by Ellyn, Court
They weren’t the only ones waiting in the corridor and connecting parlors. Nor were they the most peculiar. Half a dozen dwarves in full armor had one whole parlor to themselves. Their gruff whispers drifted into the corridor as Athna passed, trying to decide where to deposit the prince. Rehaan followed closely, admiring the painted ceilings, silver sconces, and mosaic floor. “Bano’en has plenty of wealth to spare,” he whispered. “Let me ransom the kid.”
“Give it up, will you?”
A boisterous voice shattered the solemn stillness in the corridor. “Athna?”
Turning, she saw a sun-darkened, rough-bearded barbarian of a man approaching her with arms open. “Father?” Laughing in delight, she jumped into his embrace. He still smelled of horses and road dust and sweat. “What are you doing here? Must be urgent.”
“What are you doing here, girl? Not home to beat me at chess, I assume. I’ve come at the behest of your cousin. Kelyn’s War Commander now.”
“Goddess’ mercy, is that wise?”
A herald’s voice echoed along the corridors, “Lord Wyramor and Captain, Lady Athna.”
The dwarves clomped from the parlor and would not be told by that herald that they had to wait in the outside. Rehaan grabbed Prince Nathryk by the scruff and hustled him through the door.
Bano’en greeted his nephew and great-niece in a less formal setting. He’d had a small repast delivered to his council table and sat at the head of it, dipping fried squid into spicy horseradish sauce. “Help yourselves to the fruit and wine,” he invited. “But do not bore me with flattery or small talk. Allaran?”
Clearing his throat at the suddenness of the invitation, Allaran spilled Kelyn’s plan into the king’s ear as if it were a bowl of candies dumped across the table. Bano’en sat back in his oversized chair and regarded the six dwarves as though they were dogs who’d learned to dance. “Remarkable. Some silver-tongue must be Lord Ilswythe to convince dwarves to step aboard a ship.”
“No, sire,” said the dwarves’ spokesman. His intricately plaited beard was the color of coal. “No silver tongue, but he’ll keep his word to us. That’s good enough.”
“Brugge, is it? What has he promised you?”
“Only what belongs to us. Shadryk’s a thief, sure as the rock crumbles.”
“And what did he steal?” Bano’en lifted a glass of rose wine to the light, a casual gesture that Athna interpreted as calm calculation.
“That which is ours.”
Bano’en’s small eyes pinned the dwarf. “Must be valuable. Rest assured, Master Thyrvael, we don’t want to take anything from you. If this … item … is so vastly worth getting you aboard a ship, we will learn of it in time.” He waved a hand in an affirmative gesture. “Very well.”
“You’ll give us the means to summon the duchess’s ships?” asked Allaran, elated.
“I will carry word for you, Father,” said Athna.
“No, nephew,” Bano’en cut in. “Our harbor is taxed enough. We’re still rebuilding. We don’t need Evaronnan warships crowding in and out. I’ll agree, but you must use Leanian ships. Athna, what are your orders?
Excitement leaping in her belly, she replied, “Nothing more specific than to find Admiral Warris and receive orders from him, Your Majesty.”
“Good. You’ve just been reassigned. You will help transport Master Brugge and his troops south. Report to Commodore, Lord Lo’el and learn which ships are scheduled to return for supplies. How many ships did you say, Allaran?”
“Three or four. I have two hundred dwarves to move.”
“Athna, you will command this fleet of transport and see it done.”
“I…?” The honor was too great, the responsibility too grave.
Inclining his head on a thick, rubbery-looking neck, Bano’en regarded her with haughty confusion. “This task is why you sought an audience, is it not?”
“No, sire. My father and I came for very different reasons.”
“Ah. Well, get on with it.”
Athna beckoned toward the door, where Rehaan had hung back with the boy, likely twisting his ear to ensure good behavior.
Seeing the gag, Bano’en splayed his hands to each side of his plate, taken aback. “Is this treatment necessary? Who is this child? Free him.”
“Sire, that’s not advisable.”
