by Roland Green
“I am Rynthala of Belkuthas, and I won’t fight you unless you are going to attack my parents’ home.” Rynthala felt herself flushing at the way the words came out. She had talked more sensibly when she was ten years old!
Sir Darin was too polite to notice. Instead he waved his sword across the slope, where the dust was now exposing a good-sized battle. It was nearly finished, now, judging by the number of men down—and Rynthala noticed that most of these wore sell-swords’ motley gear, and most of those standing wore either Free Rider or Solamnic garb.
As far as I can tell under the dust, anyway, Rynthala reminded herself.
Sir Darin stepped closer and pointed his sword downhill. Another, thinner cloud of dust surrounded a second battle, still in progress. A mixed band of Solamnics and Free Riders hotly engaged another column of sell-swords, trying to force their way down from a pass to the east.
“If you wish to fight beside anyone, take your folk down and report to my commander, Sir Pirvan of Tirabot, Knight of the Sword. Or Threehands, son of Redthorn the Gryphon, who is chief alike with Sir Pirvan. I will send a man to guide you, if needed.”
Rynthala was torn between relief that there was still a fight to fight, and regret that Sir Darin would not be going with her. She signaled to the riders behind her. Follow me.
Rynthala was able to bring her band—or at least two score of its arrows—into the last moments of Pirvan’s fight. The warrior maiden was plainly disappointed.
Pirvan assured her that her arrival had ended the fight more quickly and, thereby, saved lives on both sides. For this he would be grateful, and Kiri-Jolith and Paladine would honor her.
“Are you Sir Pirvan of Tirabot?” was all the warrior maiden replied.
“I am, but—”
“Then I am bidden by Sir Darin Waydolson to seek you out. Have I done so?”
“Yes, but—”
“Sir Pirvan!” A small figure darted between the two mounted warriors. “Good to see you again. We must talk. These are Zephros’s men you’ve fought. We met them a few days ago at a pass with a lot of rocky spikes. We knocked down some of the spikes and both sides of the pass fell. That blocked their way. They must have found another road through the hills. The other men are common sell-swords. I don’t know if they are on the same side, but Zephros’s men are evil from the heart out. If every last one of them—”
Pirvan held up a hand. This did nothing to still the kender, whom he recognized under the dust as Imsaffor Whistletrot, once one of Waydol the Minotaur’s band. Ten years did not age kender greatly—or slow their tongues.
What did silence Whistletrot was Rynthala’s sliding out of her saddle and picking him up bodily by the scruff of the neck. This brought Pirvan to realize that the woman—barely more than a girl—was taller than he was, and probably stronger.
Whistletrot used quite a lot of what had to be vulgar language, but it was in the kender tongue, so that it offended no one. While he was relieving his feelings, Eskaia rode up and hailed her father as a junior captain hails a senior.
“Greetings, Father. Sir Darin reports that he has slain, taken, or driven into flight all the sell-swords. The ones you fought—Zephros’s band, they say—are asking for a truce to bury their dead and recover their wounded.”
“I grant it,” Pirvan said. It was pleasant to talk to someone he could trust not to interrupt him—at least not on the battlefield.
But the pleasure would not last long. He needed to learn a great deal about those whom he had defeated, and learn it before sunset, which was coming on fast. Then he had to place his men—hale, hurt, and slain—and his prisoners, in safety. In the morning, he would have to fight another battle, and resume the march to Belkuthas.
If the heiress to the citadel had come out to meet him, it was only courteous to follow her home. But Pirvan prayed to every god lawful for a knight to name, and a few others who might help if they were feeling generous, that Rynthala would also help him through the mountain of work that remained before they saw the towers of Belkuthas rising ahead!
Chapter 10
At sunset, Eskaia stood side by side with Hawkbrother on a low rise, overlooking the camp. They did not touch, but for now, an occasional glance served as well. They had also measured precisely and now kept between them a distance that pleased them without displeasing Eskaia’s parents or the Gryphon warrior’s elder brother.
