Lady Of The Helm (Book 1)

by T. O. Munro

  “Where is it you think you will go?” Kychelle asked.

  Qiuntala shrugged. “You may be right about Listcairn. We will head south west and then work our way round the southern tip of the Palacintas.”

  “Back into Morsalve?”

  “That is where I was sent from, that is where my master rules, I will return to him.”

  Giseanne looked up sharply at that, her fingers instinctively covering the sapphire ring. “Is Morsalve safe for a half-elf and a score of lancers?”

  “Safe or not, Lady, it is my home and I would rather die there than rot inactive here.”

  Kychelle struck the base of her staff against the ground. “My grandson has made it clear, his force will march tomorrow. Your departure on this mission of pure vanity is both ill-timed and unwise.”

  “Grandmother, as this may be the last time we meet let me speak my mind. I wish Prince Rugan’s force the best of fortune, but I came here to deliver a message from King Gregor. I have tarried too long for the reply. I will take no lectures on vanity or wisdom from painted peacocks who have delayed and paraded while a great peril has assailed the heart of the empire. I know not what fate awaits us in Morsalve but I embrace it more readily than the stench of decayed courage and sluggish vigour that reeks about this palace.”

  At this rebuke, Rugan’s hands flew up, fingers twitching but Quintala pointed him down with one hand, while holding the other aloft its fingers curled in an intricate poise of readiness. “Not so fast brother,” she told him. “It will do your royal dignity no good at all to be quacking all your commands like a duck.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Rugan breathed.

  “Enchant me once, shame on you, brother, enchant me twice shame on me. Now if you’ll make way, my lancers and I have a long day’s ride ahead.”

  “Quintala,” Giseanne called out. “You know there is nothing left for you in Morsalve.”

  “There is nothing left for me here,” the Seneschal replied before spurring her horse towards the gate.

  ***

  The fog had enveloped Grundurg and his camp. The orc chieftain held his fingers infront of his face and wondered at the way, as he pushed his hand out to arm’s length, his gnarled digits disappeared into the all encompassing murk. The rolling bank had swept in rapidly from the North East, though the fickle morning breeze had been from the South. Now, in the midst of the mist all was utterly still. Miniscule droplets of water suspended in the air coated Grundurg’s skin with a sheen of liquid as the orc waded through the vapour, barking orders at his orcs concealed by the fog.

  Around him there were shouts of acknowledgement muffled by the soupy haze as the hidden warriors sought to reassure the chief they were all still at their posts, even if they couldn’t see those positions anymore.

  Guided more by smell and touch than sight, Grundurg worked his way to the centre of the camp where his tent still stood. His ragged standard, a crudely drawn face feasting on a heart, loomed out of the gloom and he swayed past it to the opening beyond. “Skarat?!” he called, for the guard was not at the entrance, nor, judging by the lack of response, was he hidden within earshot by the enveloping cloud. That oddity splashed like a pebble in Grundurg’s mind, though its ripples were swamped by consideration of the greater mystery. A fog that had drifted against the wind.

  Grundrug stomped into his canvas quarters. Here at least, the heat from three braziers had warmed the air enough to absorb some of the hanging moisture. The plush stolen inner cloths were dripping with water, but the line of sight across the tent was clear if slightly blurred. Grundurg stiffened as he saw a green hued shape sprawled face down across his bed. A cacophony of connections fired in his brain as he remembered the odd glances Skarat had given towards the tent he guarded and in particular towards his chief’s human plaything, the girl Hepdida. Three quick strides took Grundurg across the soft carpet. He seized the shoulder of the recumbent guard who had so unwisely encroached upon his chieftain’s property under the unexpected cover of this fog.

  Surprise was not yet finished with Grundurg when the chieftain flung the deceitful orc over. Skarat’s eyes were open and unseeing, his chest and throat punctured by a dozen dagger wounds. The blade was broken off in the last of them, lodged between the betrayer’s ribs. As the chief’s eyes scanned the scene he saw the hilt with an inch of jagged edge on the carpet. It was a weapon he had seen Skarat play with many a time. The guard would challenge others to the finger game, dancing the knife back and forth at ever increasing speed in the gaps between the fingers of his hand splayed against a table. However, some other hand had now seized the weapon from Skarat’s belt and turned it on its owner.

