The Line of Illeniel

by Michael G. Manning

  With a sigh of frustration she finished pulling the byrnie over her head before her exhaustion forced her to sit down on the divan. I winced inwardly. The blood on her armor would ruin it. She caught my look and glared at me. “Don’t say it,” she warned.

  Instead I drew out the pouch of glass stones that were keyed to the trap I had placed around Castle Cameron. There was no more time for delays. My father’s hammer was back in his smithy and there was nothing suitable close at hand, so I focused my will and with a word I formed a tight, hard shield around the small bag. Clenching my teeth and mind at the same time I used it to crush the glass within and the ground lurched beneath my feet.

  The world beyond the walls of Cameron Castle exploded. Soil and stone were thrown hundreds of feet into the air while flames engulfed everything. Thousands perished in an instant, some burned to a cinder while those further from the explosive centers were tossed broken and mangled into the air. Dorian and those fighting in the broken gap of the wall were thrown back and tumbled to the ground, along with the men they had been striving against.

  I headed for the door and Penny shouted at my back, “Wait, I’m coming too.” She stood up but I could see her swaying on her feet.

  “No you’re not,” I said and went back to her, lifting her from the ground. With the armor she was almost more than I could handle, but I managed anyway, carrying her to the bed. She struggled to rise but I gently pushed her back and reached down to pull her enchanted pendant from her neck. A sharp tug and the chain broke. “Shibal,” I said and left her sleeping.

  As I ran down the stairs my own fatigue threatened to send me stumbling, so I reached out with my mind, calling to the earth once more. I could feel a power there beyond anything I had ever imagined and I drew upon a small portion of it, filling my body with strength and vitality again. I was fairly sure the effect would be short lived, but I didn’t have time for proper rest.

  When I reached the yard the men there were still recovering from the shock and violence of the explosions. “Get up!” I shouted at them. “There’s no time for wasting!” Long minutes passed as I rallied the remaining defenders. All told they numbered little more than two hundred men. More had died holding the breach than I had realized. Dorian and Marcus were not among them but I had no time to search for them.

  Driving them by pure force of personality I took them out through the ruined wall. The devastation there was daunting. Great holes had been torn in the earth were the stones had been hidden under the ground. Nothing remained of the buildings and shelters we had built there, nothing but charred wood and broken timbers. I kept them moving and we went beyond the shattered remains of the palisade to find what might be left of the enemy.

  For a hundred yards out the earth was covered in bodies and rubble. In the distance the few who had escaped the destruction stood uncertainly. At a glance there appeared to be almost a thousand men left, but their spirits had been shaken and I didn’t intend to give them time to recover the will to fight.

  The men gathered around me and I remembered Dorian’s speech, and the one word that had possibly killed more men than ‘should’. “Now’s the time! Let’s show these whoresons what the men of Lothion are made of!” I shouted. “For Lothion!”

  “For Lothion!” they responded.

  “For Cameron!” I screamed.

  The cry came back again and I could feel their hearts pounding in time with my own. I opened my mouth and roared with everything I had, “Charge!” Like one great beast we began moving forward at a run, our pace eating up the ground between us and the enemy.

  For a moment one of the enemy captains tried to rally them. Standing in his stirrups he tried to organize them to receive our charge. “Lyet Bierek!” I shouted as I ran and light blossomed over his head. A great cracking boom sounded and his horse reared, throwing him to the ground. Those nearest him were blinded and began running in confusion. In seconds the morale of the rest fell apart and the army of Gododdin was routed.

  From that point our charge turned into a long chase. Neither we nor the men we pursued could run for long and soon we were walking after them. Some stumbled and fell, and those we caught died quickly. Those among the defenders who faltered simply stopped and rested, or fell in their tracks. Hours went by and we followed them to the valley road before stopping. I watched as the ragged remainder of Gododdin’s once great army rejoined the wounded men camped there.

  A sharp pang of guilt passed over me as I drew out the last bag of stones. Our victory had been won, but I needed to be sure. We would be in no shape to fight again if those that were left somehow rallied against us on the morrow. Gritting my teeth I pushed my sympathies aside, there was little place left in me for mercy. A word and a sharp focusing of my will crushed the bag in my hand.

  The ground jumped beneath us, throwing men to their knees. I would learn later that the shock was felt even in the capital, Albamarl. A great plume of fire and superheated steam rose up from the end of the valley where my father had built his dam. Rocks and great chunks of ice were thrown for miles. One even landed in the castle yard in Lancaster, crushing a cart that had been left out. Seconds later the sound reached us, a subdued roar at that distance.

