The Forgetting Moon

by Brian Lee Durfee

  “I don’t know who’s the bigger fool, Hawkwood or Jovan,” she said. “Jovan’s vanity shines through. Am I the only one who notices? The Silver Guard and Dayknights all fall in line for him.” She groaned, shoulders slumped, her posture like that of a whipped dog. “And then there’s you and Hawkwood. Your plans to weaken my brother only make him stronger.”

  “Our plan was not to weaken Jovan.” Roguemoore sat on the settee by her side. “True, your brother boasts of the prowess of the Dayknights and even the Silver Guard at times, yet he keeps them safe in Amadon. Few of them are battle tested. He can see no further than the petty rules and traditions that Denarius and the quorum have hammered into him. You are different from him, Jon, a freethinker. Jovan fears you. He always has. And since your father died, his paranoia, fueled by the grand vicar and Val-Korin, has become worse.”

  Jondralyn wasn’t really listening. “I know not my purpose anymore. I have no idea what just happened today.”

  “And I know not who may be hiding in these walls,” Roguemoore continued in a quieter tone. “Jovan somehow found out about our foray into Squireck’s cell. There could be an army of spies from every clan and kingdom crawling through Amadon Castle, including Jovan’s own spies. Even spies from Sør Sevier.”

  “You admitted that today’s duel was a mere setup to some grander scheme. But I cannot see it, Roguemoore. Now Hawkwood is in Purgatory. And whatever your ill-conceived plan was, it seems to have failed miserably.”

  Roguemoore leaned in, his voice firm. “The duel went exactly as planned.”

  The conviction in the dwarf’s voice unsettled her. But she’d long since run out of patience. She spoke clearly. “Your plan was to get Hawkwood tossed into the dungeons under the Hall of the Dayknights, the worst place in all the Five Isles, and then hung in the arena before thousands of witnesses? What kind of madness is that?”

  “He will not be put to death.” The words leaked from the dwarf’s lips, which barely moved. “The Bloodwood assassin may be hunting Hawkwood.” He looked right at her, his face more sunken and strained than she’d ever remembered it being.

  As she digested what the dwarf had just said, she felt a strange thrill, a surge of excitement and dread. Roguemoore put his hand on her knee. “For the time being, the deepest dungeons of Amadon may be the safest place for Hawkwood.”

  But despite what he said, Jondralyn saw the held-in emotion behind Roguemoore’s eyes. She felt a hollowness in her stomach and sensed the dwarf was not telling her everything. She studied the spines of the books on the shelf across the room. The Adventures of Silver Guard Curtis Fiore, The Mouse of Avlonia Castle, Things Hor Hey the Mule Taught Me. Books her mother, Alana, had read to her when she was a child. The gold-embossed spine of Fairy Tales of the Val Vallè Princess Arianna stood out to her. It had always been her favorite. They replaced Arianna’s likeness with mine on the Gul Kana copper coin.

  “I don’t know what to believe,” she mumbled.

  “Yet you wish to train for the arena. What madness has stricken you, Jon?”

  “Hawkwood has taught me much. But he’s been under guard. Now he’s imprisoned. Still, I must train. It is the right thing to do.”

  “You wish to supplant your brother as ruler of Gul Kana. You cannot beat Jovan in that way. I worry for you. I worry for all of Borden’s children.”

  Hidden behind his concern, Jondralyn thought she sensed something else in the dwarf’s voice, something unsaid, some urgency. Sometimes it’s best if you make them believe the trap is theirs. Those words haunted her now as she wondered if it was she who was being played for a fool. True, she’d asked Squireck how to train for the arena matches. But was that truly my idea? Racking her brain, she was unable to define precisely where she fit into the dwarf’s plans. She couldn’t shake the premonition that there were things about the Brethren of Mia that the dwarf was keeping from her.

  She had so many questions. Her mind went to Squireck first. She did not know how she felt seeing him shackled in the arena dungeons so. “You showed Squireck the gold coin Val-Draekin gave you. What does it mean? You mentioned that if King Torrence Raybourne dies, it would be a blow to the Brethren, and the White Prince may come into possession of one of those things the Brethren had wished kept secret. Squireck asked if Ser Roderic was still in Gallows Haven. And something about a boy. I didn’t inquire whilst we were in the dungeons because Tala was there, but what was that all about?”