  Grundrug bent to lift the broken knife. The sharp shards of the blade were stained with drying blood, black for the dead orc mingling with the scarlet of human origin. The chieftain scanned the floor. He found the end of the rope hacked through, its frayed ends spotted with blood where the escapee’s haste had overridden caution. The blood was still fresh and the drops led across the carpet to the back of the tent, where a flap of canvas hung looser than before.

  Grundurg gave out a great roar. Nostrils flared, filling his senses with the scent of the bleeding fearful fleeing captive. He whistled for his wolf and strode from the tent, calling into the white mist for a hunting party to assemble. He was almost done with the girl. She’d had a couple more days before the end. However, this insult to his dignity would not be borne. In seeking to flee she had not only brought forward the day of her demise, but chosen a method well suited to the orc’s foul sense of pleasure. Hunting humans was always a joy and, with wolf and orcish olfactory powers at work, the fog would be but a minor inconvenience in tracking and toying with the fugitive.

  ***

  Hepdida ran and ran. The gash in her foot was bleeding freely and the fever that had spread from her other ill healed wounds was clouding her thinking. The fog surrounding her was the stuff of dreams and nightmares. Somewhere beyond sight was the orcish camp. She did not know whither she was running any more, stumbling and staggering. She might well be hastening back towards the odious captivity. The moment of strength which had filled her limbs when the foul orc descended had faded. The force with which she had driven the evil creature’s knife into his chest had sucked the last vestiges of power from her own shaking quivering body.

  There was a howl of a wolf to her right. She lurched to the left, a stumbling run taking her away from the pursuit but with little hope than for a few more seconds’ survival. The fog was thinner now, or was that her mind clearing. Her vision stretched beyond her outstretched hand and then some thirty feet or more besides, and in that range of view a new apparition condensed from the mist.

  It was a horse walking slowly, lead by a tall lean figure. She staggered towards them, even as the walker perceived her. “Help,” Hepdida cried as she tripped and fell into the stranger’s outstretched arms. The newcomer laid her gently on the ground, though Hepdida winced as her wounded back touched the rough earth.

  “What’s your name?” a woman’s voice gently asked. Hepdida’s eyes strained to focus, bringing the blurred face into clear definition, a young woman pale skinned, bright green eyes, framed by red hair tied tightly back. “My name is Niarmit. What’s yours?”

  “Orcs, orcs chasing me,” Hepdida mumbled and then, for confirmation, there came a baying of a wolf unseen and yet so close that it seemed they could smell its foul breath.

  ***

  The girl’s eyes closed in a faint and Niarmit rose swiftly, drawing the sword from the scabbard across her back. The next howl was followed by the beast itself, bursting from the fog a few yards away at full pelt, urged on by the great orc sitting astride its back. The animal leapt and Niarmit ducked and thrust upwards.

  There was a canine yelp and a wrench at her sword arm as the falling weight of the impaled animal threatened to pull not just the sword from her hand but her shoulder from its socket. She let the twisting force carry her round in a sinuous swirl, n
ever letting go of the hilt of the sword. The dying wolf’s momentum carried both its rider and its slayer some yards back level with the patient Sharkle and his litter.

  Niarmit, stretched full on the ground dragged herself swiftly upright heaving the sword free from the wolf’s body. On the other side of the fallen animal the orc was kicking himself free of its flank and reaching for his scimitar. Orc and thief rose together, facing each other weapon in hand across the lupine corpse.

  “Grundurg kill you, kill you slow,” the orc announced.

  Niarmit wasted no words on the creature, leaping atop the wolf and feinting left then thrusting right with a blow that Grundurg only just parried. The orc fell back, more wary now.

  “You pretty,” he said with a leer. “Maybe Grundurg not kill you, Grundurg keep you as toy. Old toy all worn out now. Grundurg cut her lots. Give you her skin for a blanket.” He nodded in the direction of the prone servant girl. When the merest twitch of Niarmit’s eyes showed her glance that way, he launched into a furious assault, raining swingeing blows of his scimitar down from left and right that drove Niarmit back towards Sharkle.