Bano’en’s small eyes narrowed by a hair. Rehaan unknotted the rope about the slender wrists, and Nathryk tore the gag from his own mouth. The corners of his lips looked raw and bruised. He spat thick drool on the marble tiles. “I am eldest son of the Great Falcon, heir to the alabaster throne, and I demand that the heads of these worms roll for the abuse they’ve heaped upon my royal person!”
Athna edged forward. “Prince Nathryk stowed away on a Fieran galleon, sire. The Goddess smiled upon us, and we captured the vessel, discovering His Highness by sheer chance.”
Scrutinizing the boy’s stormy glare, his poor sailor’s dress, and his ill-mannered stance, Bano’en asked, “Are you certain he is who he claims to be?”
“How dare you doubt my word! Father called you a stuck-up pig face, and he was right. Are you going to avenge my honor or not?”
Bano’en heaved his great bulk from the chair. His rich burgundy robes lent him the appearance of a pickled beat or cut of liver, but the expression on his face was anything but humorous. “I’m not sure what your father permits in his house, but no one walks into my court and demands anything of me, prince or no. Understand?”
Nathryk looked to the ceiling, the floor, the food, the throne, anywhere but at the king in an obvious display of how little he regarded the man.
“As for avenging you, Highness, you’ve confused honor with pride. You’ve thrown yourself to the wolves and now you complain about the bites.” Gesturing at Rehaan, he added, “You may reapply the binding.”
“No!” Nathryk cried and bolted. The two Hellbenders hurried from the door and stopped him.
“I apologize for our prisoner’s rudeness, sire,” said Athna while Nathryk’s curses were silenced.
“I do not blame you for Shadryk’s failures, niece.” Bano’en sank back into the chair and tapped the table thoughtfully. “No greater bargaining chip could’ve fallen into our hands. Shadryk may give us anything we want in exchange for his heir. Leania might enjoy peace by midsummer.” Wistfulness smoothed the weary lines from his face. He gulped the wine, the only sign in his languid gestures that betrayed his excitement. “But how to go about it? Letters won’t suffice. Shadryk will want to see his son with his own eyes or he can claim we’re lying. Fierans hold Gethmar, or I would present the boy on the great bridge.”
“Sire, if I may,” said Allaran. “Given Lord Ilswythe’s current campaign and the inroads he’s made toward Brynduvh, we might deliver the prisoner to King Rhorek for presentation. I would gladly escort the prince myself.”
Athna wanted to warn her father that he wouldn’t be glad by the end of such a journey, but the king was speaking.
“Send the boy deep into Fiera? One mishap there and the boy’s people might reclaim him. Besides, instead of trade him, Leania could keep him as a ward, to ensure his father’s armies never again set foot on our lands.” Bano’en heaved a sigh great enough to rustle the gladiolas in the centerpiece, then popped a prawn into his mouth as though it were a pill for the pain induced by compromise. “Is it proper to inflict such a foul little person on one’s allies? Peace over pride, then. Very well, but if Rhorek wastes this chance for peace, it’s on his head. And yours.”
~~~~
Rehaan hung his head over a pint of ale. “Ach, think of all the silver I just lost.” Hellbenders and naval officers made up most of the crowd at the Golden Anchor. Few women and fewer pirates had opportunity to frequent the high-class tavern with its spotless, linen-covered tables and polished bar. The officers of the Pirate’s Bane Two came and went, celebrating their shore leave and spreading the tale of their prize with boisterous toasts.
Neither Athna nor Reha
an, with his red coat and long hair, blended into the crowd; to avoid glances and questions, they occupied a table in the rear. Still, officers who knew Athna made a point to wind a path to their table and congratulate her on her prize. Trying to set the story straight, she told them, “Captain Rehaan took the ship. I just agreed to tow it.”
“Don’t bother,” Rehaan groused. “I’d have burnt the bloody thing if you hadn’t insisted. It’s the ransom I’m keening about.”
“Yes, but think of the respect you’ve won.”
“Respect? Ha! King Pig-Eye never once acknowledged my presence.”
“Not Bano’en’s respect, fool. Mine.”
“Ach, it’s pleased I’ll be when my dealings with you are done. Sure you’re causing me one misfortune after another.”
“Pouty pirates must be the worst,” Athna chided.
“Maybe I can make up some of the difference if I find this cove at Éndaran.” He drained the pint in one breath.