  “A long list of questions, there—”

  A low, grinding noise filled the room. Jondralyn flew to her feet, dagger in hand.

  The bookshelf across the room slid aside, revealing Sterling Prentiss and Ser Culpa Barra—the latter fully armed, his armor spattered with blood.

  “It’s all right, Jon,” Roguemoore said. “Put your knife away.”

  But Jondralyn brushed past the dwarf and set the point of her blade against Sterling’s breastplate. “What is the meaning of this?”

  The Dayknight captain growled, “I’ll bend you over my knee if I have to.”

  “I am a princess of Amadon.” She stood tall and straight, eyes piercing into his.

  “A strutting she-wolf you are.”

  “You dare speak to me so—”

  “Stow your dagger, Jon,” Roguemoore urged. “They are the truest of friends. They are welcome here.”

  “Welcome in my bedchamber?”

  The dwarf leaned into her. “Sterling and Culpa have been working with the Brethren. Hawkwood and Sterling, along with Lord Kelvin Kronnin, have been secretly garrisoning Lord’s Point with legions of Dayknights and Silver Guards sympathetic to our cause. Lord Kronnin tripled the size of his own Ocean Guard. Some in Gul Kana are with us. We prepare to defend against the White Prince.”

  Jondralyn stole a glance at the armed Dayknight, Culpa Barra, beside Sterling Prentiss. His face and curled blond hair were familiar, though he was older now. He bowed to her. “M’lady.”

  “Jondralyn is right about one thing.” The dwarf’s voice was brazen as he addressed the Dayknight captain. “You risk your life, and the life of the knight beside you, coming to her chamber. If the two Silver Guards stationed in the corridor hear you, they may come in.”

  “I do not have to explain myself to any hallway guardsman,” Sterling said.

  The dwarf was not deterred. “You’d have to explain yourself to Jovan if they report that you’d entered Jondralyn’s room through the secret ways.”

  Jondralyn looked from Sterling to the bookshelf behind the two men, wondering if there were more people wandering through the castle’s secret passages at any given moment than used the common corridors.

  “My life is my own to risk,” Sterling said. “Remember, it was I who orchestrated that duel with Dayknights against my better judgment. Had I known your plan would cost four men their lives, I would never have agreed to it.”

  “We could not have foreseen that Jovan would have them killed,” Roguemoore said.

  “Indeed,” Sterling snapped, spittle flying from between brown teeth.

  He’s a rough old cob, Jondralyn thought. Not an ugly man exactly—yet repulsive nonetheless. His breath, for one thing, was already stinking up the room. And for another, his gut didn’t quite fit within the confines of his armor. Looking at his pockmarked face was like looking at a pitted piece of granite. Realizing that Sterling also had ties to the Brethren made her feel as lost and powerless as a hunk of driftwood left to the whim of the ocean waves. She thought back on the fracas at the arena a week ago; it was indeed Sterling Prentiss who had kept the argument going between Hawkwood and Jovan. Things were being revealed to her too fast, one on top of the other. She did not trust the Dayknight captain, despite the dwarf’s reassurance to the contrary, and despite his loyalty to her father years ago. Trust no one.

  And the cold-blooded look of Culpa Barra sent a shiver through her body.

  Sterling cast a dark eye on the dwarf. “This castle crawls with traitors. But I come bearing ill tid
ings. Hawkwood has escaped Purgatory.”

  Jondralyn’s eyes flew to Roguemoore. He remained stoic in the face of the news.

  “Jovan has declared him a fugitive,” Sterling continued, shaking his head as if purging his brain of a terrible nightmare. “This escape does not look good on a man of my position, charged with the law and order of a kingdom and the safekeeping of a king and a king’s court. I have been charged with hunting Hawkwood down and killing him. His body is to be brought to Jovan, where the king will have him drawn and quartered and hung from the four gates of the castle. Ser Castlegrail and I have dispatched contingents of Silver Guards and Dayknights throughout Amadon. They will search the breadth of Gul Kana if need be. Though I wish it otherwise, to speak plainly, I had no other choice. If I find him, I will bring him to Jovan to be killed.”

