by Court Ellyn
Leng chuckled. “I’m not that subtle, Your Grace. And the plan hasn’t worked yet.”
“You’ve chosen your team?”
“I have the men in mind.”
Kethlyn pushed himself out of the chair. Chilled sweat glued his underclothes to his skin. War was not as comfortable as he’d like. “They need to get started, tonight if possible, or the heirs might slip through our fingers.”
“I’ll see to it immediately, Your Grace.”
He left Leng to his task. About the time Kethlyn decided his soldiers had no further need of his supervision, sentries posted at the grand arch announced Cenaidh’s return. The castellan rode slowly across the bridge, keeping pace with his guest. The twig-thin woman hobbled alongside a cane made of twisted driftwood. Her hair was as faded and frayed as the shawl slipping off over her head. The reek of day-old shellfish wafted ahead of her. Kethlyn decided to speak with her outside rather than bottle her up inside the cramped office of the guardhouse.
Cenaidh dismounted to present his find.
“Captain,” Kethlyn said, grimacing at the old woman, “could you not find anyone more … distinguished than this?”
The woman tapped her driftwood cane on the planks of the bridge. “I’m educated enough to speak wi’ the likes of you. It won’t hurt you too bad, lordling.” Though the woman had barely a tooth left in her mouth and her skin was as creased as an old leather glove, there was a blade-like quality to her eyes. It might be hard times rather than age that made her look so feeble.
“She says her name is Angelyn,” Cenaidh said.
“Are you a beggar?” Kethlyn wanted the truth in exchange for the silver he offered, not lies to fill an empty belly or satisfy a need for ale.
“I were a whore once.” Her sneer challenged him to doubt her. “A fine house I served. I know this bridge all too well. Now I dig clams on the strand. Gather kelp sometimes, when the Goddess is good. Few enough folk left to buy ‘em though. I eat ‘em meself.”
“Everyone is gone?”
“Only if I’m nobody. There’s a handful left. We’ve ‘oled up in secret places. You won’t find us unless we poke our ‘eads out to breathe. Let me ask you, lordling, are you ‘ere to help? Or are you with them?”
“Them?”
The driftwood cane stabbed the planks. “Them what massacred everybody!”
“Did you recognize your attackers?” He shouldn’t question his commander’s word. Lothiar claimed Aralorr sacked the city, so it must be true. But something gnawed at Kethlyn’s certainty.
Angelyn waved away the question as if it were as pesky as a fly. “We caught barely a glimpse of ‘em, but they was out of nightmare, they was.”
“Nightmare, how?”
“Giant, ugly brutes. Green skin, big teeth. Made me wonder if the sea didn’t spit out a monster, give it legs to ransack us, but now I don’t think so. Now—”
Kethlyn groaned. He had no interest in superstitious ramblings. “Did you see a banner, a uniform, something?”
Angelyn smacked her gums, narrowed her eyes, studied him a moment. “You’re the duchess’s son, ain’t you? The Swiftblade’s son?”
Kethlyn replied with a terse nod.
Scorn sucked the humor from the crone’s chuckle. “Aye, I saw banners. ‘Ere and gone again, like ghosts on the wind. Appeared, disappeared, but it weren’t smoke or blindness ‘iding ‘em from me. ‘Twere magics outta the Abyss.”
Cenaidh had fished up a madwoman. Sooner or later, however, he’d decipher something useful from her riddles. “What did the banners look like?”
“They were rough, as if a child made ‘em. Painted with some design I couldn’t make out. A skull maybe, though it were so badly done I wondered why anyone would choose a butterfly for a sigil. But I’d bet my last tooth it were a skull.”
Cenaidh’s furry yellow eyebrows climbed high. He looked more concerned than smug about being right.
“You did not see an Aralorri banner?” Kethlyn pressed. “Cerulean, black falcon?”
“I know what Aralorr’s banner looks like. I’m not blind and never was. And the answer is no.”
Which house flew a misshapen skull? A change of the watch. New lords, new houses, new banners. There was no other explanation. But there were holes in Angelyn’s tale. The same holes that riddled Cenaidh’s. “Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to believe that an unseen horde massacred an entire city. Tell me the truth, woman.”