“Why, I thought you’d help us transport the dwarves. We could stow a few aboard the Aurion.”
“No.” Rehaan slapped down the mug as if that made the decision final.
“You mean, you have no intention of keeping me company until the other ships arrive?”
“Aw,” he drawled, reproachful, “unfair play, that. You’re a cruel one, tempting a man with your ‘company,’ as you put it. And that don’t make up for the coin I’ve lost.”
“It might.”
He shoved the empty mug aside and leaned forward on his arms. “You save me from the gallows and you think you can have your way in everything?”
“Oh, no, Captain, I wouldn’t presume.”
“Good, because if I stay, it’s because I want to stay.”
“Of course.”
He leaned back and drummed his fingers, looking disgruntled. “You’re trying to take advantage of me.”
“No mistake.” She laid coppers on the table to pay for the ale, shoved back her chair, and left Rehaan to mull it over. At the door, she glanced back at the corner table in time to see him push his chair in and follow at an overly casual pace. He had a hard time suppressing a grin, and Athna decided she had never been in graver danger.
~~~~
69
The archers came out of nowhere, appearing suddenly around the burnt bulk of a bakery. Kelyn raised his shield and spurred Chaya toward the barricades that hemmed in Ulmarr’s town square. The warhorse reared and bugled in pain. His hind legs bucked. Kelyn freed his feet from the stirrups in time to meet the cobblestones. Chaya flailed, unable to rise, then lay still, grunting and whickering with a pair of arrows in his flank, one in his shoulder.
“Commander, get out of there!” called foot soldiers from behind the mantlets, the shores of carts and furniture. Kelyn wanted to oblige them, but arrows darkened the sky again. The shield was too small to protect the warhorse and himself, too. Chaya screamed and kicked, and Kelyn swore at the sound of it. He had meant to spend the morning visiting each position his men held, bolstering their mood, but the Fieran resistance had different plans. When the arrows let up, he peeked around the shield, marked the archers’ position at the end of the street, then motioned to his squads of infantry. Two fingers. Sweep around both sides of the building. Go! Kelyn unsheathed the falcon blade and led one squad around the west side. A couple of archers saw them sneaking up the alley and shouted a warning. Dropping their bows, two dozen Fierans met Kelyn’s squad at the end of the alley with short swords swinging. The falcon blade bit deep, bit fast, but the archers pressed his squad back into the alley. A manic shout rose from around the bakery, and the second squad surprised the archers from the rear. A few fled, and the rest shortly followed.
Watching them fall back to their own camp, half a mile away, Kelyn ordered, “Set up barricades at the ends of these alleys. They won’t surprise us again.”
“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant who led the second squad. He started off, but paused and turned back. “M’ lord? They just keep coming. My men keep dying. I didn’t think …” Hesitant, he fidgeted with his beard.
“Go on.”
“I didn’t think we were to linger in Ulmarr this long. We’ve been defending this position for four weeks, sir. What happened to the plan to push forward?”
“Nothing happened,” Kelyn said, though it wasn’t much of an answer, and the men weren’t stupid. He clapped the sergeant on the shoulder. “All in good time.”
He made his way back to Chaya. Black rivulets of blood stained his spotted gray hide, but the great beast kept grunting and breathing. “Tough old man,” Kelyn murmured, stroking the sweaty neck. “Irreplaceable.” In truth, he was surprised the horse had lived so long, given the frenzied engagements he’d galloped into. Kelyn knew better than to feel attachment to the animal, but he’d come to think of Chaya as charmed. That charm had worn out at last. Poising the falcon blade over Chaya’s temple, Kelyn fell upon it with all his weight. The horse shuddered mightily, then fell still.
Kelyn was in a black mood as he started back to the ruins. Four weeks of occupation and Ulmarr Town was a mess. Soldiers everywhere, squires, camp followers in dress too bare for the early morning chill. Piles of broken and discarded things filled alleys and littered street corners. There wasn’t much in the shops left to loot. Inn yards had been turned into corrals for livestock. Crowded and unhappy, the sheep, cows, and horses raised a constant noise. Squires shoveled shit into piles to dry; it made good fuel for burning pits for the dead. Everyday, smoke that reeked of burning meat wafted through town, and mourning comrades filled small pouches with ashes, anyone’s ashes, to be sent home at the first opportunity. Others sorted through piles of blue surcoats, chain mail, and boots that needed new owners; saddles, swords, bows, helmets were all up for grabs.
