinks I'll swallow any nonsense and call it pretty. Flying off with dragons now, is it? Well, whyever not? His head's grown back onto his neck." The boy began to giggle.

  Taroch glowered at him. "First Preece is a trueblooded Waniand and clan leader, as I am. He does not weave stories. What he says, is what has been."

  Vandlest faltered, leaning back against the far passage wall as he gaped at Preece. "Three dairymaids in one bed for two nights? That was true?"

  "Aye, and King Leif wants me to examine his royal bedstead to see if it can withstand similar service. He wishes to attempt five. Noble ladies, that is," Preece added. "Not goat girls."

  "Welladay! That old blotch-skin?" the lad scoffed. "Five, you say? Too bad Everard's missing this."

  Taroch pretended to check on the elder guard, but merely banged his skull against the bare floor to ensure him a long rest.

  "I best get on about the monarch's bed frame," Preece said at the same moment, keeping the lad's attention distracted. He held out the damaged weapon. "And you best hie to the weapons cache for a fresh lance. You know what the captain will say, does he espy this one."

  "Swive me, but I do," the lad mumbled, heading down the passageway into the gloom.

  Taroch grinned and quietly cracked open the doors to the royal bedchamber. No servants loitered within. The large canopy bed had its curtains drawn shut. He slipped across the room, jerked open the velvet hangings, and had his dagger pressed to the throat of the bed's lone occupant before the terrified elderly man was fully awake.

  Preece stepped over the unconscious Everard and skulked down the stairwell to where Jareth and Kluft had waited. He stationed them strategically to keep watch and disable any Glacian servants or guards who approached, then joined his cousin and King Leif in a short, tense conversation.

  An hour later servants scurried about the castle waking royal council members and advisors. The captain of the guard was summoned from his garrison, looking furious at being escorted by armed Waniand warriors to the privy council chamber. Everyone Leif had summoned stood in astonished silence as he confessed to his forgery and formally relinquished the crown to the Waniands.

  The Glacians immediately protested loudly and began arguing hotly.

  Taroch banged the rusty sword onto the long council table, startling the entire assembly into a deadly hush.

  "You will sit down and listen, or you will die where you stand." He inclined his head toward Preece and the handful of Waniands who'd invaded the keep itself. "There are more such warriors without these walls, none timid about drawing blood."

  The council members sat and a short while later, voted to uphold the Waniand claim to their realm's throne.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The bells of Axcroft Abbey knelled ten times in rapid succession.

  Moreya laid down her quill and scrambled to her feet. She was accustomed to the bells summoning the monks to prayer, to dine, announcing funeral masses or special assemblies in the walled garden. But ten rings signaled utmost urgency. Possible danger.

  Even as she hurried down the winding staircase from the dusty library, she saw robed monks abandoning their assigned chores to hie to the chapel. The monastery residents arrived in a matter of minutes, all of them wearing expressions of concern.

  Abbot Zadok swept into the chapel with Brother Cosmo and two strangers in rough peasant garb hard upon his heels.

  "Everyone, I have great tidings!" The abbot normally spoke in a loud voice. Today it fairly boomed off the chapel walls in the expectant hush. "As you know, following Cronel's assassination, King Leif ascended the throne of Glacia. Word has just reached us with these weary travelers that Leif has relinquished his claim to the crown. He surrendered rule to a group of Waniands, one of whom is now the ruling monarch of Glacia."

  "Another new king?" someone muttered.

  "Waniands?"

  The flabbergasted whisper rippled across the crowded chapel. Moreya felt her stomach clench. She quickly lowered herself onto a nearby pew, even as Brother Fense rushed
forward. "Are you all right, Lady Preece?"

  "Yes, certainly. I'm only taken aback by this astonishing news, as we all are."

  Brother Fense shook his head. "This strange turn of events means more to you than it does us clerics. We were not wed to a Waniand warrior. These tidings transform your personal circumstances, dear lady. You must make a pilgrimage to Glacia and petition this new Waniand monarch. He may pardon you, even have word of your husband."

  The same thought had already occurred to Moreya. But before either she or Brother Fense could form the inquiry, Abbot Zadok pointed at her and made another surprising announcement. "As you also know, we have these past months hosted a very gracious young noblewoman. I am sending my personal letter of congratulations and official greetings to the new Waniand king with Lady Preece, Brother Fense, and two other of our brethren."

  This brought a murmur of approval. "Whomsoever believes himself hale enough to spend several days traveling to bring my salutations and the Lady Preece to the castle in Inner Glacia, kindly step forward."

  A pair of monks shifted their gazes toward Moreya, then approached the abbot to be recognized. The following morn, Moreya was once more part of a traveling company riding across the empty expanse known as Dredonia.

  She mounted the donkey Brother Fense had saddled, grateful that no one questioned her mode of dress. She'd swathed herself beneath layers of garments: a wimple, flowing cloak, and thick scarf that nearly obscured her features. Rather too many garments for moderate weather, but she couldn't bring herself to tell the poor monks about the dragons.

  The monks accompanying her and Fense were new initiates, and sufficiently nervous already about making their way safely to the Glacian border. She knew only too well their concern about marauding raiders and outlaws was not without foundation. She could hardly tell these poor unarmed men that they were in mortal danger from great winged beasts because she rode in their midst.