The Tattered Banner

by Duncan M. Hamilton

  As he moved, Alys continued to back away, shuffling on her backside toward the tree behind her. Could beleks climb? Could she for that matter? The creature cast her a furtive glance, and then looked back to Soren, focussing its attention on him. He was far more interesting prey. The freezing air was filled with the steam and the metallic tang of the horse’s blood. The red stain the blood had created on the snow painted the only colour on the otherwise black and white scene. Out of the corner of his eye, Soren could see the spear, intact in its fastenings on the horse’s flank. He moved toward it, one step at a time, waving his arms and shouting abuse at the belek, which inched ever closer to him. It clearly enjoyed the anticipation of what was to come but it always maintained the caution that betrayed its superb intelligence.

  The spear was only a few feet away. One or two more steps and he would be able to reach it. Alys was now at the base of the tree, quietly getting to her feet. Soren tried not to look at her, or the spear, not wanting to direct the belek’s attention at anything other than him. The spear was closer now, so close he thought he could almost reach it. He put out his hand seeking it, his eyes locked on the belek’s.

  His head was filled with a blinding flash and he was on the ground, on his belly, his face full of mud, blood and snow. The horse had kicked at the wrong moment, hitting Soren at the base of the neck as he reached for the spear. As he rolled over, trying to regain his wits, a foul stench of rotted flesh and sourness filled his nostrils. His vision cleared to be greeted with the face of the belek no more than an inch from his own, saliva stringing between its teeth as it curled its lips back to bare them in preparation for the kill. For the first time he noticed the faintest of blue glows coruscating between the hairs of its fur and along its whiskers.

  It took its time, placing a paw on each of Soren’s shoulders as it regarded him carefully. Its claws dug deep into his shoulders, so painfully that it did not seem real. Its cold and merciless intelligence was never more obvious. From somewhere in a world that no longer appeared to exist, a female voice called out, harsh and desperate, but the belek ignored it. For now, there was only the two of them, locked in their own little world. The single voice was then joined by others, male voices, but these seemed to be even farther away. The hunters had arrived, but the belek ignored these also. It prodded his chest gently with his fangs and then slowly lifted its head back for what would be the killing strike. Then it slowed even more. Soren felt a wave of nausea wash over him, but it passed as quickly as it had come. It was only then that Soren realised everything seemed to be going at so much slower a pace than it had. A droplet of saliva falling from one of the Beleks fangs seemed to almost freeze in mid-air. Soren grabbed for his dagger, his arms still mobile from the elbows. Everything seemed to be in slow motion except for him. He struggled to orient his hand to a position where he could grab the dagger, but his pinned shoulders made it almost impossible. The belek’s fangs grew ever closer as he forced his hand into the hilt and pulled the dagger free from its sheath. He twisted the handle in his fingers pointing the blade up and pushed it up into the belek’s belly, then pulled it toward his face, spilling the beast’s warm guts down upon himself.

  Its eyes widened in shock as the pain registered, and for the briefest of moments Soren thought that it would strike one final blow to kill its killer, but the damage done was too severe and its heavy body slumped down on top of him. It gave out a prolonged, exhausted gasp before its body relaxed and life escaped it.

  Alys’s voice filled his ears. She was over him, barely visible past the belek’s body, pulling at the carcass, but its weight was too much for her to budge. The world returned to normal as though Soren had been violently ripped from one place and hurled roughly into another where everything happened more quickly and more loudly. He felt as though he had plunged into a pool of misery. He burned with exhaustion and pain. Voices created a confused cacophony that startled him. His breathing slowed and became difficult, all the more so with the belek’s bulk pressing down on his chest. His head lolled as he fought to remain awake.

  He realised that the belek had sunk its fangs into his shoulder as it had collapsed, but the pain was becoming only a faint, muffled feeling, damped by his exhaustion like the way the snow seemed to muffle the sound. There were more people about him now, appearing as no more than shadows in the pale light. The skeletal shapes of the branches of bare trees etched their way across the blindingly white sky. He remembered the feeling of the belek’s body being jostled on top of him, and then nothing.

