Lady Of The Helm (Book 1)

by T. O. Munro

  “Our brother rules the land of the Salved, long may the Goddess grant him life,” Udecht intoned dully.

  “Yes, I daresay you’ve not spoken much with your Goddess of late. Hard to have your prayers heard without this.” Xander reached into his jerkin and pulled out the gleaming crescent medallion that was both Udecht’s symbol of office and his channel for divine communication.

  Haselrig saw the Bishop’s eyes light up at the sight, but the defeated brother knew better than to amuse his sibling with a futile grab for the item. Xander laughed. “The Goddess never granted me anything I prayed for, but that was a valuable lesson in itself. I’ve learned to take, not ask.”

  Udecht stepped towards the battlements, from which Thren had fallen to his end. Xander, full of his own ambition, did not notice his brother’s intense stare down at the distant rocks. Haselrig, in a few quick steps came by the pensive prelate’s side and seized his arm. Udecht stiffened not so much at the unexpected contact as at the soft but urgent question which followed it. “You are not thinking of doing anything foolish are you, your reverence?”

  “What if I was? What would you care?”

  “My Master doesn’t like people to die whom he has plans for?”

  “Your foul lord has plans for me?” Udecht gave a hollow laugh.

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. I really couldn’t say. But if there are plans I would hate for them to be disrupted through any neglect of mine.”

  “Oh my, Mr Haselrig, you give me a whole new reason to throw myself over. The fall would be so much easier to bear knowing that it brought you into your Master’s displeasure.”

  Haselrig dipped his head in acknowledgement. “May be so, but if you would do me the service of stepping back. So much more becoming to a Bishop’s dignity than being manhandled by orcs, wouldn’t you say?”

  Dully, Udecht stepped back and the action distracted Xander’s attention from his own pondering on the distant unseen Empire of the Salved. “What, brother, you seem uncommonly glum this fine afternoon?” He closed in leering at his brother while Haselrig stepped apart.

  “What reasons have I to be cheerful?”

  “Life, a painfree life, maybe not enough to make you cheerful, but I would hope for a little gratitude that you live and breathe up here, rather than join our nephew on the rocks below.”

  “That fate, in fact, has a certain appeal, as I was just discussing with Haselrig.”

  “Be not so hasty, brother. Your life is mine to give or take, not yours to determine. Besides, I have plans for you when I come into my inheritance.”

  “And what does your foul Master think of your plans or the inheritance you hope to steal?” Udecht goaded. “I had gathered that all which happens here, happens by his will alone. Whether you like it or not, your plans are of small consequence.”

  Xander scowled and raised his hand to strike, but then thought better of the action. Dropping his voice to an intense whisper which still reached Haselrig’s ears, he hissed, “There are things of which my Master knows nothing and which will yet enable me to treat on equal or even superior terms with him.”

  For a moment Udecht strove to understand his brother’s meaning but then Xander was grinning and nodding as enlightenment dawned on the Bishop’s face. “You mean the helm!”

  Still whispering. “You must have felt it brother, those times we have handled that artefact. It called to me, I felt its power, yearning for release, for one with courage enough to wear it as our father never had. With courage enough to use it!”

  “I felt nothing and you are truly insane brother.”

  The blow was sudden and fierce and, even as he lay dazed on the stones, Udecht felt his brother lifting him by the armpits, manouevring him to battlements and feeding him through the gap between the stone merlons. For all his self-destructive talk of moments earlier, the powerful urge for self-preservation kicked in. It was one thing to choose with dignity his own death, another to be bundled headfirst to his doom by his treacherous older brother. He scrabbled at the sides of the embrasure, even as a shout from Haselrig brought the orc sentries running. Udecht’s shoulders were suspended over the drop as the orcs hauled the vengeful Prince away from him. “No, mashter,” the biggest greenest of them was saying. “No mashter, not kill this one. The lord Mashter not like it.”

  It was Haselrig and the third orc who dragged the panting Udecht back into the safety of the tower platform while the other two held the furious Prince by his armpits.

  “Let go, let me go!” Xander demanded.