  The orc’s eyes widened as he caught sight of the burden the white horse was dragging. In that moment of distraction Niarmit launched her own flurry of thrusts and lunges, but the orc parried them almost lazily, circling through a quarter turn to bring himself alongside the litter and Niarmit by the horse. “What this? old elf? I wait for old elf. My Master wants to meet old elf. Maybe I just kill you and take old elf to my Master. He give me lots of pretty girls.”

  The orc’s jibes continued unbroken by his vicious swordplay. Niarmit working hard could match him blow for blow. While there was a certain dignity in silence, she had to admit she would not have the breath to fight and talk as freely as the orc appeared able to.

  “No more talk,” Grundurg announced. “Now you die!” With that he brought his other hand onto to the hilt of the scimitar and wielding it two handed drove Niarmit back and back along the horse’s flank. Niarmit, handling her weapon in similar manner kept his blows at bay, but the orc’s sword swung faster and faster beating her down on one knee.

  One furious strike caught the foible of her sword, spinning her off balance. She dodged as the scimitar swung back but could not stop it scoring a deep cut in her bicep and then an orcish boot in the chest flung her onto her back. She was scrabbling to bring her sword near, arching her back as the first move in a defensive leap that Kaylan had taught her for escape from such situations. But there was not the time, the orc’s sword was raised for the final blow and she had neither armour for protection or space for escape.

  Grundurg grunted and suddenly toppled forward onto his knees. Sharkle had struck him a heavy blow in the small of the back, unbalancing the chieftain, though the orc’s armour had saved his bones from breaking.

  It could not save him from Niarmit’s blade, swinging hard and fast across the orc’s unprotected neck, it opened his throat from twisted ear to misshapen shoulder. Grundurg made a gurgling choking noise as black blood spilled down his breast plate. His eyes flashed with viridian malice and he struggled to raise his scimitar for another blow. Niarmit, springing upright as Kaylan had taught her, swung her sword back across the dying orc’s neck, this time completing the job of separating head from body. The former rolled some ten feet away, while the latter fell forward gushing black gore across the ground.

  The thief drew in some hungry breaths, resting on her sword a moment. She gave Sharkle a pat of thanks on his neck and cleaned and sheaved her weapon. Then she turned back to the unconscious servant girl whose appearance had precipitated this sudden end to the long drudgery of the fog bound journey from that far away beach.

  The girl was feverish, her clothes ragged and torn. No not torn. These were cuts and beneath each straight edged gash in her tattered chemise Niarmit could see parallel wounds in the ski, some deep and weeping. Her face too was injured, a pair of straight edged cuts on each cheek, ill healed ugly fissures in her flesh.

  “What’s your name girl ?”

  “H…H…Hepdida,” came the muttered reply as the girl tossed her head sideways eyes closed, her answer given in some unhappy dream that Niarmit’s question had intruded on.

  “Well, the orc’s dead. You’re safe now Hepdida.”

  A low snarl from beyond the mist made her start, glancing first at the cooling corpse of Grundurg’s steed. But then an echo of the growl from the left triggered a chorus of lupine howls all around her. Niarmit hauled the semi-conscious girl upright and part carried part dragged her back towards the horse as a ring of wolf riding orcs emerged from the mist. She let Hepdida slip to the ground at the horse’s feet and drew her sword again with a long rasp of steel on scabbard.

  “Grundurg’s dead,” she told the dozen newcomers, kicking the chieftain’s headless corpse for emphasis. “The first three that come near me are joining him in hell, so who’s ready for death today?”

  The bold words, and the bloody evidence of Niarmit’s sword work gave the hunting party some pause for thought. The wolves padded in a circle around her, about ten yards away – none of the riders daring to venture close. But then at a guttural command from the larger leader, six of them drew long war bows from their backs. Niarmit glanced around helplessly at the encirclement. The archer orcs were nocking yard long black arrows to highly tensioned strings and then hauling back with effortless patience to bend the huge curved bows into lethal compression. The other orcs hefted great axes and halberds, equally at ease with the prospect of a melee or casting their weapons as missiles after the flight of arrows. Niarmit bobbed lightly on her feet, trying to judge the moment and direction to duck. One arrow she might just dodge, but six!