  C h a p t e r 2 3

  A QUICK RECOVERY

  He awoke in a bed of crisp white sheets with a feeling of comfort so intense he did not want to move or change a thing. It took a moment for the memories of what went before to make themselves known. He pushed them to the back of his mind and sat up to make a fuller examination of his surroundings. A man who was not much older than Soren sat on a wooden chair by the window. He was staring idly out of it, a look of extreme boredom on his face. Soren cleared his throat as he propped himself up in the bed on his elbows. A tightness and pain in his left shoulder reminded him of the wound.

  ‘Oh! You’re awake!’ the man said. With that he bolted out of the room, unceremoniously slamming the door behind him.

  Soren sat, puzzled by the behaviour for a few minutes, until there was a commotion at the door and Captain Jarod walked in.

  ‘It was all that I could do to keep the Princess and her ladies out, I don’t imagine you need them fussing over you right now,’ he said.

  ‘No, thank you, the peace and quiet is nice,’ Soren replied. He still felt a little disoriented and was also unsure of how long he had been asleep.

  ‘I won’t be able to hold them off for ever mind, but I should be able to give you an hour or two more at least,’ he said. His face broke into a smile, the first Soren had seen on it. ‘I wanted to thank you for what you did. It was the bravest thing I have seen, and when hunting belek is your main occupation, you witness a great deal of bravery. I’m sure stories of you killing a belek with only a dagger are already on their way back to Brixen. What I want to thank you for though, is saving her Highness’s life. It was careless of me not to notice she frightened one of the younger nobles into switching places with her, and if she had been hurt? Well, I’ve heard what the inside of Brixen dungeon is like, and I’ve no desire to see it first hand.’

  ‘She was all right then?’ Soren asked.

  ‘Yes, we got to you just as you killed the belek. In truth I thought you were already dead. There is a reason we use such a long spear to kill them, few get as close as you did and live. I hope it doesn’t set a new precedent though, the last thing I need is hordes of clueless nobles wanting to kill a belek with a dagger.’ He chuckled. The relief at having avoided a near disaster seemed to have relaxed his usually rigid countenance.

  ‘What happened? How did it get around behind you?’ Soren asked.

  ‘It didn’t. There were two, which is unusual. Ordinarily they stay in their own territories, only meeting with others when the mating season begins, which won’t start until the thaw is well and truly under way, three or four weeks away at the very least, I should think. Lord Aratha took the other and is suitably pleased with himself, but I don’t think there will be very much talk about that! Before I go, I wanted to give you this.’ Jarod reached over and handed Soren a small medallion hanging from a fine silver chain. It was a small silver disc, with a clear gemstone at its centre that had the faintest of blue hues. There was an inscription in finely engraved letters around the edge of one side. ‘It’s the amulet of a royal huntsman,’ said Jarod. ‘The inscription is a blessing intended to keep the wearer safe and the stone is a telastar, which is also supposed to keep the wearer safe from harm. I’ll leave you in peace now, and thank you again.’

  He left Soren to stare at the beautiful little trinket, alone with his thoughts. He tried to recall all of the detail of the incident. As he delved back into his memory, the pieces began
to come back to him. The cold, the stench of blood, the red splatter on the snow, steaming in the wintry air. The sound of the belek, its growl, the crunch of its paws on the snow, the pained screams of his horse. He remembered the blue glow on the belek’s fur. He would have thought it a figment of his imagination were it not for the fact that he had seen it once before, surrounding a freshly activated drone in the training hall at the Academy. That time he had discounted it, but now? He remembered the feeling of sickness and the way everything around him slowed, while he had not. He remembered the exhaustion afterward, and that he still felt. He thought of what Master Dornish had said to him about the ability enjoyed by the bannerets of old; had Soren experienced the Moment that he had spoken of?