Closest to them were the captured sell-swords, most of them unbound save for a few who had refused to give their word of honor not to escape. Amidst them stood Pirvan and Tarothin, with several of the captives in a circle around them.
“What does your father mean by so wearying Tarothin?” Hawkbrother asked. “The Red Robe pretends valiantly, but I see grave sickness on his face. Better he should have stayed behind. Skytoucher might have been unable to heal him, but the two could have taught each other much.”
Eskaia ignored the criticism of her father. “I think Tarothin is using a modest truth spell. One that will let him tell if a sell-sword lies.”
“Better to make the man unable to lie.”
“That demands more strength than Tarothin has.”
“All the more reason for his resting in safety,” Hawkbrother said.
Before they could quarrel over this, they saw Rynthala of Belkuthas riding up with half a dozen of her mounted archers. Close behind her rode Sir Darin, with a similar number of the Solamnics. As the two parties dismounted and began to unload scavenged weapons from their saddles, Darin and Rynthala somehow contrived to end up standing close to one another. Eskaia was prepared to wager all her armor and her second-best mount that this was Rynthala’s doing.
“They seem to find each other’s company pleasant enough,” Hawkbrother said.
No need to ask who they were. Eskaia smiled. “Why not? You tell me if she is not a fine woman. I say Darin is intelligent, honorable, brave, and good to look upon.”
“I wonder that you have not set yourself at him, if he has so many virtues!” Hawkbrother said. Eskaia heard an edge in his voice that had not been there since the battle ended.
She turned and stared. His wide brown eyes seemed moist from more than dust, and that neat mouth was set in a hard line. Eskaia stared for a further moment, cursed herself, then licked her lips.
“Hawkbrother, I beg your pardon. You are not jealous, are you?” Her mother had always said that more than a trifle of jealousy in a man cast doubt on both his honor and his intelligence.
“In truth—oh, somewhat. Perhaps a little more. How do you regard Darin? Did you praise him to make me jealous?”
Eskaia let out a long breath. “Paladine and Habbakuk be my witness, no! If I did anything that foolish—you could take me away and do to me whatever Gryphon men are allowed to do to foolish women.”
“I have not that right, and if I did your parents would say more than somewhat against it, perhaps my brother as well.”
Eskaia sighed. “I shall have to speak to my parents on this and other matters, before many days pass. Also my brother, who may feel freer to do something foolish because he has not a chief’s burdens.
“But as for Sir Darin—I was saying about him what I have known myself since I was not yet a woman. To me, he has always been something between an uncle and an elder brother. He was, as much as our parents, my teacher and Gerik’s in weapon use and many other matters.
“I think he walks a little apart from most, because he was raised and taught by a minotaur. He fears that some flaw in the minotaur’s teaching may someday lead him to injure another, and dishonor Waydol’s memory.”
“Waydol was the minotaur?”
“Yes.” Daring, Eskaia reached for Hawkbrother’s hand and gripped it. “I have always regretted never meeting Waydol. I think you would have regretted it. I think you would have respected him, too.”
“I think anyone who knows Sir Darin would say the same,” Hawkbrother replied. He might have said more, except that Eskaia’s delight moved her to kiss him—s
tarting on the cheek but working around to his lips.
He replied, at first, with restraint, but before long with his arm around her. When they stepped apart at last, both were a trifle breathless, but Eskaia hoped the smile on Hawkbrother’s face was mirrored on her own.
“Well, my friend,” she said. “Our first kiss.”
“Better than our first quarrel, which is what I feared,” Hawkbrother said. He looked ready to kiss her again, but at that moment they noticed that Pirvan was done with the sell-swords and looking at them.
They did not, however, step apart.
The sunset light through the lancet window in Sir Marod’s study now glowed rose—almost the same hue as much of the stonework of Dargaard Keep, or the emblem of his rank embroidered on the cloak hanging over his chair.
