by T. O. Munro
“The captain is hurt, and he’s let them put a hole in my robes.”
Niarmit spun round to see the wispy bearded necromancer bowing over the injured elf. She seized his arm. “Where are your bonds, prisoner? What have you done?”
The elf helmsman coughed discretely. “The prisoner has been of some assistance, My Lady. It is his magic which disguised our boat and allowed us to come to your assistance. He is an illusionist.”
Niarmit looked afresh at the prisoner, who bowed low in return. “I am in your debt Master Thomelator. How can I repay you?”
“Two things my Lady.”
“Name them”
“Please call me Thom, and please don’t send me into exile because of my harmless pastime.”
“Archers on the bridge,” the helmsman warned. “We have to shoot the central span but they’ll still have us at point blank range.”
“How many arrows have you got left,” Niarmit asked.
“Not enough, and even then we can’t shoot and row.”
“I have a spell which may help,” Thomelator offered. “Though in truth it would be best if you could all look a little bit panicked but absolutely not try and shoot back. That would spoil my illusion.”
The bridge was fifty yards away and already a few outlanders were stretching their bows for a test shot. “What ever you have planned, Thom, I would do it quickly,” Niarmit growled.
As the illusionist whirled his fingers in a seemingly double jointed incantation, Niarmit bent down beside the injured Tordil. “Hepdida, come help me bandage the Captain’s wounds.” The servant girl tore her gaze away from the river bank and knelt beside the semi-concsious elf in the thwarts of the boat. Niarmit tore strips of cloth to pack around the deep puncture wound. “The spear head is still in there, I can use the Goddesses favour to get it out once we find a safe landing spot. If we find a safe landing spot.”
“Niarmit,” Hepdida asked. “I shouldn’t have been able to open the secret doors should I, or hold the helm?”
“We’ll talk once we’re safe, Hepdida.”
“Niarmit, who am I?”
She paused in her work to look at the troubled servant girl. “Hepdida, dear Hepdida, you are my cousin. It seems Udecht found himself no more tightly bound by his priestly vows than Gregor held to his marital vows.”
“Is that why the Bishop ran back for the helm?”
“Incomming arrows,” the helmsman warned.
“Try and look panicked, duck about a bit,” Thomelator reminded them, though the outlander arrows all splashed harmlessly several feet to the right. Nonetheless, they played the charade the illusionist asked and the next volley of arrows fell no closer. Then they were under the bridge’s central span and out the other side where a fresh flurry of arrow-shots were met with no greater success.
“What have you done to their aim, illusionist?” the helmsman demanded in wonderment.
“Hush, I’m concentrating.”
It was some minutes more before Thomelator was sure they were safe from harm, half a mile downstream of the bridge and carried as fast as river current and elven oars could drive them.
“What did you do?”
“I merely created an illusion that the boat was some feet away from where it was. Provided you all acted the part, I could convince them that their arrows were all just missing, though, in truth, they were firing pretty much dead on through the centre of my illusionary boat.”
“What a glad happenstance that you stumbled upon us this morning, Thom the illusionist,” Niarmit said.
“Life is like that, My Lady, small chance events that set the course of your life for ever.”
***
Udecht crouched in the centre of the circle. The swelling around his right eye had all but closed it. His tongue flicking around his mouth felt a tooth so loose he would not keep it beyond another sunrise if he lived to see another sunrise. His whole body ached with bruises and his back was sticky with blood from a flailing axe which he had incompletely dodged. But he held the Helm, and the Helm held the ring of orcs and outlanders at bay. Around him lay half a dozen orcish corpses, a couple felled by the Helm before Udecht had reached it. The other four had been at the forefront of the gauntlet of blows and abuse Udecht had suffered, and they in turn had been the first to suffer when his evasive tumble had brought him within reach of the precious artefact. It may not have been the weapon as Tordil had imagined it, but poking the steel helmet at his attackers had been a satisfyingly effective stratagem.