  He did not have long to dwell on this however, as Jarod’s promised two hours proved to be a gross over estimation. Alys and her ladies whirled into the room, creating a not entirely unpleasant fuss. Ordinarily he did not like being the centre of attention, but he found that he did not mind this type of attention so much.

  Soren was always surprised by the dichotomy in Alys; part of her wanted to fence, race the ice and hunt belek, and part of her was as girly as the most delicate of her ladies. It took him some time to convince them that he was perfectly all right. The wound on his shoulder had not been as deep as he had feared, and it had been expertly cleaned and dressed while he slept. Other than a very vague discomfort, he barely noticed it so long as he did not move too quickly. It did amuse him, however, that Alys’s ladies looked at him with the same air of adoration that they had hitherto reserved for Jarod. Ruripathian women seemed to view belek scars in a similar fashion to the way duelling scars were regarded in the south. He wondered what Alessandra would think of them, the remembrance of her making him oddly uncomfortable in Alys’ presence.

  He did not accompany the hunt again. Although he felt up to it, Alys had made him promise that he would rest until they left the summer palace. ‘Anyway,’ she had told him, ‘it would be greedy to kill more than one belek on your first hunt.’

  He only agreed to remain at the Palace on the condition that she did the same, although both of them knew that Jarod would not be so careless a second time.

  The remainder of the trip was a mixed success. Two more belek were killed before they departed and sadly also three members of the hunting party. Most of the hunters went home without a kill, but with a story that would soon be abuzz around the principality.

  When Soren returned to the city, there was only one topic of conversation on people’s lips; the brave young southerner who had slain a belek with only a dagger. Those in the know also whispered that he had saved Princess Alys in the process. This had been kept discretely out of most of the gossip though, to spare Alys from her father’s anger, but more importantly to spare Captain Jarod, who had not really been at fault but would likely pay a severe price nonetheless if word of the incident were to reach the Prince’s ear.

  A state funeral had been held for Chancellor Marin, which had by all accounts been a solemn affair. Amero had represented Ostia and consoled with the Prince over the loss of one of his most trusted advisors and oldest friends. More importantly, no suspicion was cast upon the Ostians. It seemed that Chancellor Marin had had a history of heart trouble, and an incident such as this had been feared, if not expected, for some time. It had all worked out perfectly to the advantage of Ostia. What was more, rid of Marin’s influence, the Prince was leaning more heavily on his other counsellors, who, it seemed, were far more favourable to Amero’s propositions.

  The night of their return, a small banquet was held to welcome them back. The seating arrangements were very much the same as they had been at the first banquet, Soren on one side of the Princess, a disgruntled Captain Varrisher on the other. Where before all the female attention had been directed at Varrisher, now it was to Soren. Varrisher was a man who enjoyed being the centre of attention, and was now very clearly on the outside looking in. Soren did not so much enjoy the attention he was receiving as the absence of it that Varrisher was experiencing.

  Soren did however enjoy the new found respect he was being treated with by the other men at the table.

  ‘Have you ever considered coming to our Academy here in Brixen to study?’ asked a heavily built man in his early forties. He had an impossibly well sculpted moustache, thick in the centre and curving into fine upward pointing tips. He sat with a martial bearing in an immaculate grey uniform and wore the insignia that designated him as a Banneret of the Grey, an accolade that immediately commanded respect. Soren replied that it had not occurred to him, but that it was certainly an interesting idea.

  ‘We fight with a slightly different technique, but it is easily a match for your southern style when properly executed. Regardless, it’s never any harm to study things from a different perspective,’ he said.

  Soren was about to respond when Varrisher interjected.

  ‘Southern swordsmen seem to be more interested in dagger play than proper swordsmanship. I’m sure he would have little interest in our northern ways,’ he said, with a slight sneer in his voice. His comment was intended to encourage Soren to say something that could be considered an insult, and he recognised the fact at once. He took a short pause before responding. He did not want to be drawn into offending the Ruripathians but likewise he was not going to be condescended to by Varrisher, who was clearly smarting at the lack of attention he was receiving.