He leaned back in the chair, imagining that he heard his joints and the chair’s creaking in unison, and stared at the map on the far wall. It was a splendid map, hand-colored on the skin of several large deer sewn together, the whole framed in half a dozen different kinds of wood, all so aged, darkened, and polished that it was impossible to tell what they had been as living trees.
It was also more than a hundred years old, but it showed plainly enough every place that was in Sir Marod’s thoughts at the moment. It showed Bloten, whose keep had some days before reported the departure of Sir Lewin and his company, well-supplied, armed, and mounted, and bound over the mountains for good or for ill. It showed the Khalkist Mountains and Thoradin, whose dwarves would have a busy year if matters went awry.
It showed the desert and its western fringes, the land where Aurhinius’s host, Pirvan’s company, and (if what Marod had heard was report instead of rumor) numerous sell-swords wandered about on separate business. It could not have shown where any of these were, although Marod would have liked to be able to say, of Pirvan’s whereabouts, more than “somewhere between the Khalkist Mountains and the Abyss.”
It did not show Belkuthas, though the citadel had first risen not only before this map but before the art of map-making was known to men. No doubt it had not been inhabited a century ago, perhaps with the consent of the dwarves, perhaps by their wish.
Sir Marod leaned forward again, and drifted into a reverie that allowed Knights of Solamnia to use certain small spells, for keeping swords sharp, water pure, and maps up to date.
Even in the reverie, though, he did not forget the problems the spell might cause, entirely apart from violating the Oath and the Measure in ways that both gods and men might oppose. Of late, those who claimed to speak for the kingpriest had found harsh words to use about wizards—White, Red, and Black Robes, alike. Marod’s transgression of their strict prohibition might waken anger in places where the Knights of Solamnia needed goodwill.
Also, not all magic-users were staunch allies. Some might see spying on the enemies of the kingpriest as a way to win favor withheld from their comrades. The Solamnic Orders already had too many factions without inviting vipers to nest in their armor.
The gods might not have spoken unequivocally on this matter. Pirvan himself had once known and even used a minor spell without injury to his later career as a knight. Recently, however, the good sense of men sent a plain messenger.
Sir Marod felt coldness against his cheek, but warmth over his back, and sat up with a start. The last light had departed from the window, and he felt a stiffness in more joints than his knee. He’d spent too long in an awkward position in this chilly room.
A second candle stood on the table before him, where there had been only one—and that first candle was burned to a stub. Sir Marod groped for his cloak and discovered that someone had draped it over his shoulders.
“Elius?” he said. Then he remembered that his former squire had been dead for ten years. The man who stepped into view was a candidate young enough to be Elius’s grandson.
“Your pardon, Sir Marod,” the young man said. “I didn’t think you’d want to be hauled off to your bed like a drunkard, but it would be ill-done to let you take cold. When I saw you waking, I sent to the kitchen for a posset cup. It should be here in a moment.”
“Thank you,” Marod said. He groped for the young man’s name and was relieved to find it behind only the fog of sleep. “Thank you, Candidate Grandzhin. Have the posset sent to my bedchamber. If I can fall asleep on this table, it’s time I was in bed.”
“At your command, Sir Marod.”
Pirvan was about to open the council of war, but he noticed two faces missing.
“Where are the kender?”
Everyone looked at everyone else, as if seeking the answer on other faces or in the thin air. Gerik finally said, hesitatingly, “I think I heard one of them—I don’t know which—say to the other that they should take watches up by Zephros’s men.”
Not everyone cursed, but those who did included Pirvan. “The little fools,” he added. “If Zephros’s men see them, they’ll say the truce is broken and the kender will die slowly!”
“There’s a saying in Karthay,” Haimya put in. “ ‘The definition of futility is telling a kender not to go somewhere he wants to go.’ ”
Even the Gryphons laughed at that, and Threehands added, “Kender are hard to see even by day, let alone by night, and Zephros’s men have not seemed overly desert-wise. Besides, the kender may give us extra warning if Zephros’s men do turn truce breakers.”