  “Are ye going to play nicely my Prince?” Haselrig replied. “Have we your word you’ll not harm your brother here?”

  “He’s my prisoner, what is he to you? Dema has gone off with her tame Captain. Grundurg has his servant girl, no-one questions how they dispose of their prisoners. Who is to tell me how I treat with my prisoner and my kin?” Spit flecked Xander’s speech as he struggled with his captors.

  “The King’s brother is not just any prisoner, mayhap it was unwise to make you his warden.”

  “Let me go, you insolent embezzling bastard.”

  “Aye, but first your promise, on those tattered shreds of your honour, you will not harm your brother here.”

  “You have it!”

  At a nod from Haselrig, the orcs let Xander free. The Prince massaged his hands ruefully as his brother the Bishop levered himself into an upright position. “You’ll not harm him?” Haselrig reminded the glowering prince.

  “Not him, no,” Xander acknowledged, before working his fingers in a swift incantation. “Flammeum sagittal percutiamque vos.” At the end of his spell he flung his hands sideways to point at the orcs who had but recently been holding him still. Bolts of flame shot from his finger tips striking the creatures in the centre of their chests. With a howl, both sentries fell to the floor whimpering and beating at their bruised and singed flesh. “Think on that, before you next lay orcish hands on a Prince of the empire and the next wearer of the Helm of Eadran.”

  As Xander turned and stormed down the stairway, Haselrig murmured to Udecht. “I have to agree with the Lady Dema. Your brother is an arse.”

  “Worse than that, he is insane. I hope the Goddess lets you live just long enough to regret being his ally as much as I have come to regret being his brother.”

  ***

  Hepdida had the sickly smell of burnt flesh in her nostrils and the acid taste of vomit on her lips. Her stomach heaved again, in a futile effort to void what was already empty. The light wind whipped up the smoke from the burning homes and still the great orc laughed. The boy beside her shivered as though in the depths of a fever, though it was no physical ailment that consumed him.

  Grundurg bowed low and the orcs around him howled with laughter at the parody of human courtesy. The one with its hands on Hepdida’s shoulders even relaxed his grip enough to thump his hands together in half human applause.

  “Good, good,” Grundurg urged the ranks of baying humanoids, all jostling for position to better see the action.

  He lurched towards Hepdida and the boy, the sharp blade that had scored the servant girl’s skin was in his hand and he bent low to breath foul fumes in the two captives faces.

  He drew the knife beneath their noses, inviting them to smell and savour it as he had just done. “You watch,” he commanded them both as he straightened up.

  He jabbed the point towards the two of them in turn. “You remember,” he said speaking first to the boy. “Grundurg did this, remember!” and then to Hepdida he added, “Grundurg could do this, remember!”

  With that he turned and lumbered across the orc walled clearing to the two frames of timber on which the boys’ parents lay tethered and pleading.

  ***

  “I do not understand it Governor,” Vesten exclaimed again.

  Odestus surveyed his secretary’s grime smeared face, knowing that his own bore similar marks of duress. To either side of them a column of dispirited orcs trudged. All wore garb blackened by smok
e. Most had dented armour and for some the fletchings of arrows still protruded from injured limbs.

  “I just do not understand it.”

  “What is there to understand, Vesten? The elves did the unthinkable. Even our Master would not have predicted it. “

  “But what could they hope to gain from it, Governor?”

  “Precisely what they have gained, our ignominious defeat and a severe and unwelcome disruption to our Master’s plans.”

  “And at what price?”

  Odestus shrugged, though the simple gesture and his fatigue nearly combined to tip him from his horse. “It is a price they were willing to pay and, even though it was a strategy our Master did not foretell, I am in no hurry to share this news with him.” With that Odestus wheeled his horse about and followed his depleted army along the trail across the Saeth towards the low foothills of the Hadrans. The red glint of dawn to the East ahead of them competed to light up the sky with the orange glow from the forest behind them.

  ***

  It was a strange kind of heaven, if heaven it was. A ceiling carved from rock indicated a subterranean location, the kind of place more often associated with hell than heaven in the sermonising by the priests of his misspent youth. However, it had not the heat for that. So, if not in heaven or hell, then the only logical conclusion, improbable though it might seem, was that he wasn’t dead after all.