  There was a distant twang of a bowstring released. Niarmit flung herself rolling sideways, an orc grunted, a black arrow shot into the dome of fog. A discontinuous hum of shivering bowstrings filled the air as Niarmit surfaced from her rolling dive by an orc struggling on a stumbling wolf. The orc’s leg was pinned to the animal by a fine white arrow, four inches of tail feathers protruding from his thigh.

  Niarmit had no time to ponder the strangeness of it. The orc swung at her with an axe but the sudden stagger of the wounded animal threw his aim off and as he swayed off balance Niarmit drove her sword deep into his armpit, traversing his chest with a blow that shredded arteries and lungs. The wolf tripped and tried to run with its dying rider still stapled to its back, but then two more white arrows took the beast behind the ear and it fell to the ground.

  Spinning round Niarmit found the lead huntsmen closing on her, halberd held like a lance to strike her down. As he lowered the spear on the left side, she jinked to his right. The orc leaned back to swing the spear across, but he was too close and the move exposed the gap between the base of his steel breastplate and the cuisse covering his thighs. Niarmit’s sword thrust into the opening, biting through his thick green hide into the soft vitals beneath. With a grunt the orc slid over the back of his still galloping wolf. Niarmit yanked her bloodied sword free and spun round to face the fearsome great wolf as it skittered to a halt and turned to charge back at her. As the animal made its leap, a trio of white arrows erupted in its flank and it tumbled into a lifeless ball at Niarmit’s feet.

  At once Niarmit whirled around seeking the next threat, but there was none. The orcs and their animals lay sprawled across the ground, mostly pierced by fine white arrows. They were all dead, or dying and, as Niarmit gazed in stupefaction at her deliverance, a half dozen tall shapes separated from the mist.

  Finely armoured, dark skinned and bearing elegant bows of sinuous strength, six elves approached her. The foremost elf, taller than the others, wore a wry grin on his youthful countenance, though Niarmit reflected he was doubtless already many centuries older than her.

  “I am in your debt,” she bowed low. “Who do I have the honour of thanking for saving me and my companions?”

  The elf returned her bow. “My name is Tordil, Captain of Hersh
wood and we have much to thank you for, my Lady Niarmit.”

  “You know me?!”

  “The Lady Illana has been expecting you and when she sensed the presence of my Lord Feyril she sent us out to escort you the last few miles to our diminished realm.”

  “Feyril is grievously wounded,” Niarmit hastened to advise them. “He has but barely spoken throughout our journey and I know not what bonds could bind his soul to his shattered body.”

  “A thousand year old love can hold a spirit far better than mere flesh and sinew,” Tordil assured her. “But what of your other companion?” The elven archers had, at a gesture from Tordil gone to minister to the somnolent Feyril in his litter and the listless Hepdida slumped at Sharkle’s feet.

  Niarmit shrugged. “I met her but a moment ago, coming out of the fog. She has suffered ill at the hands of these orcs who were chasing her. I fear her wounds may be too grievous for healing.”

  “The girl is burning up Captain,” the elf by Hepdida announced, his hand pressed to the girl’s forehead.

  Tordil nodded grimly. “We must leave this place. The orcs’ encampment is but half a mile due West of us. Were it not for yon girl, you might have blundered into the midst of it before we could find you. We head south into the forest. The orcs still will not follow us beneath the canopy of trees. A mile or two should see us safe, for the moment at least. However, let us hurry, this fog is thinning fast and I’d not like to be caught out in the open plain.”

  ***

  Kychelle strode imperiously into Giseanne’s quarters, thumping the base of her staff against the flagstones more for effect than support. “Leave us,” she commanded the attendant ladies in waiting who rose as one, bowed low and fled.

  “Grandmother, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” Giseanne set aside her needlework and folded her hands over her swollen belly.

  Kychelle took the seat nearest her granddaughter in law, and glanced furtively to left and right seeking for the most apposite opening gambit. The search disappointed her and with a disdainful sigh she observed, “my grandson rode out this morning.”