“The purple chickens!” shouted Sempronius, his eyes growing wider. “There is a purple chicken standing upon your shoulder, wearing a hat with feathered plumes and reciting the uncouth poetry of Ovid while juggling flaming apples with its beak!” He leaned forward, and the Magistrius’s breath smelled…sick. When Ridmark was a squire, one of his father’s knights accidentally ate some poisoned berries, and his breath smelled much the same.
“Yes,” said Ulacht, his voice heavy with disgust. “The chickens.”
“Do you not see them?” shrieked Sempronius. “The purple chickens are everywhere! Plotting their conspiracies, tunneling beneath my tower, and listening to my thoughts! They are scheming against me! They make me hear colors! I know that they’re planning to wage war against the sun and turn my shoes into breadsticks!”
“Has he…always been like this?” Ridmark said, utterly at a loss.
“Not this bad,” said Linus. “I feared he had been growing senile, but he has taken quite a turn for the worse.”
The old Magistrius was likely hallucinating, and suddenly Ridmark wondered if the old man had been poisoned. If he had, the power of Heartwarden might cure the poison.
“Magistrius,” Ridmark said, stepping forward. “I can see the purple chickens, too.”
Both Ulacht and Linus gave him a startled look, but Sempronius bobbed his head up and down.
“You can see them?” said the old Magistrius, coming closer. “Then you know their villainy! You know they cannot be trusted! The purple chickens are building mansions beneath the grass, and they are plotting against us! All of us!”
“Yes,” Ridmark said. “And I can help you.”
“How?” said Sempronius. “Will you raise the Order of the Soulblade and the armies of the High King and march to war against the sinister armies of the chickens?”
“Something like that,” Ridmark said. “Please hold still.”
He stepped forward, drew upon the power of Heartwarden, and clamped his free hand on the old man’s temples. Sempronius’s eyes bulged, and he started to cast a spell, but he was too slow. White light pulsed from Ridmark’s fingers and into Sempronius’s head, and the Magistrius flinched and almost fell over.
And as he did, Ridmark felt…something flee from him. Some taint, some corruption in his blood. The Magistrius had indeed been poisoned. Sempronius stumbled back, blinking…and some lucidity came back into his wild-eyed face.
“What…what am I doing here?” he said, looking at Ridmark and then at Linus. “Father? What is going on?”
“You don’t see the chickens?” said Linus.
“Chickens?” said Sempronius. “What the devil are you talking about? I am a Magistrius. I do not keep chickens in my tower.”
“You were poisoned,” Ridmark said. “Some sort of drug that made you see things that were not real.” Such as, apparently, purple chickens.
"Poisoned?” said Sempronius, shaking his head. “But that…that is preposterous. I am a Magistrius! Who would dare to poison me?”
“What is the last thing you remember clearly?” Ridmark said.
Sempronius blinked and looked at Ulacht. “You, headman. I saw you…I went to Rzoldur at your invitation, to heal an orcish woman with a putrefying wound.”
“Aye,” said Ulacht, “Ulacht remembers.”
“The healing was a difficult one. After that I felt like talking a walk,” said Sempronius, “to the top of the hill, to clear my thoughts.”
Which would take him near, Ridmark noted, the dark elven ruin atop the hill.
“After that…all I can remember is a gray mist,” said Sempronius. “Then I was standing here, with you, Linus, and…and this Knight of the Soulblade.”
“Sir Ridmark Arban,” Ridmark said.
“Magistrius,” said Ulacht, “it is as you said, you did heal Uzrbella…but that was six weeks ago!”
“Six weeks!” said Sempronius, aghast.
“How long have the children been missing?” Ridmark said.
“The first disappeared eight days ago,” said Linus.
“The first orcish child,” said Ulacht, “six.”
“Children?” said Sempronius. “What is going on?”
Ridmark opened his mouth to answer, and then the rattle of armor came to his ears.
He turned and saw five men-at-arms in chain mail approaching the base of Sempronius’s tower, hands on the hilts of their sheathed swords. At their head walked a stocky, balding knight of about thirty, his face like that of a disgruntled bulldog. To judge from his oft-broken nose and the scars on his jaw, the man knew how to fight.
The men-at-arms stopped, and the stocky knight took a few steps closer to Ridmark, his eyes hard and flinty.