  “See I told ye, the fever has sure enough broken brother.” The thick accent could be discerned even through the cotton wool that seemed to cloud his hearing. He swung his gaze towards the sound of the voice, unleashing a wave of dizzy nausea. He shut his eyes for a moment while the world finished its spinning. He was in a bed, sheets cool beneath him, damp from what he hoped was his own sweating. He dared opening his eyes a crack and two blurred faces looked down on him. First impressions, pale skin, not orcs then. One red haired the other black, though they seemed to have their heads on upside down.

  His eyes fought to focus until the twin blobs resolved into craggy featured balding bearded faces. Two pairs of bright eyes shone from deep within hollows either side of over large noses. Luxurious facial hair braided and plaited into shapes more intricate than many a fine lady’s coiffure were juxtaposed with gleaming scalps which reflected the flickering torch light.

  “He’s awake brother,” the first voice spoke again, from the darkly bearded face.

  “Aye, ah can see that fur meself, Mag.” Redbeard spoke with a deeper voice of someone gargling gravel.

  “Where .…” the question fell half formed from parched lips and a dry throat, but his attendants guessed his intent.

  “You are in the halls of my brother,” Black beard piped up. “Bar-ap-Bruin, Master of the Western Pass, Chieftain of the clan Bruin, Member of the Grand Council of the dwarves of the Hadrans.”

  Dwarves, of course. Realisation struck home. The red-bearded clan leader bowed low beside the bed at the conclusion of his brother’s introduction. Then straightening he returned the favour. “This is my younger brother Mag-ap-Bruin, physician to our clan who has been ministering to you these past five days.”

  “Five days!” That was too long. He did not know why, but it was too long. He tried to rise but weakened limbs and swaying balance were unequal to the task.

  “Rest easy,” the darker haired Mag fussed over him. “You’ve had nought but spoonfuls of gruel and that only for the last couple of days. ‘twas a mighty blow you took.”

  “Aye, it was that,” his brother concurred. “We have been calling you Longshanks-ap-Stonehelm since we pulled you from beneath a pile of orcish scum.” The elder of the brother bruin spat into a metal bowl by the bed which resonated with his contempt. “There’s many a dwarf would not have risen from such a strike, never mind your long legged kind. But now you are awake and in your right senses, perhaps you can tell us the name your kin gave you.”

  “My name?” It was an obvious question, an easy question, why couldn’t he answer it? Panic creased his features as he racked his rattled brain. His eyes flicked left and right as though he would find the name written on the wall behind his rescuers.

  “’twil come, longshanks, no need too force it yet,” Mag urged soothingly. “Your senses are back today, your memories tomorrow, or the next day,” he added with too little conviction.

  “Kaylan!” he screamed and then again, for the sheer relief of it. “Kaylan! My name is Kaylan.”

  “Ah heard you the furst time,” Bar-ap-Bruin observed, striking a palm against his ear to check its functioning.

  “The whole clan heard you.” Mag agreed.

  “Apologies, good sirs, I am in your debt.”

  Bar-ap-Bruin’s whiskers twitched up with the smile that creased his lips. “An ah’m in your debt longshanks. Haven’t seen so good a jest in decades as a scrawny human in leather mail charging a platoon of wolf riding orcs. Still, you held ‘em up long enough for us to launch our own ambush.”

  “You killed them?” Half-memories of the frantic flight came back to the dazed theif.

  “All of them,” Mag-ap-Bruin assured him.

  Kaylan shook his head with careless vigour and regretted it immediately as the room swam around him. “There was another,” he mumbled. “I was with, a woman, tall, red hair. Did you see any sign of her?”

  The dwarves exchanged a glance and then shook their heads. “There was only you. You and the orcs and the wolves. No other longshanks.”

  “Five days? I need to follow her, the lady. She is alone on her way to the sea. She may be gone.” Kaylan tried to sit up, but Mag’s hand heavy on his shoulder easily restrained him.

  “You cannot stand, let alone travel,” the dark haired dwarf told him.

