JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING BOOK I: MY SISTER'S KEEPER
Page 24
"You're sure this was a good idea, Josh?" Clemmerick asked. "I'm sure Aejys will be extraordinarily aggravated when we show up."
The big ogre sat, his back to a tree, his huge pack resting against his left knee. Grymlyken stood on his shoulder nibbling on a bit of dark buttery cheese. Josh stalked back and forth before their campfire, his shadow slithering across his companions. One of the biggest horses Eliahu had ever seen nibbled on a bush at far side; at least eighteen hands at the shoulder, dapple gray and blunt nosed. Two wicker panels partly blocked the light on the east side that faced the main camp. Eliahu had no idea what they were for; it seemed a waste to carry them just to partially conceal the fire.
"We gotta keep her from gettin' herself kilt," Josh said, emphasizing each word with a shake of his bottle. "Fell it in ma bones. Gonna get herself kilt." He had said nothing, but the name Abelard still echoed through his dreams at night. Josh had begun to wonder if Abelard was chasing him or if the man was chasing Aejys. Was he the sa'necari Josh saw coupling with Margren in his visions?
"Josh is right," Grymlyken's high small voice broke in. "We're her best bet. Clemmerick cause he's big and strong, me cause I'm resourceful and invisible. Josh because he sees true things when he's had a couple."
Clemmerick looked at the pixie from the corners of his eyes. They could still turn back and Clemmerick wondered if that might be the best move. He did not like the fact that he could not keep Josh sober: he did not dare, for they were tracking Aejys' movements through Josh's inner vision which only awakened on the second drink. None of them had ever tracked anything anywhere in their lives; none of them had the woodcraft to deal with the wild forests successfully; none of them knew how to spot the signs of trouble like the manticore spoor Hanadi had found the day before: Only Josh's drunken perceptions kept them out of misfortune and on the right path. But that meant that every morning Josh was sick and the only drug that eased him was holadil, that expensive elven medicinal which had started the sailor's problems in the first place. And because Josh was sick, Aejys' party pulled ahead of them again. Clemmerick had tried several times to suggest this, but Josh refused to listen.
"And I," Eliahu said, stepping into their small circle.
"Yikes!" Grymlyken yelped and turned invisible.
"It's the cook," Clemmerick said calmly.
Josh turned, pulled himself to his feet, and studied Eliahu with an odd clarity. "Ya're a mage," Josh said. "I ken smell it. Are you Abelard?"
The question stunned Eliahu. "No. I haven't the tiniest fragment of his power. Once there were three brothers. Two of them of the darkest evil. Three Sharani lineages, the Asharan, the Danae, the Rowans, who kept the dark ones from reaching the coast. And then there was Josiah Abelard, Mage Paladin of Kalirion Sun-Lord, God of the Sun, Healing, and Prophecy. Why do you ask?"
"Because the asshole bastard won't quit chasing me." Josh spit and then took another long swig of whiskey and studied Eliahu.
"He's dead, Josh," Clemmerick told his friend. "Five hundred years dead. He can't be chasing you. You're having another one of those weird dreams. That's all. It's okay."
Josh ignored Clemmerick, focusing with increasing intensity upon Eliahu. "Yar a winter mage. Gettin' stronger day by day. Marchin' to the solstice."
"That true?" Clemmerick stood up and squared off in front of Eliahu, prepared to defend his friends.
"Yes. I am Eliahu Solistis, Lord the Iron Glacier, High Mage of Winter. Josh has an amazing talent," Eliahu said. He could feel the waves of power shimmering around the drunken sailor. Even tightly shielded it made his head throb and ache to be so close to him. Josh was arguably the strongest mage Eliahu had encountered, even hobbled as he was by drug and drink.
"Wotta hell ya doin' here?" Josh inquired, taking another swig from his flask, "passing yarself off as a cook."
"A fair question," Eliahu acknowledged. "I was making a pilgrimage to the principal shrines of the Nine Elder Gods, when I chanced upon the duel. The love of Aejys' servants impressed me as much as her courage. I lingered. When I heard that she was hiring for a dangerous quest I sought employment."
"As uh cook?"