“So,” said the knight, looking Ridmark over, “it seems Lady Gwenaelle was correct.” His mouth twisted, just a bit, at the mention of the name. “We are honored by the visit of a Knight of the Soulblade.”
“I am Sir Ridmark Arban,” said Ridmark, offering the knight a bow.
The knight bowed back. “And I am Sir Thomas Cultran, son of Sir Hamus Cultran, the lord of this village.” He looked at you. “My father and his…wife have heard of your arrival, and sent me to escort you to their presence. They wish to meet you. Now.”
His tone was just short of a threat. Ridmark decided it was best not to offend the local lord.
“I would be honored,” Ridmark said, “to meet Sir Hamus Cultran.”
Sir Thomas relaxed a little, and Ridmark realized that the older man feared him. Or, at least, he did not want to fight Ridmark. Understandable, given the power granted by a soulblade. “Thank you, Swordbearer. Please, follow me.” He looked at Linus and Ulacht and Sempronius. “Father, headman, Magistrius, you might as well accompany us.”
Sir Thomas led them through the village of Victrix to his father’s keep. Victrix looked prosperous enough, with houses of whitewashed brick roofed in red clay tiles, but Ridmark saw a pall hanging over the village as they passed through the streets. People kept to themselves, and mothers pulled their children close as Ulacht passed. The aura of fear was plain, and Ridmark wondered how long it would be until the villagers did something drastic.
Sir Hamus’s keep was stout and grim, and Thomas led Ridmark to the great hall. Fires blazed merrily in twin hearths, and tapestries on the wall showed scenes of Arthur and Lancelot, Gawain and the Green Knight, and other tales of Old Earth. Sir Hamus himself, a man of about sixty, sat upon the high seat. He did not look well. If Thomas abandoned exercise, stuffed himself with pastries every day, and aged thirty years, he might look like Hamus.
But Ridmark barely noticed the old knight.
The two women standing at Hamus’s side captured Ridmark’s attention.
The first was an old, old woman in a loose black dress, so old that her skin looked like parchment and her hair like tufts of white thread. Her green eyes were amiable and unfocused, and she hummed to herself, looking at everything and nothing.
The second woman was quite probably the most beautiful woman Ridmark had ever seen. She was only a few years his senior, clad in a rich green gown, with long red hair and brilliant green eyes. Her features and skin were perfect, absolutely perfect. Ridmark realized that he was staring at the stunning woman, and he only managed to make himself stop with difficulty.
“Sir Ridmark Arban,” said Thomas, clearing his throat, “my father and lord of this village, Sir Hamus Cultran. His wife and my stepmother the Lady Gwenaelle,” he gestured at the stunning woman, “and her mother, the Lady Gotha.”
Vaguely Ridmark wondered why on earth a woman like Gwenaelle agreed to marry a man like Hamus. Perhaps she was a commoner had seduced Hamus to improve her station in life? But surely she could have captured the eye of a Comes, even a Dux.
“Thomas!” said Lady Gotha, squinting at Ridmark. She tottered forward, leaning on her cane. “Is that the man from the village who delivers our bacon? The last batch was spoiled! Young fellow, if you do not deliver my bacon, I shall
beat you with my cane.”
“Mother,” murmured Gwenaelle, taking the old woman’s sleeve, “that man is a Knight of the Soulblade and our guest.”
“I know that, girl!” said Gotha. “And he sells us questionable bacon!”
Thomas’s mouth thinned with contempt as he looked at his stepmother and her mother.
“You are welcome here, Sir Ridmark,” said Hamus, his voice weak and watery. “Your aid…your aid would be welcome. You are here about the disappearances, yes? I do not to know what to think. One man says one thing and I believe him, and then another says something else and I believe him.”
Thomas’s look of contempt did not waver as his gaze turned to his father.
“Thomas,” said Hamus, oblivious or indifferent to his son’s glare, “take Sir Ridmark to my solar. I would speak with him in private. Father Linus, headman Ulacht, you may wait here.”
Thomas took Ridmark to the solar and then departed. It was a comfortable room with stuffed chairs and polished wooden tables, and the windows had a good view of the village and Rzoldur upon its hill. There was a carafe of wine upon a sideboard, and Ridmark reached for it…
The door opened, and Ridmark looked up, expecting to see Sir Hamus.