  “I understand,” Roguemoore said.

  Sterling grabbed the dwarf by the shoulder and whispered, “So tell me, dwarf.” His voice hissed between clenched teeth, barely audible to Jondralyn. “Have we been betrayed by your friend, or is Hawkwood’s escape part of some larger plan?”

  Sterling let go of Roguemoore’s shoulder. “Think on it. I’ll need your answer on the morrow. Otherwise, Culpa and I are out of the Brethren. There is much I am not being told. Though I dearly loved Borden Bronachell like a brother, things have become too dangerous for the likes of Culpa and me to remain involved in the schemes our late king set in motion so long ago.”

  With that both Sterling and Culpa disappeared back through the hidden doorway behind Jondralyn’s bookshelf.

  * * *

  ’Twas an age when man wandered soulless and lost, until the images of glorious prophecy took root: standing-stones with carved crosses, circles painted green, red, blue, black, white, images of a boy with a spear, a young man in slave chains, a warrior with a sword, an ax, a crossbow, and a helm, killing winged demons; a man nailed to a tree, a man laid out on a cross-shaped altar.

  —THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  NAIL

  3RD DAY OF THE MOURNING MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON

  GALLOWS HAVEN, GUL KANA

  The chapel bell boomed. Nail shot upright, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He smelled flowers in the breeze and could hear the breakers crashing against the large rocks just north of Gallows Bay. He noticed the angle of the sun. Midafternoon. His joints groaned as he pulled himself upright. He’d been curled up in his stiff leather greaves atop the crow’s nest of the Lady Kindly for twelve hours.

  The church bell boomed again. He heard frantic shouting below. From his perch, he watched villagers scramble up and down the main thoroughfare in front of the Grayken Spear Inn, their shouts urgent and full of fear. The bell sounded a third time.

  The signal for attack! Nail whirled, eyes cast to the sea.

  The sun reflected gold and blinding along the vast swell of the ocean. In the far bright distance were dozens of ships. One after the next they crested the horizon, plying the sea, sails seeming to dance on the water. With ever-growing dread, he counted the ships—thirty-five total—all cutting through the ocean from the northwest.

  Nail stared, enthralled, for he knew that death rode in them.

  It took less than an hour for the ships to anchor within a hundred yards of shore, each ship twice the size of the Lady Kindly. By then Nail was making his way to the keep with the rest of the men of the village. From the ships, legions of armed warriors and heavy horse were rowing ashore on smaller vessels. Most had already disembarked and were wading up the beachhead, gathering among Baron Bruk’s still smoking black cauldrons, fitting their mounts with armor, testing their weapons. Nail could hear the clanking of their bridle bits and the snorts of their chargers, and here and there shards of sunlight blazed off their silver armor.

  Under Baron Bruk’s direction, the three hundred or so men and boys of Gallows Haven had arranged themselves into an undisciplined-looking formation along the crown of the low hill just a stone’s throw north of the keep. Those few who possessed mail or armor of any kind had put it on. Most wore simple raiment and carried weapons that they had hurriedly assembled—useless things, really: rakes, hoes, shovels, tree branches, rocks.

  As Nail waded through the throng, some men were in the midst of sharpening these rudimentary implements on whetstones, whilst others argued about who should be lining up on the right or left. More than a few were vomiting from nerves. There was much anticipation and fear as Nail searched for a friendly face. He located Stefan Wayland and Zane Neville, standing in their armor near the front. He quickly took his place in line between them.

  Stefan thrust a familiar breastplate at Nail. “It’s yours. Put it on. I snatched it from in front of the chapel. Someone else likely scavenged the rest of your gear, though.”

  Nail hurriedly fastened the breastplate around his chest. Next to Zane was Dokie Liddle, sword in hand. Nail’s scrawny, lightning-struck friend was dressed in full armor, the visor of his helm up, eyes transfixed by the sheer wonder of the ominous-looking warriors gathered across the field from them. “The army of Sør Sevier,” he muttered. “The White Prince, finally come to kill us.”

