So it was that two days later the band of rescuers came to the Swift River Tribe out on the grasslands. A messenger was immediately sent to the King by fast horse to tell of the safe return of his children. The messenger also carried a letter from Chalc to Cristal, in which he informed her that Arwhon and Shiri were unaccounted for at present but they had both played a major part in the successful rescue of the Prince and Princess of Barsoom. It was a difficult letter for him to write but Arwhon’s Grandmother had to know the truth of it.
The King of Barsoom was humbly requested to have Chalc’s letter couriered to Cristal nasi Tsalkini in Belvedere as rapidly as possible.
Chalc and Kuiran were feted as heroes. The celebrations were wild as the people of the Swift River Tribe rejoiced with abandon at the return of the two Barsoom heirs. Chalc however, did not feel like a hero. Besides the all pervading sadness, he could not help but feel guilt at Arwhon and Shiri’s absence. Kuiran was somewhat lost; his purpose in life was now without direction, an Arm without a body. He decided to stay with Chalc and return with him to Belvedere where they could report and perhaps give comfort to Cristal as they waited in desperate hope of Arwhon and Shiri’s return. Cristal would be heartbroken if Arwhon was lost.
A further disturbing event occurred a few days later, when Chalc and Kuiran were getting ready to accompany the Prince and Princess of Barsoom to the Royal Court. They found Duran and Rancid had vanished from the Swift River herd during the celebrations and could not be found anywhere. None of the herders had seen them go and even Darla couldn’t help. It was a great mystery to all. Chalc took this as a good omen. Duran was a great horse and Rancid had fallen in love with a little girl. He would tell Cristal of this, it may mean there was hope yet.
The Empress Martine lay on her large, ornate four-poster bed. It was rumpled after her exercise and she had sent the two tired young men away. The evening’s activity hadn’t helped her and she still had a pounding headache. In fact she had borne the same headache now for the last four days, ever since that accursed ‘boy’ had appeared in the cavern beneath Gildon’s Keep and stolen her hostages. What was even more galling was the fact he wore the ring she had coveted for many years. It had been right there in front of her and Kroy had been supremely confident of getting his hand on it this time but the damn young idiot had hurled himself into the Black River in full mail. A hundred feet from the cavern’s mouth to the rushing waters below.
Martine had furiously ordered Kroy to mount a search of the river banks, both sides, for many miles downstream but the soldiers had found nothing and were now trying to drag the bottom of the river where a man in mail could still be laying trapped among the boulders. Her prisoners may be gone but she had to have the ring. Seventy years she’d been in power, during which time she’d grown the Dominion and then had part of it retaken but during the intervening years since the last conflict, Martine had not been idle. If the easy option was not to be..... then full-on war would be the best method to get what she wanted and she wanted Southland, in particular, Belvedere.
She would make it her new capital. One fitting for an Empress.
The white city was vastly superior to Goristoum and from there she could rule all the lands.
Just as she had been promised.
Planning for the coming conflict was well under way. Her southern ports in Graswyn would soon be host to a large fleet of Draakon Reavers, fully provisioned and armed. The supplies she had hoarded away all over Debrishar would provision her armies for as long as the campaign took and Barsoom would soon be hers anyway.
Martine stood before the polished silver mirror and gazed fondly at her reflection. Her flimsy wrap was partly open and the voluptuous body in the reflection brought a smile to her lips. She moved closer to scrutinise her smooth olive skinned face beneath the long ebony hair tumbling in disarray over her shoulders. Her brows were graceful, arching wings over dark almond eyes divided by a perfectly proportioned regal nose, beneath which full, sensual lips pouted. Not bad for one hundred and three years. She smiled and suddenly noticed tiny lines at the corners of her eyes which widened in horror. Time for another bath, a month must have passed. The deal she had made all those years ago required she have one special bath a month.
In maiden’s blood.
She pulled the bell rope and before long heard the quick steps of her most trusted maid, Carlinna. The rather plain, pale-haired handmaiden entered the room and dropped a deep curtsy.
“Empress.”
“Those three virgins from Tarkent; are they well?”
“Yes Empress, they have been treated with great care as usual and are quite healthy.”
“Excellent. Tell the Chief of Eunuchs that I wish my monthly bath to be prepared. I want it to be kept heated this time and stirred. Also add some milk to it so it doesn’t congeal as quickly as the last time. I have a terrible headache and need to soak for a while.”
Carlinna nodded and darted off. The Empress turned back to the mirror. There was not a man in Debrishar who did not lust after her, Kroy included but she kept him on a different hook. His hope of becoming the husband of Tarkent’s royal Princess and eventually its Ruler, kept him eminently biddable.
Shame about the hand, no wonder he had hated that ‘boy’ so much but rumours from her court indicated that it hadn’t slowed him down with the ladies. In fact, he’d had a few interesting devices made to screw into the silver socket which covered his scarred wrist. Reports were excellent so far.
Carlinna returned and gathered up the necessary personal toiletry items and led the way down to the ‘special’ bathing area. The now bloodless bodies of the Tarkent virgins had been removed and the tiled floor sluiced down. The pink bath looked inviting. Martine dropped her wrap and slid into the thick, swirling mixture, feeling the life forces from the maidens seeping into her body. This was an excellent bath, each of those Tarkent girls were worth any two from Debrishar. She leaned her head back and the headache lessened slightly but did not entirely vanish. Martine thanked her lucky stars for the deal she had made with the dark stranger that portentous day long ago.