So, the ring of enemies surrounded him but dared not close. Everytime a bolder assailant took a step inwards, Udecht thrust the helm towards him prompting an instant retreat. It was standoff which neither side could break, but the Bishop feared their stamina would easily outlast his. He rose unsteadily, his injured knee buckling beneath his weight as he weighed his chances of charging through the encirclement. However, there was a forest of spears several ranks deep beyond his immediate self-made clearing. Even a fabled rhinoceros would struggle to break through by sheer momentum, still less a battered half-fed priest with a dodgy knee.
There was a stir behind him and he whirled round, almost toppling over at the jolt of pain that shot up his leg. The crowd was parting about an oval window which had opened in the air. With heavy heart but no surprise, Udecht saw Maelgrum, followed by Haselrig, step through the portal.
The undead wizard tilted his head to one side, inspecting the curious prospect infront of him. The fire was back in his eyes and the scorch marks on his wizened flesh had faded back to that mummified blackness which passed for the lich’s normal skin tone.
“Where isss the wizard who defied me?”
“I don’t know. He is gone. He took the boat.”
“You lie! A woman, a girl and an elf fled in that boat. Where isss the wizard who wore that Helm and dared to claim dominion over me?”
“I know nothing of him.”
“Then you are no ussse to me.” The Lich took a step forward but stopped as Udecht poked the Helm two handed infront of him.
“You want this, foul one. Maybe you’d like to feel the sting of the Helm. There’s plenty of your servants here have felt it.”
Maelgrum paused. His right hand moved in a quick spell which ended with an upward flick of someone tossing an object over their shoulder. Nothing happened apart from a nervous quickening to Udecht’s breathing. Whatever effect Maelgrum had expected, he was clearly disappointed for he immediately made a second attempt with no more discernible impact.
“Master,” Haselrig hissed. “It seems the Helm will not submit to your spell of disarmament. It is powerfully enchanted.”
“Then you mussst find out itsss secretsss little one. That will be your next tasssk and one you ssshould accomplish ssswiftly. But firssst thisss fairground trickery may ssserve to amussse me and punisssh a priessst who hasss already lived too long.” The wizard summoned another spell and clenched his fists infront of him. Udecht felt the freezing grip on his wrists, even though the Lich was still ten foot away. As the Lich raised his own blackened hands, Udecht found his arms lifted bringing the Helm hovering over his own head. “If you are ssso fond of thisss artefact, then perhapsss you will enjoy wearing it. Your brother the unlamented Xander did not enjoy the exsssperience, let usss sssee if you are more fortunate.”
Horrified but powerless Udecht found his hands rising in mimicry of the Lich’s until both undead lord and frightened priest had their arms stretched high above their heads. Maelgrum’s mouth opened in a rictus grin. “Now isss the time for lassst wordsss, or a ssswift prayer to the Goddesss who hasss ssso clearly abandoned you.”
“No!”
Maelgrum’s head swung round to the source of this denial. Haselrig trembling but resolute repeated his assertion. “No, Master.”
“Isss it that you wissssh to wear the Helm yourssself, little one,” Maelgrum growled. “If ssso I can happily make you sssset it on your own ssskull once the Bishop hasss finissshed with it?”
“Thisss isss a ssstrange day that my authority ssshould be challenged thrice,” the Lich mused. “Ssstill, this sham puzzle ssset by Eadran the traitor may be of sssome curiousss value. You can have your asssissstant and he hisss keeper, but let usss bind you together until your work is done.” At another dextrous flick, a glowing blue rope materialised and snaked through the air binding Udecht and Haselrig left wrist to right wrist. “And assss an added incentive, each sssunssset that passsesss without your finding an anssswer to this trivial conundrum, you will experience a reminder like thisss.”
The Lich clicked his fingers and a spark of electricity shot both ways along the rope blasting priest and antiquary off their feet. As the tethered pair groaned back into a sitting position, Maelgrum added. “The ssstrength of thisss reminder will grow with each day of failure, ssso I would urge you to be indussstriousss and efficient in your resssearch, or eventually you may even feel driven to wear the Helm of your own choice.”