“Some escaped, aye,” Angelyn said, infuriatingly blasé. “There’s tunnels and windows and whatnot. I s’pect they ran for Graynor, bent on telling the crown.”
Kethlyn noted that it was the number of dead, and not her claim that the enemy was undetectable, that Angelyn amended.
“And ‘ere’s one to ‘elp you sleep good tonight,” she added. “When the monsters returned to the darkness that sprouted ‘em, they took the dead with ‘em. Left nary a body behind. Only red stains in the streets.”
What army wasted manpower dragging off enemy dead? The woman saw the skepticism in Kethlyn’s eyes.
“It were magics, I tell you! Evil magics. From the sea or the Abyss, it makes no matter, but mark me, lordling. There’s none of us safe. Not me wi’ me stick, nor you wi’ your shiny armor and lofty nose. Watch for shadows. The sun sees ‘em well enough, and they cannot hide from its light. The shadows they cast are long, indeed. Only shadows will show you whither they go.”
Kethlyn clenched his jaw in a fury, tugged the coin purse off his belt, and tossed a handful of silver at the woman’s feet.
“Coin won’t do me no good. Trade me a pair of goats.”
“Your words aren’t worth swine, woman.”
“I’ll take pigs, too.”
Kethlyn turned his back on her. “Cenaidh, get her out of my sight. She can take the coin or leave it.”
He dined alone that evening. He was sick of stumbling about in the unknown, sick of accusations leveled in his direction. I don’t have all the answers, all right? The windows of his suite, high in the keep, opened over the Great Fire Sea. The night wind was sharp with the scent of salt. He brooded on the balcony with a glass of Mosegi red to keep him company, and tried to make sense of this puzzle. But his reasoning went round and round in circles. When at last he slept, he dreamed of monsters rising from the sea. They moved like shadows and disappeared as he rode them down. An old woman laughed at him.
Two days passed before one of Leng’s scouts returned from Heatherton. He wore civilian clothes, a drab-colored doublet and riding leathers, but the short sword on his hip, the bow on his saddle, and the fine racer he rode hinted that he was more than a farmer. “We found them,” he reported.
Kethlyn received the news in the shade of the arch amid the bridge. The afternoon sun baked the planks; the heat boiled up through the soles of his boots. He kept his plate and mail on hand, having decided to buckle them on only if hostiles were sighted. But the Leanian hills remained desolate. Every man stationed on the bridge had grown excessively bored. Several had broken into the basements of the taverns. Fights broke out. Captain Leng wielded the lash with a shrug. “Bored men become stupid men, Your Grace.”
“Set them to requisitioning carts, wains, and crates, from Brimlad and Endhal both. We’ll need them for foraging.” That task had taken only half a day. So now, men tossed dice in the shade, drilled in the heat, argued with angry townsfolk who wanted their carts back, and complained that they should begin the foraging now. ‘Ransack Leania,’ they called it. But Kethlyn feared to flush the heirs from their hiding place.
He welcomed the scout’s news. Captain Leng joined him under the arch, looking just as eager.
“They’re holed up in the inn,” the scout said. “Townsfolk gave them the big room on the top floor.”
“You saw them?”
“Not me, Your Grace. Soon as we located them, Sergeant sent me back to report.”
“How did you find them?”
“Just like Captain said.”
> Leng stuck out his bearded chin, a silent boast.
“We told the townsfolk we wanted to fight Aralorris for what we done. Er, what they done, here at Endhal. Funny thing, though. The townsfolk tried to toss us out on our arses, soon as we mentioned the word ‘resistance.’ Said if we wanted to fight, report to the queen at Graynor. So Sergeant had to get crafty. He said there’s enough strong men right here in Heatherton to raise a defense, and who’s in charge? That’s when he was invited to the inn. Not us, just him.”
“And he was positive he’d identified the heirs?” Leng asked.
“Yessir.”
“Describe the town. Is it positioned well?”
“It’s on a hill, sir. Wooden palisades, though, not stone. Two men at the east gate, two at the west. Easy.”
Even if the town could be taken easily, it couldn’t be taken by surprise. Kethlyn shook his head. “I won’t risk losing them and disappointing King Valryk.”
Captain Leng sucked his teeth while he considered their options.