"Sometimes the best weapons are those not expected or known. And I am a very good cook. It has been one of my favorite avocations."
"Yar speaking truth. I ken see it in yar aura." Then his voice changed, going deeper and speaking in an accent the mage could not place, "A sword is no less sharp because it is sheathed, mage."
Josh's hand clamped down on Eliahu's wrist with an iron grip. The Lord of the Iron Glacier winced, holding his composure only with great effort before the burning heat of Josh's undisciplined power. Eliahu sent a spell of winter chill through his body in an only half successful attempt to mitigate the pain.
"Two doors locked," Josh said. "Two doors closed. One makes Aejys die, the other live. Find the key. Choose the door. Feel the dragon beneath your feet."
Josh released Eliahu. The Winter Mage stepped back a pace as Josh collapsed, vomiting.
Clemmerick's eyes narrowed in a frown of concern and worry. He reached beside his pack, bringing out a satchel of medicinals that Eliahu had not noticed before. The ogre picked Josh up, waited for him to finish vomiting, and dosed him with a golden liquid. "It does not usually happen before morning," the ogre explained, helplessness heavy in his deep voice. Josh nestled down in Clemmerick's big arms, whimpering with pain and discomfort as he slowly slid into drugged slumber.
Eliahu nodded, realizing what the wicker flats were: a rectangular pannier and a litter that counter-balanced each other when hung from the sides of the big horse. "The power only comes out when he drinks? Is that what Grymlyken meant?"
"Yes." Grymlyken and Clemmerick said at once.
"It would be better if he could access it without the drink."
"It would be better for Josh if he could not access it at all," remarked Clemmerick bitterly. "It frightens him. He doesn't want it."
"Deep down inside myself, I fear that Josh stands strongest of us all in Aejys' defense," Eliahu said, "and in our hour of greatest need I will be the first to offer him the cup. However I will try to brew something that will serve as well but do him less harm."
"I would be grateful if you could," said Clemmerick.
"And I," said Grymlyken.
"Now I must return before they find I am gone. And I must think about those words of his."
* * * *
Aejys and her lieutenants breakfasted. It gave her an opportunity to outline the paths they were taking and what they might expect that day. She had been up since the wee hours, walking the perimeters and speaking with the sentries.
Hanadi sat on the ground near the flap, whetting a long knife. Tagalong perched cross-legged on the cedar chest. Tamlestari took the campstool nearest Aejys and Johannes the other. Cassana sat on the ground with her back resting against the cot. Aejys sat upon the cot as if it were a throne.
"I found fresh manticore spoor near the west end this morning," Aejys told them. "The beasts are checking us out."
"My myn have never fought anything like that," Johannes said.
"Then they'll learn fast," Aejys replied, turning to Hanadi, "Has Brundarad come in?"
"No."
"Would you know if he found trouble?"
"Hmnph! We would hear my pet half a league away if he were in difficulties," Hanadi said. "You have not heard him bay. He is louder than a pack of coursing hounds. And there is our bond." She thumbed the knife, gave a grunt, and sheathed it before sucking her thumb satisfied.
"Hanadi's people, Aejys said to Johannes, "fought in the Great War, they're drawn from Jon Dawn's Legion. They have experience with manticores and worse. Your myn would do well to follow their example when we come to it. In fact Hanadi's units are the only ones experienced in the type of warfare we may find our Eldari in."
A smug smile lit Hanadi's dark face.
Johannes scowled. "My myn learn quickly. There are no white feathers among them."
"Arm and mount!" Aejys shouted, her lieutenants picking up the cry.
Tagalong thudded down the middle of the camp as quick as her short legs could carry her, marshaling the archers as she went. They formed up behind her while six slingers moved to flank her.
Johannes did not bother to mount. Ahead of him a mixed group of swordsmyn, caught unawares by the huge beasts, fought on foot trying to form a line between the beasts and the handful of archers who had been surprised along with them. Shouting commands to his myn he strode to the front of the ragged line.