The idea amused the lich and he flung back his head in silent laughter which was given a sycophantic echo by the assembled orcs and outlanders.
***
“Is he dead,” Hepdida asked. “Did he die?”
Niarmit felt the ankh around her neck, no flash of heat or light had burst from it and that was some reassurance at least. “The Bishop still lives,” she said. “His fate is beyond our reach for now. How is the Captain?”
“The bleeding has slowed, but he is in pain still,” the servant girl replied as Tordil gave a groan from the bottom of the boat.
Niarmit sighed. She had used much of the Goddess’s favour in the hidden passageway healing her own wounds. Night had fallen and the elven boat was slipping along at speed in the darkness. The helmsman was at ease, steering the vessel midstream, but Niarmit would need rest and firm ground underfoot before she could dare to draw the spear head from the elf Captain’s wound.
“Why did you throw the Helm away?” Hepdida asked. “We came all this way to get it. It was a great weapon.”
“It was an illusion. A weapon as false as one of Thom’s visions,” Niarmit asserted, with a glance at the sleeping illusionist curled up in the prow of the boat.
“So what’s the plan now?” Hepdida pressed.
Niarmit bit her lip. “The plan now, is that you and I get some sleep, and in the morning we steer the boat ashore, get Tordil properly patched up and then we make a new plan for tomorrow.”
***
She had been more exhausted than she had imagined and it was only Thom’s shaking of her shoulder which woke Niarmit from a dream of storm and shipwreck. The Sun was already a handsbreadth above the horizon. Hepdida and Tordil slumbered on, the latter stirring unhappily with the pain of his wound. The tireless elven oarsmen combined with the fast flowing river to sweep the boat along at a pace few horses could match.
“The helmsman reckons there is a spot we could land at, about a quarter mile further on,” the illusionist said.
Niarmit nodded her assent. “Good, let’s get the Captain healed.”
Hepdida woke as the keel of the boat slid onto a sandy shore and the four oarsmen carried Tordil onto a hollow cove within the high river bank. Niarmit set to work, crescent of the Goddess in her hand as she prayed over the elf’s injured shoulder. Her fingers hovered over the hole punctured by the orcish spear and, as she intoned the mantra of healing over and over again, the steel head of the spear emerged gently from the split skin. Niarmit was concentrating fiercely to ensure the spearhead retraced its exact path, doing no more harm on exit than it had done on entry. At last, helped by the oozing serum which had flooded the wound, the spear-tip was drawn from the elf’s body and Niarmit could refocus the spell to close the wound and fight the infection.
Sweat broke out on her brow as the task neared completion and the tense silence of her companions seemed only a mirror to her own mood, until the helmsman coughed. “My lady.”
“We have company,” Thom added.
She looked up from the peacefully slumbering Tordil to see the skyline of their cove ringed with new arrivals. Three dozen of them. Wolf riding orcs, glowering down on the little party and their beached boat.
“They’re hearteaters,” Hepdida murmured fearfully. “That’s Grundurg’s tribe.”
The four elves and the lieutenant who had been steering the boat stood poised with drawn bows, white arrows aimed at the lead orcs.
“How many arrows have you got?” Niarmit asked as she straightened up.
“Not enough,” the lieutenant replied. “And in a moment they’ll realise that.”
“Can we push the boat off?”
“Not enough time.”
Niarmit drew the sword that Udecht had given her. It felt right in her hands, the blade shining in the morning light like burnished gold. “Thom, Hepdida, get Tordil back in the boat. And see if there is some spell in your armoury that might get us out of this fix.”
“My spells don’t hurt or kill people, my Lady,” the illusionist whimpered. “I can’t stop them or decieve all of them.”
“Just do your best,” Niarmit snapped as the illusionist and servant girl dragged the sleeping elf captain into the boat.
