The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within

by J. L. Doty

  The griffin that found Morddon at the base of the cliff stayed curiously close to him. His name was TearThane, and Morddon often found him staring silently at the scar on his cheek. Then at the oddest of moments TearThane would ask, “Where did you get that scar?”

  Morddon would growl, “I don’t remember. Now leave me alone.” By the time they reached Kathbeyanne it had become almost a ritual.

  They put Morddon in a large, overcrowded hospital ward, though his wounds had begun to heal on the trip back to Kathbeyanne and he was anxious to return to his duties. Almost immediately Gilguard and AnneRhianne came to see him. “Is there anything we can bring you?” AnneRhianne asked.

  “Yes,” Morddon snarled. “Some peace and quiet, and some privacy. Now go away.”

  Gilguard flinched angrily, but AnneRhianne stayed his hand. “Don’t take offense,” she said to the warmaster. “That’s just his way. You must understand he feels guilty when he’s not out fighting the Goath, and it makes him somewhat surly.”

  Morddon growled at her, “Don’t try to understand me, woman.”

  She ignored him, continued speaking to Gilguard. “And he did save my life, and I saw a glimpse of his true nature then, a glimpse of the man he hides from us all.”

  Gilguard nodded. “I owe you an apology,” he said to Morddon. “I’m told one of my warriors tried to kill you, thinking you had abandoned the Lady AnneRhianne. You must understand that facts can become garbled out there with all the fighting.”

  Morddon opened his mouth with an unpleasant retort on his lips, but he forced his anger down. “Apology accepted.”

  “There,” AnneRhianne said. “You see? He can be civil.”

  “Bah!” Morddon growled.

  AnneRhianne said, “And I owe you my thanks for saving my nephew’s life.”

  Morddon didn’t want the attention that would come if they knew he had rescued SheelThane, and since WindHollow was intimately connected to that story, he denied it. “I didn’t save him. I never found him. I ran into those Kulls before I could track him down.”

  “That’s not what he says, though he was sorely wounded and remembers little of what happened. But he does remember the madman. And he remembers the griffin Queen.”

  “If he was wounded then he must have been delirious.”

  AnneRhianne smiled. “Isn’t it odd that you were there when she and he were both rescued?”

  “I had nothing to do with it.”

  AnneRhianne chuckled. “Of course. Have it your way, my angry, bitter friend.”

  AnneRhianne wanted to have him moved into the palace where she could care for him personally, but he would have nothing of that, and he was stubborn enough to keep her from having her way. She and Gilguard left him alone and he hoped he might now return to the anonymity of a common soldier, but through the rest of that day he was nagged by doubt, and for some reason he wanted to mend the rift of anger he’d put between himself and Gilguard, and he wanted to see AnneRhianne again. It’s you, he thought to Morgin, who was buried deep within his soul. Your damn soft-hearted kindness is changing me.

  The next morning Morddon dressed, retrieved his sword and left the hospital to report back to the barracks. “Are you well?” Metadan asked him.

  “Well enough to fight,” Morddon snarled.

  Metadan nodded. “SheelThane has been asking after you,” he said without elaborating further, then turned back to the business he’d been about when Morddon interrupted him. Metadan didn’t take offense just because a man chose to speak his mind, and Morddon liked that about him.

  That afternoon he coaxed an angel into a workout. They went out onto the large parade ground in front of the barracks and Morddon discovered quickly he was still in no shape for swinging a sword. He decided to limit himself to a few exercises and some stretching, and learned even that was painful.

  A messenger arrived from the palace. “Her Majesty’s compliments,” the messenger said to Morddon. “The queen of the House of the Thane requests your presence at your convenience.”

  Morddon looked at the messenger, snarled, “Go away. I’m busy.”

  “But Her Majesty—”

  With almost inhuman speed Morddon put the tip of his sword at the man’s throat. “I said go away.”

  The man bowed politely and left.

  The next day Morddon was again out on the parade ground exercising and stretching, and pleased to find that the effort of the day before had done him some good. A messenger approached him with a slight smirk on his face. “His Majesty’s compliments,” the messenger snapped at Morddon. “The king of the House of the Thane commands your presence now.”