There was nothing else anybody could propose in the matter of Zephros’s men, except to give them more bloody noses if they started another fight. Pirvan also intended that the knights send a message to Istar, for passing on to Aurhinius, but since Zephros deserted from Aurhinius’s service, no one expected miracles or even results from that.
The sell-swords were another matter.
“None of them can pay a ransom without stripping themselves bare,” Darin said. “Then they would have no choice but to perish or join up with Zephros’s band, as they originally seemed intent on doing.”
“Nor are they the only ones,” Tarothin said. His voice rasped like that of a man with lung-fever, but the words marched out audibly and in good order. “I have read hints in the minds of some of the captains, of many other bands of sell-swords now on the way to join Zephros. Zephros, not Aurhinius.”
“The kingpriest,” Haimya said, “or those about him, who seek to undo all the victories won by reason in the past generation. Including ours,” she added, and if her voice had been applied to the kingpriest’s throat it would have decapitated him on the spot. Even Pirvan shivered as he heard it.
“Which means that we need to march to Belkuthas as quickly as possible,” Threehands put in. “Unburdened by prisoners, either. I trust none of those dung-eaters out of my sight.”
Pirvan ignored the implied solution; honor would demand a quarrel if Threehands took offense, and that would end nowhere good. “We can take their oath, to not fight against us until they have paid ransom. Then we can put the sigil of the knights on their weapons. No one will enlist sell-swords with such weapons. They can throw them away, of course, but then they will be disarmed.”
“If the kingpriest is behind this, Istar’s treasury will buy them new weapons,” Haimya said. “But I doubt we can do better.”
“So be it,” Pirvan said. “Who says otherwise?”
None did, either because they agreed or because they were too weary to put their disagreement into sensible words. At least the sell-swords and Pirvan’s party were safe from each other, and both from Zephros’s men, until sunset tomorrow.
Bloodier battles had been fought to win less.
At the crest of Shammal Pass, Sir Lewin of Trenfar had dismounted to save his mount. Now he stood holding its reins, as the remainder of his company and its pack animals moved down the first rough hundred paces of the far side.
A young knight came up and saluted. Lewin recognized Sir Esthazas of Narol, Knight of the Crown for barely a year.
“All well?” Lewin asked.
“All well, in spite of the ris
ks of this night passage,” Sir Esthazas said.
“Are you questioning my orders?” Lewin said.
“No, you yourself spoke of this passage as fraught with danger.”
“You remember correctly. Have you forgotten what else I said?”
“That we hide ourselves from dwarven spies by traveling at night. But—”
“Yes?”
“I beg your pardon for what may seem—what you said—but—”
“I will grant pardon for anything you say without hesitation,” Lewin snapped.
“Then—why assume the dwarves are enemies? Also, if the tales run true, they have night vision like cats. How then can we hide ourselves from them, even if we need to?”
“Never assume friendship from folk without proper notions of honor,” Lewin said. “And as for their night vision—it is easy to believe old tales about the other races, and so make them into fearful monsters to frighten children.”
The light of Solinari was bright enough to show Lewin the other knight’s flush. That reminded him just how young Sir Esthazas was—and also, that his mentor had been Sir Niebar the Tall, Knight of the Sword, friend to Sir Pirvan the Wayward, and outspokenly overfond of the other races.
Sir Esthazas would bear watching. Lewin was prepared to believe in spies deliberately assigned to his band, and in tales borne out of zeal. But insulting the young knight would only raise doubts about Lewin’s own honor among those whose goodwill—or at least, cooperation—he needed.
“I ask your pardon, Sir Esthazas. You raise these questions for the same reason I do mine, for the safety of our company. I can find no fault with that, and apologize if I seemed to do so.”
Lewin did not remember how or whether Sir Esthazas accepted the apology. He was too busy mounting up, and as he did, examining the trail before him. Some of the rougher parts seemed to have been worked at with hammer and chisel. To make an impossible passage merely difficult, or to slow what might have been a quick march, to keep enemies within ambush range longer? Dwarven work, either way, in this part of the Khalkist Mountains.