“How many men did you send into Heatherton?” Kethlyn asked.
“Six.”
“Are they skilled enough to bring the heirs to us?”
That sparked a light in Leng’s eyes. He told the scout, “Report back to Sergeant Hult. Your squad is to infiltrate the inn tonight and take the heirs into custody. Use any means to secure them. But the heirs are to be brought to His Grace unharmed. Understood?”
“Snatch the heirs. Kill anybody who gets in the way. Got it, Cap’n.”
Kethlyn added, “We will mobilize at dawn and meet you on the road between Endhal and Heatherton. You’d better have the heirs in hand.”
~~~~
The Windhaven regiment gathered in the gray of early morning, upon the wide river plain beneath Endhal’s wall. The heat had yet to rise and dispel a thick mist clinging to the reeds. The columns of red uniforms were as dark as blood in the gloom. They were separated into three divisions. The first was to accompany Kethlyn to Heatherton; another, under Leng, prepared to set out across the Leanian countryside with the empty wains; the last was to remain and defend the bridge under Lord Stormtyde.
From the back of his warhorse, Kethlyn addressed the troops assigned to forage. “Look well on the ruins of Endhal. The brutality that occurred here will not set the standard for us. We are Evaronnan, and we will act with honor. Today you will face cottars and herders, not soldiers. No civilian is to be killed, no woman raped, no barn burned. You are to gather food, not terrorize. Bring every consumable you can carry. The livestock, too. Valuables are of no use to us and will be left behind and looters flogged for thieves. Do nothing that would shame your families, your duke, or your king, and you will ride home with your heads high.” To Leng, he said quietly, “I suppose it’s too much to hope that the Leanians won’t put up a fight.”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“Then it’s up to you to make sure things do not escalate out of hand. Any man of mine who strikes first will be flogged. Keep a tight eye on them.”
The sun broke blazing pink over the curves of the Avidan as Kethlyn led his division southeast for Heatherton. The march of feet was a thunder that frightened birds from hedgerows. Kethlyn had dreamed of this since he was a boy, leading men onto foreign soil in service of his king. Excitement unfurled wings in his belly. The narrow road meandered through gentle pastureland. Sheep studded the hillsides; grass grew in the wool on their backs. Shepherds ran at the sight of the banners snapping in the breeze. The sun lay a fist’s width above the horizon when Kethlyn’s scout cantered back and reported, “Town’s just over this hill, about a mile away.”
“Any sign of Sergeant Hult or his men?”
“Not yet, Your Grace.”
Kethlyn raised a fist to stop the column and told his officers, “We’ll wait here.” He dismounted, grabbed a spyglass, and climbed the hill to inspect the layout himself. Trees shaded the village, and a spiked wooden palisade surrounded thatched rooftops. Apple orchards and barley fields stretched out between the hills. Serene, ideal. A perfect place to hide trouble.
By the time Kethlyn returned to the column, a couple of supply officers had set up an awning for him, complete with a folding leather camp chair and a trestle table set with a wine service. Nearby, a company cook plucked a pair of ducks netted on the river that morning. A fire for roasting crackled happily at his feet. Kethlyn helped himself to the wine, but before the ducks were ready, his scout appeared atop the hill and rode toward the awning at a gallop.
“A wagon, coming this way,” the scout reported. “One man drives it and two escort it. Three other riders just left the village, headed the other direction.”
“Go see if the men are ours,” Kethlyn said. “If they’re not, say nothing. We’ll requisition their wagon and whatever they’re hauling when they pop over the hill.” The scout trotted off again.
The company cook laid a roast duck on the trestle table. Kethlyn took one look at the carcass and his appetite capsized. He’d never killed anyone before. Yet his orders were to execute the heirs as soon as he found them. Someone else could wield the blade, he supposed, but he felt the duty was his alone. Until this moment, he’d not questioned his ability to perform the task. His left hand clenched the hilt of his sword. He’d sharpened it before leaving Windhaven. Maybe he should have sent it off last night for another lick at the wheel.
He called to the cook. “Set one of the ducks on that log over there.” Twenty feet from the road a tree lay on its side, a wreckage of gray bones. Kethlyn unsheathed his sword and laid the edge of the blade across the duck’s breast. A breath steadied his hands; a quick stroke, and the blade sliced effortlessly through the meat and lodged in the dry wood of the trunk.