  Morddon stopped exercising, looked at the man deliberately, angrily. The man’s self-satisfied smirk slowly disappeared. “I don’t want to see any of them halfbirds,” Morddon growled. “And I don’t want to see any more of you. Now go away.”

  The messenger gulped fearfully, then hurried away.

  Morddon went back to his exercises, thought he might even find that angel again and try a little sword practice. But while still stretching, bent deeply over and trying to work the kinks out of the backs of his legs, he caught one momentary glimpse of a shadow sweeping across the ground toward him, and with the instincts of a man who’d survived many a battle he dropped flat to the ground and just barely missed being gutted by steel tipped talons that sliced past him only a hair’s breadth above his back.

  He jumped to his feet, spun about in time to see the back of a black griffin as it arced upward at the end of its dive, banked to one side and turned for another deadly pass. Morddon bent quickly and grabbed a hand full of dust from the ground. He waited, watching the griffin steady itself in its dive toward him, held his position until the last instant, then as the griffin swept past him jumped to one side and tossed the hand full of dust into its face.

  Morddon hit the dirt in a roll, bounded to his feet in time to see the blinded griffin touch a wing tip to the ground. The halfbird crashed in a spectacular roll of feathers and wings and claws, and before it stopped tumbling Morddon sprinted after it, bounded onto its back just as it picked itself up, wrapped an arm around its neck and slammed the hilt of his sword into the back of its head. The griffin arched its back, flopped down onto its side and rolled over. As the weight of the halfbird pressed into his damaged ribs Morddon cried out, almost lost consciousness. Then the halfbird was on top of him, pinning his sword arm to the ground with one set of talons while lifting the other to rip his throat out. “Now you will pay for your insolence to the queen of the House of the Thane,” the griffin shouted at him, and its steel tipped talons descended toward his face.

  Something within Morgin cried out to the steel to hold, and the halfbird froze, its talons only inches from Morddon’s throat. The sudden reprieve startled Morgin, and he wondered if his silent command to the steel had actually stopped the death strike of the griffin’s talons, but then both he and Morddon noticed the look in the griffin’s face, a look of incredulous surprise and disbelief. The griffin arched its neck forward until Morddon could smell the breath panting out of its beak. It hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Where did you get that mark on your face?”

  Morddon heard other wings slicing through the air as a flock of griffins landed in a circle about them. “Hold!” TarnThane cried angrily at the griffin on top of Morddon. “Do not harm that man. I command you to stand aside.”

  The griffin moved slowly, but it retracted its talons and stepped back. AnneRhianne and Gilguard stepped in and helped Morddon to his feet. Clutching his ribs he looked about carefully. He was ringed by a strange assemblage of beings: Metadan and Ellowyn, AnneRhianne and Gilguard and several other Benesh’ere men and women. But commanding the attention of everyone were the griffins: TarnThane, AuelThane, TearThane, but foremost among them SheelThane.

  Gilguard grabbed Morddon’s arm unkindly, whispered into his ear, “She’s come to see you. The queen of the House of the Thane has deigned to come to you. Why she didn
’t let that griffin gut you, I don’t know. But she’s here, so curb that angry tongue of yours.”

  Morddon yanked his arm out of Gilguard’s grasp, then bowed carefully to SheelThane. “I am honored.”

  SheelThane said, “No. It is I who am honored.” Everyone but the griffins gasped. SheelThane smiled. “Well now, whiteface,” she said. “You managed to stay alive after all.”

  “It’s a habit I picked up a long time ago, and one I find difficult to break.”

  “You see, my queen?” TarnThane laughed. “He does have a sense of humor, and though somewhat barbed, a rarity among the whitefaces.”

  AuelThane stepped forward, looked closely at Morddon’s face, eyed the small scar on his cheek with the same curiosity as TearThane. It clearly give him some sort of satisfaction, then he stepped back and remained silent.