  It was only then that Nail truly realized what it was they now faced. Arrayed below him along a sloping plain of grass a hundred yards away was a seething, glittering sea of death. Wearing silver armor and white surcoats with a blue cross emblazoned on the chest, the opposing legion stretched from the beach all the way up the slope and over the north road almost to the chapel, and their formation looked equally as deep. Archers made up the front ranks—motionless they stood. Battle knights on huge war chargers were arrayed behind the archers, their half-pikes and halberds jutting skyward like an iron-tipped forest. Plates of armor covered their horses’ foreheads, iron-studded bands encircled their legs and flanks, war paint slathered their hides in grisly patterns. It was row upon row of evil warriors that seemed more like demons from the underworld than men of flesh and bone. Buried within the hollow eye slits of their frightful helms were dark chasms that revealed naught but destruction and slaughter. Banners flapped above the army, the colors of Sør Sevier—a blue sword on a white field. This was what death looked like. And Nail wanted to vomit.

  Unexpectedly Shawcroft stood before him. The man wore no armor but had a sheathed sword strapped to his broad back, a black opal on the pommel. Shawcroft’s features were as pallid as ever, face strained, his words abrupt. “We must leave. Now.”

  “Leave?” Nail said, incredulous. “None of us can leave.”

  “This will be a slaughter.”

  “Bloody rotted angels.” Zane looked askance at Nail’s master. “You’re full of encouragement.”

  Shawcroft grabbed Nail, pulling him from the line. “This is madness.”

  “I stay and fight with my friends. I’m no traitorous, murderous coward.” As the words tumbled from his mouth, he saw the pain in Shawcroft’s eyes.

  “Your destiny is not here, Nail.”

  “And what destiny does a bastard have?” Nail shot back.

  “Go with Shawcroft,” Stefan said, nervously stroking the Amadon Silver Guard bow he had won last night at the Mourning Moon Feast. “You haven’t a sword or shield or helm. Some of the women are holed up in the chapel with Bishop Tolbret, some at the Grayken Spear, a few in the keep. Many ran for the mountains. You and Shawcroft know those mountains. You could—”

  “I’m no woman who hides with the children,” Nail snapped.

  “I was gonna say you could help them hide in the mountains.”

  After the things he had seen last night between Ava Shay and Jenko, Nail cared not if he died today. “I aim to fulfill my duty and fight with the rest of you.”

  “No,” Shawcroft growled, grabbing his arm. “We go now.”

  The Sør Sevier army parted as a group of six horsemen galloped through the throng toward the small Gallows Haven army. Both Shawcroft and Nail turned and looked. Splendorous white hair
billowed out behind the lead horseman. The Sør Sevier leader was a wondrous sight atop a gloriously armored white charger. He wore chain mail under a white cloak that rippled in magnificent waves, a bright longsword at his hip.

  “The White Prince,” Dokie Liddle murmured, “Aeros Raijael.”

  To the White Prince’s left rode two men, one baldheaded, the other a dark-haired, bearded fellow with a black eye patch. To the White Prince’s right galloped a red-haired woman, starkly pretty, with a crossbow and quiver of grim heavy-looking quarrels strapped to her back. Many Gallows Haven men spat curses at the sight of this woman warrior. Nail found her to be astonishingly regal. Next to her rode a bearded behemoth of a man, blue paint crisscrossing his face. This giant carried a huge ball mace wrapped in spikes and barbs in one hand and a gigantic round iron shield in the other. All of them were on tall white stallions with heavy hooves that shook the very ground.

  Last was a black-cloaked fellow on a black horse. A Bloodwood! Nail’s heart was racing now. The Bloodwood’s hair was cropped short. He wore dark, boiled-leather armor under an even darker cloak that appeared to soak up the surrounding sunlight. His coal-black stallion had those unmistakable eyes that oozed red light. Demon-eyed like the horse the Vallè woman rode!

  There was visible fear on Shawcroft’s face as Baron Bruk walked out to meet the White Prince, armor clanking. The baron wore some armor and a belt studded with links of chain and thick boots that rode high on his legs. He carried a wooden shield, with a heavy iron boss that was painted black. The baron’s huge broadsword with its leather-wrapped hilt and black opal-inlaid pommel swayed at his hip. A sword identical to the one Shawcroft has strapped to his back!