Satisfied with his aim, he handed off the sword to be cleaned. It wouldn’t do to execute a nobleman with a sword dripping grease.
The scout came riding back. A wagon rumbled behind him, drawn by old, bony mules. The driver hauled back on the traces, leapt from the bench seat, and saluted. “Sergeant Hult, Your Grace.” He was a square man with a stubble of beard covering hound-like jowls. His civilian garments were as threadbare and mud-spattered as those of a swineherd.
“You’ve brought them?”
Hult grinned, rounded the wagon, and tossed aside a canvas tarpaulin.
It took Kethlyn a moment to understand what he was looking at. They lay on their sides, hands bound and heavy cloth stuffed into their mouths. Tears streaked the girl’s face. Her eyes pinched tight against the sudden assault of sunlight. Behind her, a boy pressed his forehead between her shoulder blades. Pimples spotted his cheeks; fear whitened them. “These are children! Where are their parents?”
“There weren’t nobody else,” Hult said, puzzled at his duke’s displeasure. “This is them. The only two survivors of the Endhal family to take refuge in Heatherton. Believe me, sir, I asked.”
Fury blazed in Kethlyn’s belly. “Drag them out of there. Set them under the awning.”
Hult ushered the children into the shade, a scrawny arm in each of his blunt hands. The toe of his boot behind their knees convinced them to kneel. For a long time, Kethlyn paced, unable to look at them. Their muffled whimpers were torture enough. There had to be some misunderstanding. Determined to sort it out, he swallowed his rage and turned to make a quick study of his prisoners. The boy trembled, his teeth and eyes clenched so tightly that his face might crack. The girl watched Kethlyn’s boots stomp past. She appeared to be the older of the two. “Hult, remove her gag.”
The sergeant bent close to her ear as his fingers worked. “No screaming, or I’ll beat your brother. Hear me?”
The girl retched as the wad of fabric was pulled from her mouth. She worked her jaw and licked cracked lips.
“Look at me, lady,” Kethlyn said. After a moment of working up her courage, she raised her face. She was plain but not ugly, with green eyes and a spray of freckles across her nose. Her dress was fine silk, cut for a dinner party, but it was rump
led from extended wear. A ring of silver rosettes adorned mousy blond hair. Unable to hold Kethlyn’s gaze, she took in the awning and the long column of soldiers drawn up beyond it. Her chin started trembling. “How old are you?” Kethlyn asked.
“Please, m’ lord,” she cried, “why are you attacking us?”
Hult’s knuckles knocked her in the head. “You will style him ‘Your Grace.’ It’s the Duke of Liraness you address, girl.”
Kethlyn thumped Hult in the head. “And you will style her ‘lady,’ Sergeant.”
That took the puff out of Hult’s chest. “Yes, Your Grace.”
Kethlyn addressed the girl, “Answer my question.”
“Your Grace, we don’t know anything! Please!”
“How old are you, damn it!”
She recoiled. “S-seventeen. My brother is fourteen. Please! We haven’t hurt anyone.”
“You’re raising an army. To fight Aralorr. To invade Evaronna.”
“What? I wouldn’t even know where to start!”
“Your brother here? He’s being trained in the arts of war surely.” With a nod, Kethlyn ordered the boy’s gag removed as well.
As soon as his mouth was free, he blurted, “Swordplay!” His voice cracked, on the deeper side of puberty. He still refused to open his eyes. “Squiring for my father. It’s Aunt Carys’s decision to raise her banners or not. Who would listen to me?”
“Where is your aunt?”
“She hasn’t come back.”
“From Bramoran?”
“Yes! We expected her weeks ago.”
“The town fathers then. They are raising an army in your name, using you to bolster support.”
“No, that’s not true!” the girl cried. “All the fighting men left for Graynor days ago, but my brother and I had nothing to do with it, I swear it on my life.”
“And you may pay with it yet.” Let that sink in. Kethlyn strode to the far side of the awning, squeezed the support pole in a strangling grip, and stared across the glaring light at the fallen tree and the decimated carcass of the duck lying in the grass. Don’t speak to them. Just kill them.