  SheelThane looked about carefully at each of the griffins, then she looked at Morddon. “No griffin will ever again harm you, unless in self-defense.” Then she nodded at the griffin that had attacked Morddon. “And this one will be punished.”

  Morddon shook his head and growled, “Ah don’t bother. He did a poor job of killin’ me, and I hold that against him more than the tryin’.”

  Chapter 9: The Hand of the Thief

  Morgin drifted slowly out of his dreams, and when he opened his eyes he was resting comfortably in the soft, billowing blankets of a large bed situated in a spacious and extravagantly appointed room. Nearby a young woman sat in a chair. She was about Morgin’s age, dressed in the finery of a courtier, and had apparently been waiting by his bed for him to awaken, though she had dozed off into a light sleep and her head was bowed at an uncomfortable angle.

  Morgin reached up and touched his face, found they had shaved his beard. He tried to prop himself up on one elbow, succeeded, but learned in the doing that every muscle and bone in his body ached, especially his ribs. At his efforts the young woman’s head snapped up and her eyes widened. “Where am I?” Morgin asked, found it difficult to speak since the left side of his mouth was swollen and tender. “What happened to me?”

  The young woman shot out of her chair, knelt beside Morgin’s bed, took one of his hands and kissed it tenderly. “Oh my lord!” she cried. “You were so close to death, and we were all frightened for you.”

  Morgin decided this was one of his dreams because she kept kissing his hand and calling him things like “Your Highness,” and “my most gracious lord.” But then his skin color was that of Morgin, not Morddon, and this didn’t have the taste of a dream.

  The young woman jumped to her feet. “Oh my goodness!” she cried, put her hands fearfully to her mouth. “The queen must be told, and her physicians.” She spun about and shot out of the room in a flurry of petticoats.

  “The queen?” Morgin thought. He didn’t want to have anything to do with that crazy woman. He was too fond of staying alive, and he wasn’t going to wait around passively for them to carry out her execution order.

  He threw the covers back, noticed then that his ribs were wrapped in some sort of bandage, and he was badly bruised almost everywhere. He sat up desperately, threw his legs off the bed, got to his feet, found that while just about everything hurt he could still get around. One ankle had been badly sprained and he limped a bit, though that too was bearable. But exhaustion pulled at him, and he struggled just to hold his head up straight.

  Someone had dressed him in a long, linen bed gown so he searched for his clothes, ripped through several drawers before he found them in a large closet. He was pleased to find that his sword lay sheathed among them. He picked up his clothes and boots and sword, carried them across to the bed, dumped them there in a pile, sorted through them and found his breeches. All of his clothing had been badly torn, as if he’d been in a nasty brawl.

  “Well now,” a voice said from behind him.

  He dropped his breeches, ripped his sword from its sheath and spun about. An old man stood just within the entrance to the room and Morgin put the tip of his sword at the fellow’s throat.

  The old man frowned. “Now, now, young man. Be careful—”

  “Shut up,” Morgin snarled. Keeping his sword at the old fellow’s throat he limped around him and kicked the door shut.

  The old man wore long, elegant, expensive robes, and stood with was an air of authority about him, masked a bit by the scent of fear. Morgin used the point of his sword to nudge the old fellow toward the chair the young woman had been sitting in, then he pricked the old man in the chest and forced him to sit down with a certain loss of dignity.

  The old man said, “You’re making a mistake.”

  “Shut up, I said,” Morgin growled. “My mistake was getting anywhere near that queen of yours.”

  The old man shrugged unhappily. “We’re all sorry about that.”

  “Keep your voice down. In fact, don’t say anything.” Morgin pressed the tip of his sword beneath the old man’s chin. “I’m getting the netherhell out of here. But first I’ve got to find my friends, and you’re going to help me.” Morgin longed for his shadowmagic, then he could dump the old man and find them himself. He turned back to the bed, and keeping one eye on the old man he put the unsheathed sword down next to his clothes and reached for his breeches again.

  This time a woman’s voice interrupted him. “It’s good to see you up and looking so well, Morgin.”