Instead, Lady Gwenaelle glided alone into the solar.
Ridmark’s throat went dry, his world seeming to focus upon her.
“Do you know what it is like,” she said, her rich voice full of pain, “being married to that indolent old fool? Of having to share a bed with that fat slug?” She stepped closer, and the smell of her perfume filled his nostrils.
“My lady. We’re alone,” Ridmark said, “this is not appropriate…”
“I’ve dreamed of a knight coming to take me away from all this,” said Gwenaelle, putting her delicate hands upon his shoulders, the touch making his heartbeat hammer like a drum. “Please, take me with you. Do you know how much I’ve wanted a man, a real man, and not that pompous old fool?”
Her lips parted as she leaned closer, about to kiss Ridmark. His body screamed for him to seize her, to bury his hands in that thick red hair and pull her close, to crush her slender form against him as he pulled her out of that gown…
Ridmark had enough wit left to realize that was a very bad idea.
“Ah,” Ridmark said, stepping back. He considered pushing her away, but realized that if he touched her once he might not be able to stop himself. “Yes. Very good. Well. My horse. I need to see to my horse.”
Gwenaelle frowned, puzzled. “But surely the grooms can attend…”
“No!” Ridmark said. “A true Knight of the Soulblade does not entrust the care of his horse to another man. Otherwise I’ll have to walk, and for a knight to walk is simply undignified…”
Ridmark realized that he was rambling, and he turned and made for the great hall just short of a run. A nagging voice in his head urged him to go back, kiss her, and see what happened. Nevertheless, he had the peculiar feeling that he had just escaped from some deadly danger.
The danger of a scandal, likely. For a Swordbearer and a son of Leogrance Arban to commit adultery with a knight’s wife would be a very grave crime, and Ridmark knew that if remained alone with Gwenaelle he would wind up committing adultery wtih enthusiasm.
Ridmark returned to the great hall and saw Sir Hamus slumped on the high seat, snoring. Sir Thomas stared at his father with annoyance, while Ulacht, Father Linus, and Sempronius waited nearby. Old Gotha wondered along the wall, muttering to herself and brushing at the tapestries.
“Flies,” she said, “flies everywhere! They breed like flies!”
“I see you have realized,” said Sir Thomas, “that my father is not up to the task of dealing with these disappearances.”
Ridmark looked at the snoring old man. “Apparently not.”
“As much as it galls me to ask for help from a southern noble,” said Thomas, “we need your help, Swordbearer. We must have the help of a Swordbearer. My villagers and the orcs are ready to tear each other apart. If one more child disappears from either village, it will be a bloodbath.”
“So you don’t think,” Ridmark said, glancing at Linus, “that the orcs are behind the disappearances.”
“Don’t be absurd,” said Thomas. “This is the Northerland. All the old horrors might have been hunted to extinction in the south, but this is the edge of the realm. There are so many things that prey upon both men and orcs here.”
“Bacon!” announced Gotha to no one, brushing dust from a tapestry showing the first High King’s duel with his treacherous nephew Mordred. “Fresh bacon! With some cheese and biscuits, please. Yes, lovely, thank you. You’re all just bacon, in the end, all of you.”
“Then you have a suspicion?” Ridmark said.
“Aye,” said Sir Thomas. “I think the orcs tunneled too far in their mines and reached the Deeps, and something has come up from the darkness below the soil. Maybe an urvaalg, or perhaps an urshane.”
Ulacht growled. “We are not fools. We would know if we dug into the Deeps.”
“Aye,” says Thomas. “But you slew an urvaalg outside the village, and many of the beasts of the dark elves can turn invisible or take different shapes. The creature could be lurking in the mines unnoticed, feeding on the children and sowing discord among us.” He shook his head. “There is another possibility. A sister of one of the disappeared children reported seeing ghosts near the tombs in the caverns below the hill. I thought it a childish fancy…but it is possible that someone among, human or orc, is dabbling in forbidding arts, and has called up some horror from beyond the grave.” He spread his hands. “I leave it to your judgment, Swordbearer. Something preys upon my people. Where shall we hunt for it?”
