by Court Ellyn
Beyond the collapsing corpse, No’ak struggled against an ogre who wielded a serrated sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The dwarf spun out of reach, parried a swing of the sword, then a jab of the dagger. The hilt of that dagger sparkled with jewels. Diamonds. And the shape of the blade … Guardian! The dagger Laral had won as a squire. The dagger he had given to Andy.
Laral lunged into the ogre, knocking him to the ground. “Where is my son!” he roared. The ogre crab-crawled across the road as Laral unleashed a flurry of thrusts and swings, but the ogre kept his guard up long enough to scramble to his feet.
The broad, scarred muzzle grimaced. Confusion, perhaps. Did the ogre have brain enough to understand? Did he speak Laral’s language at all? The ogre lugged through a ponderous, massive attack. Laral shunted the serrated sword aside, tried to bash the dagger from the ogre’s paw. “Drop it, damn you!”
The grimace of confusion vanished. The ogre brayed laughter. “Runt is dis TallMan spawn?”
Runt? He called Andy a runt? “Where is he?”
The ogre only grinned and scissored the blades in an attempt to nick Laral’s head. Laral dropped to a knee, sought an opening, but the serrated sword came crashing down. If the sword struck like a hammer, Laral was the flatiron. Tingling numbness prickled down his arm. His sword spun from his grasp. A knight must never drop his sword. He dived into the dust for it. The ogre’s knee hammered against his ribs. Laral curled up to cushion the blow and held on to the ogre’s leg. Together, they tumbled down the mountainside.
With fingers and feet, Laral tried to claw himself to a stop. Stones and earth rained down across his face. A stunning white pain exploded in his skull, and a swimming blackness tried to close over his eyes. When the world stopped spinning, he found himself sprawled sideways on the slope, fingers clenching a boulder, a heel dug into the scree. Blood dripped into his eye, and the ogre was scrambling up the slope toward him. The serrated sword was gone, but he still held the dagger. Laral dug his toes into the soil and scurried upward, looking for a sword, a spear, anything that had fallen from the melee above. He had to settle for a stone. Just a few more feet of climbing and he’d reach level ground, solid ground, where his friends could help him.
A fierce grip caught him round the ankle. The ogre hauled him to a stop and flung him like a ragdoll onto his back. Laral swung a stone-filled fist, cracked it across cheek and tusk and muzzle, then the ogre knocked his arm aside. Goddess’ mercy, the sheer strength of the monster. With his free hand, Laral grabbed a tusk and twisted. “Where is my family!”
The ogre’s gloating red eyes filled the sky. Softly he said, “Lohg let dem go. But you, TallMan, you will not find dem.” He raised Guardian high. Laral flung out an arm to intercept the blade, but the ogre was as strong as a bull. Scorching agony lanced through his chest.
Somewhere overhead a woman shrieked. Wren. No, Kalla, it must be Kalla.
Lohg tore the dagger free and raised it again.
Thunder ripped across the sky and tossed the ogre back. A storm sparked in his long, ragged hair, between his tusks, about his fingertips, along Guardian’s wet blade. Then he was gone and Laral lay staring up at the limitless sky. It hurt to breathe. He pressed a hand to the pain, to staunch the blood flow.
“My lord!” cried Andy. No … that couldn’t be right. Andy wasn’t here. Was he? Stones clattered down around him. “My lord, can you hear me? Are you—? Oh, Goddess.” Hands pushed his aside and smashed down on the pain.
Laral cried out.
“Don’t move,” Tarsyn said. What was he doing here? “Kalla! Get Drys. Get somebody!” Tarsyn leaned close, those gray-green eyes bright with fear. Why was the boy afraid? Was Laral’s wound that bad? A swarm of black gnats swam around Tarsyn’s face, spread and thickened.
“Get me up,” Laral said. If he could just get to his feet…
“No, lie still.” Tarsyn attempted a smile. “I insist.”
His face receded down a long black tunnel, and Laral understood. Had Leshan seen his little brother down this same tunnel in the moments before he died? I’m never going to hold them again. Laral wanted to sob. Maybe he did. “Find them for me.” Was his voice loud enough to be heard? It seemed to whistle out of him.
“No, m’ lord. Don’t give up. They’re in the mine. They must be. Any moment they’ll come running out to you. Don’t give up. Don’t …”
The darkness closed around Tarsyn’s face. He sounded like Andy, pleading. So much like Andy.