  He dropped the breeches and again grabbed his sword, spun about, thought at first the young woman had returned. But this woman was older, though still young and quite beautiful, and she wore a gown of a different color, and spoke in a different voice, more self-assured, more mature, and somehow familiar. And then slowly, as he looked at her, his eyes penetrated the courtly manners, and the gown, and the hair elegantly prepared, and the delicate touches of makeup applied here and there.

  “Cort?” Morgin asked. “Is that you?”

  The Balenda threw her head back and laughed heartily. “Morgin, you should see the look on your face.”

  The old man rose slowly from his chair, regained his dignity and bowed with a flourish to Cort. “Lady Cortien. It appears you’ve rescued me from being abducted by this young ruffian, then forced to help him find you and the rest of his companions so you might all escape our hospitality.”

  Cort laughed again. “The day I need to rescue you, Sacress, is the day all thieves become honest men.”

  Morgin lowered his sword, sat down on the edge of the enormous bed and shook his head. “You two know each other?”

  “It appears,” Sacress said, “that the young man remembers nothing of his ordeal.”

  Morgin looked at the old man. “Who are you?”

  The old man smiled. “I’m Sacress, the queen’s physician.”

  Cort crossed the room carefully, taking a wide berth around the naked blade in Morgin’s hand. She picked his sheath off the bed, held it out to him. “Put that away. You won’t need it here.”

  Morgin took the sheath, slid the sword into it. Both Cort and Sacress relaxed visibly, and the old man crossed the room to stand over Morgin. He began probing at Morgin’s ribs. “You appear to be doing quite nicely, though for a time you gave us quite a fright. How are the ribs? Tell me if this hurts.”

  It felt as if someone poked a dagger into Morgin’s chest. “Owe!” Morgin shouted. “You’re damn right it hurts.”

  The old man nodded thoughtfully. “Still got some healing to do, but you’re doing better than expected. Now back into bed with you.” The old man and Cort forced him back into the sheets.

  The door opened again and France stepped into the room. “Morgin, me boy. Just passed a young lady in the hall said you was up. Yer lookin’ fit.”

  A small crowd gathered in the hall behind France and for a moment it appeared they would all enter the room. Cort intervened, stepped in the way and spoke to a large man dressed in the livery of the palace guard. “You may tell everyone His Highness has regained consciousness, and that he is doing well. But for the moment he n
eeds his rest. So, with the exception of the queen herself, Sacress and his assistants, and of course His Highness’ traveling companions, let no one pass. And send someone down to the kitchens for food. His Highness needs sustenance.”

  “Yes, Your Ladyship,” the guard said in a deep voice. He closed the door.

  Morgin demanded, “Will someone tell me what in netherhell is going on here?”

  France grinned. “Yer a hero, lad.”

  While Sacress probed at every joint and muscle in Morgin’s body, Cort asked, “What do you remember?”

  Morgin closed his eyes, recalled an image of the hatred in Aiergain’s eyes. “Only that just when I thought I had her under control she went berserk.”

  Cort nodded. “Yes. She did. Don’t blame her; she wasn’t exactly sane at the time.”

  France said, “She bounced you around perty bad. Picked you up without touchin’ you and slammed you against the ceiling and every wall in the room. No one could help you, not even Cort and Tulellcoe when they arrived. She bounced you around for about two days, then she dropped you to the floor like you was an old rag, and it all ended. After that she rested comfortably, though she kept murmuring something about rats and the god-queen Erithnae. She slept for more than a day and a night, and when she awoke she was her old self again, though you were in pretty bad shape.”

  Morgin shrugged, touched his ribs. “I’m sore, but I don’t feel that bad.”

  “Physically,” Sacress said, “the worst damage is three broken ribs and a badly sprained ankle. What almost killed you was the injury to your soul.”

  Morgin heard bells tolling throughout the city, hundreds of bells. “What’s that?”

  Cort smiled. “Well now four days ago when Aiergain first regained consciousness they rang all of the bells in the city to celebrate, and since then the whole city has been worried about you, the man who saved the life of their beloved queen. The bells are ringing again to let everyone know you too are well.”