Ridmark considered, trying to remember everything he could about creatures of dark magic. Both of the possibilities Sir Thomas had suggested seemed likely, and Ridmark had heard of similar things happening even in his father’s quieter lands. But the last thing the Magistrius Sempronius remembered before his poisoning was walking near that dark elven ruin atop the hill.
“I wish to investigate the dark elven ruin,” Ridmark said.
Sir Thomas frowned. “Why? It has been centuries since the dark elven princes were defeated and the urdmordar overthrown. Horrors lurk in such ruins, I know, but this one has been empty for years. Often the villagers store seed crops there.”
“The Magistrius Sempronius was poisoned,” Ridmark said. “The last thing he remembers is walking near that ruin several weeks past.”
“I thought he seemed more lucid than usual,” said Thomas, scowling at the old man, who gave the knight an affronted glare. “Very well. I have no other ideas, so we might as well look there. I shall accompany you.”
“And Ulacht,” growled Ulacht.
“Very well. Magistrius, Father Linus, stay here, please,” said Thomas. “If the villagers get riled up, we’ll need someone to calm them.”
Father Linus seemed embarrassed, no doubt remembering his argument with Ulacht outside the village, but Sempronius offered a grave nod.
Ridmark left the keep’s great hall, Sir Hamus’s snores and Gotha’s incoherent rambling filling his ears. With the headman and the knight, he climbed the rocky hill towards the dark elven ruin. The lessons of Ridmark’s childhood flickered through his mind. For long millennia, his tutors had said, the dark elves struggled against the high elves in wars that lasted uncounted thousands of years. Then the urdmordar came, destroyed the high elven kingdoms, and made vassals of the dark elves and the pagan orcs.
But then humans came from Old Earth and overthrew the urdmordar, and now dark elven ruins stood scattered throughout Andomhaim, haunted places of evil reputation. Sometimes the evil reputation was just a rumor.
Sometimes it was more than justified.
“Here we are,” said Thomas they reached the crest of the hill and the base of the ruin.
The ruin had once been a small fortress of white stone, with delicate, soaring towers and graceful arches. Yet
it looked wrong to Ridmark, the angles and proportions strange, and he suspected that looking at it for too long would give him a headache. The dark elven sense of aesthetics was unsettling to human minds.
“Long ago,” said Ulacht in a hoarse voice, “the orcs of Khaluusk served the dark elven lord who lived here, and that lord in turn served the urdmordar, and we prayed to their gods of shadow and death. Then the High King and his Dominus Christus came, and we followed them instead.”
“But this place has been empty for centuries,” said Thomas, “and even the last of the treasures were carted off long ago.”
“Then why,” said Ulacht, “does Ulacht see so many tracks?”
Ridmark didn’t have the orcish headman’s skill as a tracker, but Ulacht was right. Dozens of tracks went back and forth in the dirt before the entrance to the central tower.
Thomas shrugged. “The peasants made them, no doubt, when they came to get the seed crop stored here. That doorway goes to the cellars below the tower.”
“It’s early spring,” Ridmark said. “The weather is not yet ripe for planting.”
“And why,” said Ulacht, “did the peasants not wear their shoes? Barefoot humans made these tracks, Ulacht thinks.”
Again Ulacht is correct. Bare human feet made those tracks, and Ridmark could not imagine why so many people had come here barefoot in the chilly weather.
“Perhaps they’re left over from the summer,” said Thomas, but Ridmark heard the doubt in his voice.
“The winter would have blown the tracks away,” Ridmark said, looking up at the sky to think.
And as he did, he heard a peculiar sound coming from the doors to the ruin’s great hall.
The laughter of children at play.
A shiver went through Ridmark. Maybe some children were simply playing in the ruins. But with both Victrix and Rzoldur in fear from the disappearances, that seemed unlikely.
“Follow me,” Ridmark told the others. He drew Heartwarden, and after a moment’s hesitation, Sir Thomas drew his own blade. Ulacht, of course, had been carrying his club the entire time.
The doors to the hall had long since rotted away, but the interior was gloomy, despite the walls of white stone. The only light came from narrow windows high above, throwing pale shafts of light through the murk. There was no furniture, save for a massive stone throne upon a dais at the far end of the hall. Once a dark elven lord sat there, ruling over his vassals and slaves. Sacks of grain and corn rested against the walls, and Ridmark realized that the villagers did indeed store their seed crops in the ruin.
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