~~~~
44
A frantic knock woke Kelyn from fitful sleep. Even in his dreams he planned, counted, and strategized; shadow-enemies laughed, and his plans unraveled in his fingers. Sleep was so thin that when the knocking woke him he felt that he had merely dozed off, though dawn paled beyond his window.
Rhoslyn stirred too. “Trouble?” she muttered, voice thick with sleep.
“Soon find out.” Kelyn dressed, sleep weighting his limbs, and admitted the messenger to the sitting room.
Eliad spilled across the threshold and thrust a tightly bound scroll at him. “An elf shot this over the wall, said it was for you.”
Kelyn untied a delicate silk string and opened the message. It took a moment for the gray haze to clear from his brain before he realized he couldn’t read a word. “What the hell is this?” The letters curled and slashed with alien beauty. Elaran. Had to be. “Go wake my brother.”
Thorn arrived in a grumpy bluster, still wrestling his arms into his blue robe. He squinted away from the lamplight. Kelyn would wager he owned an ogre-sized headache from imbibing too much wine the night before. He snatched the curling parchment, spread it, and held it at arm’s length. “It’s from Lothiar, all right. Bloody snob, writing in High Elaran. Only official documents are written in it.”
“What’s it say, damn it?”
Thorn’s lips moved as he read silently. His eyebrows jumped, and the hangover cleared from his eyes. “He wants to meet.”
“Finally,” Eliad said. “I’d love to get a look at that f—”
Thorn cut him off. “Well, not him. Not in person. He’s sending a messenger, it says, to discuss terms for peace.”
“What, why?” Kelyn asked. “He doesn’t have us backed into that dire a corner.”
“Maybe it’s the other way around,” Thorn said. “Maybe he learned about the Miraji and panicked.”
“Surely we can’t take this invitation seriously,” said Rhoslyn. She sat primly on the edge of a divan in a bed robe she had borrowed from Ruthan.
“Her Grace is right,” Eliad said. “It makes no sense.”
“Lothiar must believe we’re idiots,” Thorn added. “Why would we trust him? Besides that, the terms he’d offer can’t possibly be amenable to us. We’ll never agree to slavery—or to being butchered.”
“No, of course not,” Kelyn said. “But what if it’s in our power to stop this madness, and we don’t even try? When is the meeting? Where?”
“Kelyn, you can’t entertain this idea. We’ve been here before. King Shadryk? A big tent at the Crossroads? King Rhorek vomiting up poison?”
“That was Drona’s doing,” Kelyn excused.
“I know what intentions were in Shadryk’s head.”
“This is about Lothiar!”
“Who’s just as treacherous.”
“Where, damn it?” Kelyn bellowed.
Thorn caved and scanned the letter again. “The village of Bexby Field. Three days from now. We’re invited to bring whomever we want, as many as we want. Though Lothiar specifies ‘men and women with authority to broker a deal’.”
“Hnh, I’ll bet,” Eliad muttered. “Shadryk, Valryk, Lothiar, what’s the difference?”
Kelyn went to the window, watched Tírandon’s courtyard brighten with the new day. A sentry walked the wall, dousing lamps and torches.
“Brother, I know we all long for peace,” Thorn said, “but please don’t rush into this blindly.”
“Have I ever rushed b
lindly into anything?”
Thorn’s eyebrow peaked.
“Recently?”
Thorn turned away in stubborn silence.
Kelyn knew they were right. He clenched his fists at his sides. “Fine.”
That one word severed the tension in the room. Eliad and Rhoslyn both let out a breath. Thorn came to the window. “We can send one of the Miraji with a note of refusal.”
“No,” Kelyn said. “We won’t acknowledge the offer at all. If Lothiar is serious, he’ll send another. If he’s not…” Kelyn shrugged. “I expect we’ll see his ogres in a few days.”
The days stretched out, tedious and slow and quiet. The appointed time for the meeting came and went. Kelyn suspected that Lothiar’s messenger paced beside a window, fretting for hours, before giving up and shakily reporting the news. Whoever he was, Kelyn didn’t envy him the task. He doubted Lothiar was kind to messengers who delivered bad news.