Aejys' left arm was stiff and sore as she shoved it into the shield straps. "Archers! Pick your targets!" Aejys shouted, snatching up her lance and mounting. "Throat! Head! Feather their faces! Lancers to me!" Gwyndar charged. Cassana and Tamlestari flanked Aejys, a line of mercenary and Guild lancers formed up behind her as she galloped past. Aejys could see the creatures then, six of the usually solitary monsters striking with their scorpion tails and lion's claws. Then she couched her lance and charged the foremost manticore. The archers and warriors on foot opened ranks, to let the heavy cavalry pass.
Aejys caught the first pass of its stinger on her shield without breaking stride and drove the lance deep into the manticore's breast. It rolled thrashing on the ground in its death agony. The scorpion like stinger of another caught one of the mercenaries in the neck and he fell screaming.
"Ware the stinger!" Aejys shouted, drawing her sword. Another snapped its tail at her. She sliced the stinger off. Gwyndar reared striking with his hooves and the huge beast brought its claws into play. Gwyndar pivoted, biting and kicking as Aejys cut first at the manticore's claws, then at its head. A third closed on her. In avoiding the stinger Gwyndar lost his footing and fell heavily, throwing Aejys.
The impact on her half healed arm knocked the breath from her and for the space of nearly a minute she couldn't move. The manticore that had lost its stinger sprang at her. A booming dwarven battle cry came behind her and a huge hammer flew past, shattering the skull like an over ripe melon. Tagalong Smith entered the fray, leading the swordsmyn. She stood over Aejys as the lapsed paladin regained her feet.
"I'm okay, Tag. Let's take out that one."
Aejys led them in. They cut away the stinger and maimed the claws before finally hacking it to death.
Hanadi snatched the lance of a fallen rider, sprang to the saddle, and charged the fourth monster. She used her shield as she had seen Aejys do and drove the lance into its chest as it reared.
Aejys turned looking for another to fight and saw that all six were dead. Manticores did not range in packs; they were solitary creatures, coming together only to mate. Clearly they had been summoned to attack them. She noticed then that each wore a broad leather collar with a dangling golden charm. Aejys cut the collar from one of them and held the charm in her hands. A stylized Waejontori dragon, wings spread, with rowan trees clutched in its claws adorned the charm.
"Margren?" Tagalong asked, coming to stand at her elbow.
"Possibly," Aejys answered, "But if so she has allied herself with Waejontor. Isn't this like the one you described Jon Dawn as having?"
"It's identical."
* * * *
Aejys doubled the watch while the camp licked its wounds. Her losses were relatively light. Four mercenaries, two guildsmyn and two horses dead; five mercenaries wounded, two seriously; and one guildsmyn lancer crippled beyond mending, his legs ripped to pieces – he would be lucky if he did not lose them. Their losses would have been far worse had not the Guildsmyn and Aejys been experienced with such monsters.
They shifted part of the baggage to the surviving mounts of the seriously wounded and the dead so that the former could be laid in the wagons. Aejys ordered the slain to be burned. The mercenaries balked, but Hanadi backed her up. Aejys knew that if the Waejontoris were involved then the undead could not be far behind and she did not want to add to their ranks.
They broke camp around midday. The place among the trees was not defensible. Some of Hanadi's people skinned a manticore while waiting to set out, taking also the teeth, claws, and any usable parts. The meat was abandoned, as they didn't have sufficient means to carry it along: as if any but an orc would eat such meat. Eliahu persuaded one enthusiastic mercenary to get him a heart and two livers. He also carefully removed a severed stinger, wrapped it. These things he carefully spelled frozen and concealed among his supplies. He was operating on intuition, for a small inner voice had whispered to him, and felt unsure what to do with them.
As night drew around them and Aejys pushed on, Tagalong became uneasy. "Aejys, you promised no forced marches."
"There's a defensible position at the crest of Tarmus Ardren Pass. It narrows and they can only come at us one at a time. A few days past that will land us at the Willodarian Monastery of St. Tarmus of Lorendon. We can rest there."
"Aejys, this isn't good for ya... Yar wounds..."
"Hell shitting damnation, Tag! Getting eaten by a manticore isn't good for me either!"
"Ya think they're comin' back?"
"Hell, what do you think, Tag?"
"They're comin back."