Passing the hospital tent, Kelyn found Thorn kneeling beside one wounded man and the next, inspecting bandages, feeling gashes and brows for signs of fever. “Where are they?” Kelyn demanded.
Thorn glanced up, startled. Blood smeared his cheek. “Who?”
“The ships.”
“I told you yesterday.” He stood, cleaning between his fingers with a stained towel tucked into his belt. His white linen shirt would never be the same. “They’ve rounded Tempest Rock and are well into Galdan Bay. Maybe three more days if all goes well.”
Shit. And no sign of the Fierans letting up here. “I want to speak to this fairy of yours myself.”
Thorn’s eyes slid to the right, then he said, “She’ll meet you in your pavilion as long as no one else is there.”
Kelyn about-faced and hurried up the hill to the ruins. Several voices called for him, but he put them off with a raised hand. Inside the chill dark of his pavilion, a golden light flared. A small face, hair like a beam of sunlight, twig-slender limbs, and eyes that had witnessed the beginning of time. Awestruck, Kelyn muttered, “I saw you once before, in a dream. A golden light was coming for me.”
“No dream,” the fairy said. “I led you to Windhaven. Seems I’m your guardian, too, at times.”
“You should’ve led me to Ilswythe, or left me to die in the fields.”
Lips as tiny as chrysanthemum petals smiled sadly. “It isn’t self-pity your brother wants from you.”
“I’m not here to discuss my brother,” Kelyn bit. “Tell me about the ships. Please.”
“Thorn tells you the truth. You don’t have much time.”
“Damn it.” He paced erratically. “Why doesn’t he help us out there? If it’s true that he made the ground open up and swallow a hundred Fierans, he could …”
“I think he holds to the same reasons he refused his father. But there’s more, now. This is a war between humans, not avedrin. He fears to interfere too much, prefers to let history take its own course.”
Kelyn looked the fairy in the eye and said, “What a mystical load of shit. He works wonders to protect Ilswythe when Fierans march on her gates, but here he does nothing. If we’re all slaughtered and Shadryk w
ins, Ilswythe falls. Tell him that.”
The fairy wore an enigmatic smile, almost as if she lauded his harsh words. “I shall.” She blinked out.
Kelyn had no time to regroup before he heard beyond the flaps, “Commander?” Morach of Longmead poked in his shaggy head and peered about, but seemed surprised to find Kelyn alone. “Thought you were in conference. We, er, wish a word?”
He waved Morach in. Davhin and Genna followed. They failed to look him in the eye, not a promising sign. “Our position, you must know, isn’t good,” Lord Longmead began. “It’s all our men can do to hold the line. For the number of Fierans that Brengarra keeps sending against us, we’re stretched too thin. In my estimate.”
Kelyn couldn’t argue. To prevent the Fierans from circling around behind Ulmarr and taking the Aralorris from the rear, Kelyn had ordered defenses set up in a horseshoe formation that stretched around the town, fifty yards past the last of the buildings. Catapults and Ulmarr’s own trebuchets supported the defenses, but nearly every day Fierans slipped through and managed to pelt the lines with arrows or blades. And how many times had Zhianese approached with their Dragons, sending Kelyn’s lines running back to Ulmarr Town? Once, in the dark of the moons, the shavers had crept as far as the southern redoubt, poured Dragon bile into the trench, and tossed in a torch. Some of the bodies had never been properly identified.
Kelyn looked at Davhin. “And?”
“And morale is teetering. The troops were under the impression that we wouldn’t stop pushing until we reached Brynduvh. They’re saying, um …”
Genna spouted the rest, “That the boy commander’s genius has given out. That he’s going to get us all killed.”
Kelyn nodded slowly, accepting the accusation, letting it cut deep. From a trestle table, he took up a silver spyglass and escaped the close darkness of the pavilion. His commanders followed. “Your suggestions?” he asked, peering through the lens at the farthest trenches south and west.