After that, he felt that he spent most of his time listening for horns. Would the horn announce a visitor or an army on the rampage? But the sentries’ horns remained silent. Miraji scouts reported that the ogres they had routed from Tírandon now dug in along the highway to Bramoran. The trenches they built were extensive. If Kelyn wished to march on Lothiar’s headquarters, he would have a hell of a time reaching Bramoran now. But, at least the ogres appeared to have no intention of breaking camp and marching on Tírandon.
One week stretched into two. The cavalries, the dwarves, the Regulars fled the stifling space of the bailey and reestablished their camps outside the wall. The infirmary nearly emptied. Only the most severe cases lingered. The rest returned to active duty. Haldred limped about, and Maeret gingerly took up her shield again. With fewer patients to care for, Carah spent more time under her uncle’s tutelage. Kelyn’s heart swelled with pride when he glimpsed her across the keep’s private garden with a wheel of lavender fire spinning about her hands. Baby steps, tentative, unsure. Yet, once, while Kelyn was in conference with Commander Sha’hadýn, the floor shook under his feet and the spyglass toppled off the desk. That evening, Carah sheepishly apologized to everyone at supper for making the earth shake. Kelyn merely laughed and shook his head.
Deep inside, however, he was increasingly anxious. What was Lothiar’s game? In the meantime, Kelyn played his own. He sent out teams of Miraji, Regulars, and dwarves to ambush Lothiar’s foraging parties. Tírandon’s granaries grew fuller by the day.
The human soldiers, however, grew restless. Discipline slackened. They gambled and drilled, raced horses and spent too much time at the taverns and brothels in South Town. Kelyn ordered the establishments closed. Liquor rations were dealt out by a firm hand. When it came to lax behavior, Captain Reynal proved useful. He didn’t mind doling out punishments. Even Haldred spent a night in the clink for drunken brawling. Kelyn didn’t spare the young knight the humiliation.
And so he was relieved when at last the horn sounded. In the cool hours of the morning, his commanders had gathered with him atop the wall. While he surveyed the horizon through the spyglass, they tossed ideas like dice.
“Trenches wouldn’t trouble the Miraji much,” Eliad said. “And the ogres wouldn’t see their advance in time.”
“Believe it or not,” said Drona, “I agree with you. There’s no reason we shouldn’t try.”
“Aye,” Eliad added, “the Miraji hide us all, they charge in and we follow. Kelyn, we could decimate those bastards.”
From the eastern gate, the blast from the Elaran horn pierced the silent sky. Kelyn swung the spyglass. Upon the highway, a lone figure approached with a lithe loping gait. When he reached the east gate, the Elari slung a bow off his shoulder and nocked an arrow bound with a scroll. He launched it high over the commanders’ heads. Without a word, he turned and disappeared from human eyes.
Upon the scroll was exactly one line of text. Did it declare an end of the truce or not? Kelyn sent for his brother.
The commanders sequestered themselves behind the door of Lander’s suite. Falconeye arrived with Thorn. The latter was haggard, pale, and despite the early summer heat, he wore gloves. Kelyn almost asked him why, but he had more important matters to consider than his twin’s unseasonable attire. Perhaps it was time to confiscate Thorn’s liquor supply as well. He was killing himself.
Kelyn offered him the scroll, but Thorn waved it away. Laniel took it instead. “It says, ‘I urge you to reconsider. Tomorrow, perhaps? Same terms.’ That’s all.”
“I still don’t like it,” Eliad said. He poured himself a goblet from Lander’s liquor cabinet.
Kelyn took the glass from him. “You’re on rations too.”
Eliad grimaced and slumped down into an armchair.
Setting aside the goblet, Kelyn said, “Neither do I, but we’ll give Lothiar his chance.”
“Careful, Sheannach.” Laniel handed the scroll back. “The Exiled is well over a thousand years old. He knows how to bide his time.”
“Aye, and we don’t.” Thorn winced. The act of speaking seemed to pain him.
“Let’s get it over with,” Drona said, grinding a fist into her palm. “The sooner we hear his terms, the sooner we can refuse and get on with the fighting. I’m itching to take those trenches.”
Kelyn waved them to silence. “All right, all right. Laniel, choose scouts. Thorn, send Saffron. We’ll scour Bexby Field. We won’t decide until we learn more.”
Thorn released a burdened sigh. “If Lothiar is lying, I’ll burn the whole place to the ground.”
“I expect nothing different.”