  It was minutes before the water arrived, a sweeping torrent of roaring water that washed the enemy and their wounded from their makeshift camp. Men cried out in fear as the water struck and many perished as it threw them against rocks and trees. The rest drowned before the waters began to recede. An hour later all that was left was a mess of flotsam and jetsam. The dead bodies of men and horses were scattered from the center of the valley to its western end.

  It was the greatest single day of slaughter that history had ever known, and I was its chief architect.

  Epilogue

  A month had passed since the day of our victory and bodies were still being found. There were so many that most were left where they lay. We didn’t have the man power necessary to gather, much less bury or burn so many. In the end we settled for disposing of those nearest to Washbrook, piling them together to be burned. The smoke left a smell that lingered for days afterwards and I’m sure no one who experienced it would ever forget the noxious odor.

  Despite the large number of bodies that we burned, and those that were found scattered throughout the valley I was fairly sure that a fair amount were never found. Worse, although we had nothing close to an accurate count it appeared that a large number of bodies were missing. I hoped they had been washed all the way to the Formby Marsh, but I had a bad feeling about it. Plus some of my late patrols had reported seeing men moving at night. Because of that we continued brining everyone inside the walls at night… the war might be over but we still had plenty of things to fear. Repairing the palisade and preparing a larger more permanent wall around Washbrook were among my top priorities.

  Dorian was found, alive and uninjured in the castle yard. The blast from the explosion around Cameron Castle had sent him flying against a rock and rendered him unconscious. He was most displeased to have missed the final charge.

  Marcus was discovered among the dead defenders of the wall, badly wounded but conscious still. A sword had pierced his leg and an arrow was protruding from his shoulder. I healed his wounds later but he complained of pain in his leg from that day forward. I was sure I had done a thorough job so I began to suspect he only complained to annoy me. His demeanor had changed after his goddess had betrayed us. He was darker now, less prone to laughter and given to quiet moods. I worried he might never recover completely.

  Over three hundred of our men had died defending the breach in the wall. Men from Lancaster and Washbrook, and men who had only recently come to call my lands home, but their families survived. In time we would grow and flourish again.

  Cyhan was locked away in a cell at Lancaster, since I still had nothing to keep prisoners within Cameron Castle. His condition was a dark reminder to those of us who had come to respect and rely upon him. I still had hopes he could be released, but
there had been no time to devote to him yet. Eventually I planned to offer him a place among us, or a return to Albamarl, depending upon his decision.

  No messages had come from the king but his scouts had been spotted near Lancaster so I suspected he had some knowledge of the outcome of our battle. I wasn’t certain what the future held with regard to him, but I was sure it wouldn’t be pleasant.

  ***

  It was a warm day in mid-spring when Penny and I visited Lancaster again. James and Genevieve met us in the front hall. Dispensing with formality I hugged them both. “I’m sure you both remember Penelope,” I said with a formal tone. “Please let me introduce her again, now as my wife, and the Countess di’Cameron. Penelope Illeniel I present to you their graces, the Duke and Duchess of Lancaster.” I gave a formal bow and held up her hand for James to take.

  James laughed, for they both had long known of our marriage the month before. “Mordecai, I hope you know how to treat a lady,” he said as he bent to kiss Penny’s proffered hand.

  “Don’t tease him James,” Genevieve told him. “Some things should be done properly.” She took Penelope’s hand as well and stared long upon her before drawing her into a gentle embrace. “I have heard that you will soon have a child,” she said once they separated again.

  Penny smiled shyly, “That’s what I’ve been told and my body seems to agree.” She placed her hand unconsciously on her belly which had finally begun to show a slight bulge.

  “Have you thought about how you want to decorate the nursery?” Genevieve asked with visible interest. Of course Penny had already been talking about it to me at home. I never could understand the fascination. My own ideas regarding such topics were non-existent. I figured anything above a straw filled box would probably be sufficient. Naturally I had kept that information to myself.

  The two of them began talking animatedly about the possibilities, leaving James and I to our own devices. “They never get tired of it,” he told me when they were out of earshot.

  “Really?” I asked. His viewpoint as an experienced father of three seemed invaluable to me.

  “With each of our three children, Ginny had to decorate the nursery all over again,” he replied sagely.

  “Why didn’t she just leave it the same as when she had the first?” I said curiously.