  “And that is but the first of four reasons why you cannot and need not leave yet,” Bar-ap-Bruin weighed in.

  “The others being?” Kaylan prompted weakly.

  “Let the first be your need to recover your strength.” The Dwarf chieftain counted the rest off on stubby fingers. “Secondly, these are dangerous times, orcs stalk the Hadrans and no creature of the light be they dwarf, longshanks or even those elven tree huggers should wander alone. Thirdly, yon lady will like as not have made for Dwarfport if she wants to travel to the Eastern lands and no boat will sail from there for another ten-night. Fourthly, said boat will itself be waiting for the dwarven caravan bringing produce from all the clans.”

  “So?”

  “Mag here, and our brother Glim-ap-Bruin will be taking the Bruin goods in the caravan. If you wish to catch up with your lady friend…”

  “She’s not my lady-friend,” Kaylan hastily corrected.

  Bar-ap-Bruin frowned. “Forgive my ignorance of the ways and words of the longshanks. Whatever your reasons, your surest way is to wait here, then join my brothers in the gathering of the clans. They’ll get you to Dwarfport in good time and there’s not many safer means of travel than in the midst of a dwarven trading caravan.”

  “Ten days?”

  “My brother speaks true, young Kaylan-ap-Stonehelm. Follow his wisdom,” Mag advised.

  Kaylan gave a shrug, suddenly flooded by sensations of hunger, thirst and weariness. “Very well then, my kind hosts ap-Bruin. Kaylan-ap-Stonehelm will follow your advice.”

  ***

  Haselrig instantly regretted bursting in on his Master’s chambers. Fear and anxiety had been the ex-priest’s constant companions these last seventeen years, but each new day seemed to plumb new depths of disquiet. The dragon, terrifying as it might be, remained at least an infrequent visitor. The terms of its servitude to Maelgrum were strict and precise and neither undead lord nor fire-breathing reptile seemed inclined to renegotiate the monthly day of service and the hefty gold payment that accompanied it. It was the only creature Haselrig knew which had limits on its subservience to the Dark Lord.

  However, these squawking cackling creatures, flapping their wings and chewing on raw meat as they circled the serenely calm Maelgrum were a new experience for the perennially
nervous ex-antiquary.

  “What isss it, that bringsss you ssso precipitousssly into our presssence, little one?”

  Maelgrum’s tone was low, amused rather than irritated by his servant’s arrival. However, Haselrig knew how swiftly his Master’s mood could change and he took the precaution of an opening apology. “Forgive me Master, I had not realised you were in conference with….with…” he waved a hand at the dozen creatures that swooped and spun around the Castellan’s hall where once Prince Thren had held court.

  Their appearance was bizarre, short furred legs led to bare torsos with sagging naked breasts that denoted them as female of whatever species it might be. Great feathered wings emerged from their shoulderblades, effortlessly keeping then aloft with but an occasional beat. Their faces were sharp mean featured but hungry and, with each pass, they swept by the plate of meat set on the castellan’s desk. Thin hands with curving dirty fingernails seized hunks of flesh, whose provenance Haselrig dared not guess at, and thrust them into yellow toothed mouths.

  “My guestsss were jussst leaving, little one, our businessss is concluded.” True to the undead Wizard’s word, the foul creatures swooped in turn, hopped to the Eastern window ledge and flung themselves into the air.

  “Where in the Petred Isle did they come from?” Haselrig succumbed to curiosity as the last of the twelve woman-bird creatures beat its way skywards.

  “Not from thisss isle, little one, not even thisss plane. They have ssserved me well in the passst and will do ssso again. But tell me what brought you into my quarters in sssuch unssseemly hassste?” This time, there was an edge to Maelgrum’s enquiry and the red light in his empty sockets was lightly pulsating.

  “A thousand apologies, Master.” Haselrig flung himself full length on the floor. “But I fear Xander has ill intent towards his brother the Bishop. His temper is quick and I had to stop him throwing Udecht from the tower.”

  “A quick temper isss not necesssssarily a sssign of weaknesss, provided it isss informed by sssound judgment, sssomething of which friend Xander is sssomewhat lacking.”

  “Xander cannot be trusted.”