The sight of their trapped enemy beginning to flee forced the ring of orcish cavalry to action. Despite the lethal arrows of the elves, they kicked their lupine steeds to motion and charged down the slope and across the sand towards Niarmit and her small band. Eight of the creatures fell pierced by white arrows, but then they were upon the trapped travellers and the battle descended into individual melees with Niarmit and each of her companions facing off against five or more foes. Niarmit ducked and swayed and felt the sword sing in her hands as it sliced through first a wolf’s neck then an orc’s arm. The milling assailants got in each other’s way as they tried to bring teeth and weapons to bear, but weight of numbers was bound to tell. Niarmit saw one of the elves fall, cut down by an axe from behind, another was wounded leg twisted as he lay on the floor, the elf helmsman standing over him.
But then a trumpet sounded, splitting the air and the orcs hesitated at this new noise. ‘Clever, Thomelator’ Niarmit thought, impressed by the invention of an auditory illusion even as she slashed at the legs of one distracted orc.
The illusion grew in force as a thunder of lancers, most accurately depicted, came charging down the slopes. Sufficiently realistic to make the orcs drop back and give Niarmit some space to swing her sword more widely. Niarmit had to admire the detail Thomelator had put it into this illusion, though the anachronism of an elf leading a troop of Sturmcairn lancers would surely shatter the orcs’ belief in this phantasm.
But then the mounted elf unleashed two jets of fire that struck at the nearest orcs. The fire was sufficiently realistic to make them scream and beat at their bodies, sufficiently realistic to bring a stench of burning flesh to Niarmit’s nostrils. The fire was real.
Niarmit could see that the elf was female as she drew two swords from scabbards over her shoulders and laid into the orcs around her with brutal efficiency. To either side of her, lancers were spearing orcs and wolves as panic spread through the hearteaters’ ranks. The group around Niarmit rapidly thinned, as the orcs turned to try and flee.
“My Lady, I’m coming,” a forsaken but not forgotten voice called from within the vengeful cavalry.
And then it was over, bodies strewn across the sand with no orc or wolf left alive.
Panting with exertion, Niarmit leaned on her sword, its blade thick with green-black blood.
The elf lady rode up to her, clearly no illusion now, as the rest of the lancers picked over the bodies of the fallen. “How came you by King Gregor’s sword?” the elf demanded. “Who are you, and why are you here in such company?”
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br /> “Thank you for your timely intervention,” Niarmit replied with a bow. “But I would know who I have the honour of addressing, before I answer your questions.”
“I am Quintala, Seneschal to King Gregor. The rightful owner of that sword. How came you by it?”
Before Niarmit could answer, the voice came again, “My Lady. I had thought I might never see you again.”
Niarmit swung round as a ragged figure clumsily dismounted from a magnificent mare, more a controlled fall than a piece of expert horsemanship. “Kaylan?”
The thief stepped towards her arms spread wide to embrace her and then he suddenly stopped, conscious of the unspeakable familiarity he had been about to comit. His arms dropped to his side and he bowed, “my Lady.”
“Kaylan!” She grabbed him, pulled him towards her and wrapped her arms around him in a rib crushing embrace. “My Kaylan.” She buried her face in his shoulder. “I thought you were dead. I saw you fall.”
A burly lancer drew up on the reunited couple’s other side. “The orcs are all dead, Seneschal Quintala, we lost a couple of men. Good men. I hope these are worth it.”
“Thank you Sergeant, whether they are worth it remains to be proved. The fact that our wandering footpad knows the bearer of Gregor’s sword might augur ill for her having come by it honestly.”
Niarmit, loosened her hold on the faithful thief to stare up at Quintala’s face creased with doubt. Kaylan avoided everyone’s gaze, staring down at the ground and wiping his face with his sleeve.
“Has courtesy been the first casualty of these troubled times?” Niarmit asked. “If you are the Seneschal then you would know that I could not hold this weapon, still less wield it if I was not of the same line as Gregor.”
“Gregor had but two sons and they are both dead,” Quintala replied. “What trickery is this?”
“No trickery,” Niarmit assured her. “Just an age old story of two people whose straying beyond their marriage vows bore unexpected fruit.”