Bexby Field lay six miles southeast of Tírandon, a short jog for the dranithion. Laniel’s scouts were back before supper. Kelyn locked the door of Lander’s parlor and kicked out his young squire. The information the scouts carried was too sensitive for just anyone to hear, and Kelyn didn’t trust Bryden to keep his mouth shut. In gratitude, he poured the scouts goblets of ice-cold water, flavored with a splash of lemon wine.
Sitting in a corner, Thorn nursed his headache. Shadows around his eyes stood out starkly on his ashen face, and he chafed his gloved hands roughly. Maybe he wasn’t suffering from hangovers after all. Maybe he really was ill.
When the scouts were refreshed, Dannevir set aside his goblet. “We searched the whole town and the squalid excuse for a tavern, as you suggested, Sheannach.”
“There were no troops, no delegation,” Danellys added. “Just one man alone.”
But for Dannevir’s deeper voice and Danellys’s narrower shoulders, Kelyn had trouble telling the golden-haired twins apart.
“One man? A human?” Kelyn had expected a committee of Elarion and ogre bodyguards. “Describe him.” If Lothiar was stupid enough to send Valryk, he’d receive a reply in a blood-soaked potato sack.
“He clearly didn’t belong,” Danellys said. “Pacing and sweating like that.”
“He wasn’t a farmer,” her brother added, “not like the rest of the people in the tavern. He had the look of a soldier, and he limped.”
Limped! “Did he have ginger hair?” Kelyn asked.
“What do you call ‘ginger’? It was reddish-gold.”
“Yes! Tullyk. It has to be.” The news rocked Kelyn back in his chair. “I was sure all the city watch had been executed. Bryden will be happy to learn his cousin is alive. I can’t believe it.”
Even Thorn perked up at the news. “Clever, too. Lothiar sending a prisoner to speak for him. We’d be less likely to trust one of his lieutenants.”
“We waited till the man went to the loo,” Dannevir said.
His sister rolled her eyes. “The sot was half-drunk by then.”
Dannevir chuckled. “I locked him inside and demanded to know what trick Lothiar was up to. I bet I threw off his aim.”
Danellys wrinkled her nose and smote her brother in the arm.
“What did he say?” Kelyn prodded.
Dannevir sobered, cleared his throat, and quoted, ‘Ah, Goddess, don’t kill me. If I don’t bring back
Kelyn’s answer, he will kill all my men’.”
Kelyn’s heart leapt.
Thorn still wasn’t satisfied. “Saffron, did you find ogres in the area?”
Light gathered in the middle of the room. “Yes, of course,” said the fairy. “Several hundred coming and going in the lanes. Foragers of meat and grain, they were.”
“Any that appeared to be amassing outside Bexby?” Kelyn asked.
Saffron’s lavender eyes were luminous. “No, not one.”
Kelyn splayed his hands atop the desk and let out a deep breath. “Very well. I have several questions for Tullyk, myself. We’ll leave for Bexby Field in the morning.”
“Do be cautious,” Thorn said.
“Hnh, I’m not going alone. Playing fair got us into trouble before. I’d take the entire army, if it didn’t make me seem bent on battle. I’ll take you, Rhian, Drona, Eliad, a representative for Rhoslyn, another for Queen Briéllyn, Dagni, a dozen Regs, a dozen dwarves. We’ll be all right.”
“Promise?”
Kelyn grinned. “I won’t go that far.”
~~~~
Rhoslyn gazed past herself in the mirror as Lura twisted up her hair and pinned it in place. How could Kelyn be so stupid? Why not send the terms in a letter? What was wrong with discussing peace through correspondence until rapport had been established? Why couldn’t the messenger meet with him here at Tírandon?
“You’re worried for His Lordship?” Lura asked.
Rhoslyn nodded. “I fear it’s going to happen all over again. Bramoran. But he doesn’t want my opinion.” Kelyn had held up a hand, silencing her argument before she could voice it. Infuriating.
“I’m sure His Lordship is taking every precaution.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Rhoslyn inhaled, let it out slowly, and nodded in approval at Lura’s handiwork. “Seems silly, dressing for supper.” If it could be called “dressing.” She had only the one dress, salvaged from ruin, and it a woolen day dress best worn in winter. The seams were still damp from the wash. “You’ll do Carah’s hair too, won’t you? She came to table last night smelling like the infirmary, with something suspect caught in her braid. It cost me my appetite.” Rhoslyn chuckled. “She’s going wild, I swear.”