  ‘I assure you that I’m more than capable with sword as well as dagger. What’s more, I’m always open to learning new styles and techniques. Perhaps you would oblige me with a demonstration?’ Soren replied evenly.

  The heavy-set banneret guffawed and banged his fist on the table. ‘Excellent, a friendly duel then! Shall we call it for noon tomorrow? I would suggest tonight, but I wouldn’t want you to spoil your dinners!’

  Soren immediately agreed that this would be perfect, and Varrisher was left with no choice but to agree also. Soren felt that he had turned Varrisher’s sniping comment to his own advantage with satisfaction. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Amero was watching him, his brow slightly furrowed. He really misses nothing, Soren thought.

  The conversation quickly moved on from the sensation that was the impending duel between Soren and Captain Varrisher, although Soren did catch ladies at the table eyeing him with regard on more than one occasion, which made him feel slightly awkward.

  ‘You should consider studying here you know,’ Alys said. ‘If a treaty is successfully concluded then there would be no reason not to, what with you being a personal friend of the Princess and all.’ She let the comment hang in the air between them for a moment before continuing. ‘I do hope a treaty is concluded. With Chancellor Marin gone, I worry. He was such a moderating influence on the council. So many of my father’s advisers are firebrands, who would happily go to war for honour, glory and the ever-desired warm water port.’

  Her comment caught Soren by surprise. Surely she must have it wrong?

  ‘But, if we had a warm water port,’ she said, ‘what ever would Captain Varrisher do with himself, with no ice gauntlet to run!’

  Soren chuckled, but Varrisher glowered at his plate. Perhaps he was coming to the determination that his one year at the Academy and dozen or so skirmishes with pirates might not be enough to defeat Soren.

  C h a p t e r 2 4

  A SHOW OF STRENGTH

  Varrisher had been correct when he had said that there was an excellent fencing hall in the Palace. It was long and high ceilinged, with polished wooden floors and was decorated with all sorts of martial artefacts, banners, swords and suchlike. A reasonable crowd had gathered, most of those who were in regular attendance at the court and some that Soren did not recognise. The moustached banneret whose name Soren could not remember was at the front, clearly looking forward to a good display of swordsmanship. All the ladies of court were there also, looking on giddily.

  The moustached banneret had appointed himself as the referee
for the duel and quickly ran through the rules of what he repeatedly referred to as a friendly exhibition bout. In consideration of this, Soren would be allowed to use a straight, southern blade, while Captain Varrisher would be using a Ruripathian backsword. The match would be to three touches.

  The two duellists spent a few minutes loosening up and then with a cursory shake of hands, they began.

  Right from the off, Soren knew he had a serious advantage. After Master Dornish had given him the Ruripathian swords, he had practised against them for hours despite his tiredness and Dornish’s recommendation to rest. Varrisher was no slouch; Soren had to give him that much credit. Against many Academy students, he would have held his own. If he had stayed on at the Ruripathian Academy and graduated, he would probably have made quite a good swordsman. As it was, for Soren he was little more than fodder.

  As Soren would have expected, Varrisher was flashy. He attacked quickly with sweeping cuts and a loud ‘ha!’ each time he did. He saw himself as being the daring, swashbuckling type, and was eager for others to see him in the same light. Showboating didn’t bother Soren. It was the lack of respect that necessarily accompanied it that did. Soren wasn’t some scurvy ridden little pirate who barely knew the pointy end of a sword from the blunt one and he was determined that Varrisher would learn this sooner rather than later.

  The attack was not challenging at all but Soren decided to play along for the time being, letting it appear that Varrisher was putting him under far more pressure than he actually was. He seemed to have plenty of time to consider his course, a trait that he was now beginning to think of as having something to do with the ability Dornish had spoken of, the Moment. Varrisher smiled as he heard the sighs from the ladies in attendance each time he attacked. Soren sighed too, but for an entirely different reason.