  “I’ll never know,” he replied with a chuckle. “I can tell you this, don’t argue about it. When she wants to redo the whole thing with your second just smile and nod. Asking her why her tastes have changed will only bring you trouble.”

  I shook my head. The mysteries of women were beyond me but I resolved to remember his advice. “I’ll be sure to do that,” I replied.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he told me.

  “Why?” I asked again.

  “You’ll find some other way to rile her up. I’ve seen the way you two bicker. You have a real talent for it. No use wasting your talent,” he said with a grin.

  I laughed as well. We talked for a bit about the issues we were facing presently. Food had become a pressing problem. The flood had ruined part of the spring planting and what harvest we could still expect would be barely sufficient to get our people through to the next crop. My mind was on something else though, and after a short while I finally brought it up.

  “You remember the day my father died?” I asked him.

  His face grew somber, “Of course, I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for your father’s strong arms dragging me back.”

  “He mentioned a chandelier that he made for you, before he died,” I said simply.

  “I remember. I should have thought of that sooner. Let’s go take a look now; the hall should be empty at the moment. Better now than when they start getting ready for dinner. I’m sure you’ll want some privacy.” His eyes were full of sympathy.

  We walked together and I was reminded again of how much I had come to value the duke’s friendship. “Your father was very good to me,” he said as we walked. “He had a lot of hidden depths.”

  I nodded in agreement, not knowing what to say.

  “Most people didn’t notice, because he didn’t waste a lot of time talking, but I could tell the first time he did some work for me,” he continued.

  “What was it?”

  James chuckled, “A broken axle on one of our wagons. It had broken a month before, on a trip to Arundel. I let the smith there fix it, but his weld didn’t hold up. Your father had some colorful things to say about that.”

  That I could well imagine. He had always had firm opinions about shoddy craftsmanship. “I’m guessing he refused to re-weld it.”

  James’ eye lit up, “That he did. Said it would need a newly forged axle and the old one should just be tossed in the scrap pile. I wanted him to just patch it up like before, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I thought he was just trying to get me to pay more, so I argued with him about it. You know what he told me?”

  I had a fair idea what he might have said but I didn’t want to spoil the story. “No sir,” I said.

  “He said if I wanted a ‘shitty job done’ I could damn well find someone else to do it. I thought he might spit fire when he said it.”

  I started laughing, “What did you do then?”

  “I had it taken to another smith. I was fairly angry with your father then. You have to understand, being a duke, and young, I wasn’t used to being talked to like that. At the time I seriously considered having him punished for insolence, but I held my temper. Two months later the axle broke again.” He paused for a moment as we went through the door into the great hall.

  As we entered I could see the new iron wrought chandelier hanging above the high table. “What did you do then?” I prompted my host.

  “I swallowed my pride and took it back to him. He never said a word about it, but his eyes told me all I needed to know of his opinion regarding my foolishness. I paid him double what he asked for when it was done. I never used another smith after that,” he smiled at the memory.

  “I hadn’t heard that story before, but it sounds just like him,” I agreed. Staring upward I could see why my father had wanted me to come here.

  Most people don’t think of iron work when they think of art, and in truth Royce had never been an artist, not in the strictest sense of the word. He simply did very good work. The chandelier above was simply designed, with long elegantly curved bars rising up to meet in the center, supporting a ring of lamps. I knew enough of his craft to guess where the welds were, but they weren’t visible. The metal had been lapped and hot welded carefully before he polished away any imperfections in the joins.

  To an inexperienced eye it was merely functional, but my eyes could see the meticulous care he had put into creating it. It was perfect in every detail. I stared at it for long moments, till my vision grew blurry and I was forced to wipe away tears.

  He hadn’t made it for me, or for anyone else. As with everything else he had built it simply for the joy of making it. His message was clear, even to me. Once again I could hear his words, for he had said them to me often, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

  My father hadn’t always succeeded, for he was no more perfect than I was, but he had tried, in everything he did. I could only hope to live up to his example.

  Afterword

  It bears noting that my own father died just as I was starting to write this book. His passing had a large impact on the tone of the later story. Much of what was written here about Royce Eldridge was written remembering him and the things he told me during my own childhood. By necessity I had to change some of the language, but the spirit was there. His last scene in the story, and the epilogue were directly inspired by my own experiences during his last days. I can only hope he would have approved.

  Coming Soon:

  Mageborn: The Archmage Unbound

  Dorian Thornbear

  Rose Hightower

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