"She may hit us with something else. I don't know. I do know this is why I was told to bring an army. At this rate we'll make the monastery in three – four days at the most. I can lick my wounds there if they need licking."
They marched until dawn, myn, horses, and all dragging as the sun seared across the horizon in shades of flame. The wagons struggled along, slowing their pace. They failed to reach the Pass and camped in a rocky hollow further up the mountains.
* * * *
They broke camp in the mid afternoon, riding until moonset when they made camp again in the wee hours before dawn. By the morning of the third day of forced marching Aejys ached in every muscle and felt worn to the bone. She began to acknowledge that Tagalong might be right: she had not given herself enough time to heal from the duel and the pace was proving too strenuous for her. But that did not mean that she intended to give in any more than she could avoid. She had to see this through as quickly as possible.
Aejys had just stretched out on her cot when she heard shouts and sat up. She listened a second and decided that, while they were excited, it did not sound like the alarm of attack. Tamlestari poked her head into the tent.
"What is it?" Aejys asked.
"Brundarad returns and he's dragging something."
Aejys spied a commotion on the south end and strode in that direction, falling in beside Hanadi.
"What has he got?"
"We will know in only a moment."
Aejys shouldered through. Myn started to complain at the jostling, but seeing who it was acquiesced into silence, opening ranks to let her pass.
Hanadi dropped to her knees beside the big animal, pulling a roundish object from his jaws. Aejys bent beside her and growled wordlessly as she took the thing from Hanadi and turned it over in her hands.
It was a green skinned head with shaggy black hair and a tusked mouth, clammy with death and already beginning to smell.
"Orc," they said together.
"There were no orcs in this region after the war," Aejys said. "Their hunting grounds are northeast above the Cherdon'datar."
Brundarad spoke to Hanadi in a series of strange barks and growls and whines. Hanadi's face lost all expression as she listened. "He says he came across two groups of five. They appeared to be scouts. He has not yet found the main force, but thinks it will be a large one."
"Gobbies, my myn can fight easily," Johannes said.
Aejys looked up, noticing him for the first time. "Yes, I imagine they can," she observed dryly.
"I shall send Brundarad out again. He can range far and then follow our bond back to me."
* * * *
Over the next days the company set a brisk pace to make up for the lessened hours of march. No watch fires were set. Dinners were served cold: just bread, cheese, dried fruits, and salmon charki. Nor was there any singing or music in the camp. Nothing to tell the orcs where to find them. Tempers frayed, especially between the red ribbons and the green leading to minor scuffling. Although the green knew all about the red, the red knew nothing about the green and dark speculations ensued as to where they had come from considering that they were clearly veteran units from the Great War. The high meadows had given way to sheer craggy cliffs where the snow lingered. The trees grew sparse and twisted, mostly pines and mountain ash. Despite all efforts, however, they reached the Tarmus Ardren pass three days later than Aejys had hoped.
The pass was a narrow slice cut between two sheer walls of gray stone. The east end was half blocked by a fall of rock that had to be partially removed before the wagons could get through. Aejys set a double guard on the west end. With the boulders and mountain wall to shield them she allowed Eliahu a small fire and he set to cooking enthusiastically.
As Aejys walked to the east end to personally let the myn moving rocks know that they would have a better meal that night the sounds of a fight erupted. Aejys arrived as the assembled myn started laying bets. It looked to Aejys to be no contest. The big mercenary, Jeord, straddled a much smaller mon whom Aejys recognized as one of Hanadi's people, hammering him with his big fists.
"Let him up!" Aejys ordered.
The huge mercenary either did not hear her in the heat of the moment or simply ignored her. He continued to slam the small green who struggled vainly to free himself.
Aejys seized Jeord from behind pulling him bodily off the smaller man. She slid her arms under his and locked her hands together at the base of his neck. She reared back, her hands pressing down and forward with sufficient force to snap his neck if necessary. The eldritch strength of Sharani women was a legend in the outlands, but in that moment, as the big man strained vainly against the arms that held him like iron bars, it became a fact for all present. Thus she ensured that Johannes' myn would walk more lightly in the presence of the women of her company.