Back at that time Martine was just a King’s second daughter, due to be married off to some boring old Duke in the near future. But that was before the stranger had appeared in the garden of the inner court at her father’s palace.
Tall and hooded, faceless yet graceful.
She had no idea how he’d got in there but it was of no matter. He offered her half the world and time to enjoy it. He told her he would place her in power in five days as proof of his abilities. Once she took power he would give her the secret to a long life. All she had to do in return was take over as many of the countries of Man as she could.
The King, her father, who was not so very old, tripped and fell down the stairs the following day, breaking his neck. Her mother’s grief was so profound she took a dose of poison. At the Royal funeral, her brother’s horse shied, completely out of character, and the yet-to-be crowned prince was killed as the wheels of the carriage carrying his parents’ bodies in their coffins, crushed him. Her elder sister choked to death on an olive at the Wake shortly thereafter. All in Debrishar agreed it was a series of very strange occurrences which gave Martine the throne but she was the next in line.
The very next morning, the fifth since his previous visit, the stranger reappeared, this time in her bedroom while she was alone. He claimed to be a Mage which was all to her liking. The pact was agreed on and sealed with her vow, after which Martine was given the secret of remaining forever young. Vanity overcame revulsion and the unholy Empress Martine was reborn.
The last dregs of the life force in the blood bath were finally seeping into Martine as she reclined, planning her next war. A pincer attack, three pronged.
The first, a probe from the high seas, blockading the harbour of Belvedere. She would cut off supplies and aid to the city and eventually attack it through the port using the Draakon Reavers; a pact made possible by the faceless Dark Mage who had
made her Empress.
The second part of the attack was to advance on Belvedere by land through Graswyn, approaching Southland from the east with a few mounted troops and plenty of bloodthirsty infantry. The onslaught timed to coincide with the Reaver blockade of Belvedere’s port. Her soldiers could feed off the land as they went, conserving their food supplies which would follow in the wagon trains, along with the wenches and ale which kept her troops amused. Happy troops fought better and no quarter was to be given to the foe.
A dead enemy was no longer an enemy, just rotting meat. At the end of each battle she encouraged her soldiers to loot the bodies on the field of everything valuable and useful. Rewards were many for the brave who survived each battle. Anything of great value or strangeness was to be brought to her. All understood the penalty for failure. A slow drawing and quartering while alive. Once witnessed, never forgotten.
The third component of the plan was to fire the Plains of Barsoom. This time she would finally destroy those smart, mounted guerrilla forces and ravage their land. How dare they come to Debrishar and steal away her hostages. In another couple of months the grass of the plains would be dry and the wind would blow continually from the east this year. She’d arranged it so. Fire would do most of her work. She wouldn’t need a huge army to set fire to the whole of Barsoom and sweep up the remains. Once finished there, her small force could then turn south to assist with the takeover of Southland.
An excellent plan.
Two more months for the grass to dry out enough and the final preparations to be made then would come a war greater than any before.
The blood in her bath was now completely drained of life force but the headache still gently pounded away at the back of her head. Curse that ‘boy’ with his stupid ring. It should have been hers. The Dark Mage had not only told her where to find it but added she would be invincible if it was in her possession.
Martine rose from the congealing pink blood bath and into the tub of warm spring water next to it, bidding Carlinna to bathe her using special soaps made from rare scented oils. When her servant had finished and she was dried with the softest towels, Martine stood naked in front of the mirror in the bathing room. What she saw pleased her. The woman reflected in the mirror looked no older than thirty, with a firm rounded body and proudly curving breasts. No evidence of aging anywhere. Not bad for a hundred and three but still that nagging headache persisted.
13. The Darkwood.
Shiri woke to find Arwhon sitting quietly, watching her in the dim rosy light. The fire had died down to a bed of coals but he seemed to be warm enough, wrapped in his padded undershirt. She left him and after carefully surveying the surroundings from the entrance, went out onto the small beach in front of the cave to look at the swiftly flowing river, yesterday’s ordeal still very fresh in her mind. Bright sunlight shone high on the western wall of the gorge, directly above her. It was early morning.
Some sections of the gorge walls were not so high and appeared climbable. Shiri considered their next move. If they kept following the river, they would come out onto the plains of Barsoom. The thought of being immersed in that cold water for yet another day was very unappealing and likely to be harmful, even fatal, for Arwhon.
Returning to the back of the cave, she blew on the embers, getting the fire going once more and told Arwhon to remain there while she had a further reconnoitre. He seemed happy enough, so she left him and scaled the wall of the gorge; not too difficult a task.
From the top, Shiri saw the land dropped away to the west into the Plains of Barsoom. Tall waving grass for mile upon mile, some of last season’s dry brown stalks still standing above this years fresh new-flowering grasses. An occasional tree here and there stood like a lonely sentinel in the sea of green. Looking back upriver she could see wooded country, far off in the distance. The chance of pursuit was reduced and by now they would be very unlucky to be discovered this far out on the edge of the Barsoom Plains.
Shiri descended the side of the gorge, returning to the cave to help Arwhon dress. He seemed particularly impressed with the sword, taking it out of its sheath and waving it around with little or no skill to his actions. Shiri sighed, trying not to show her feelings.
How much of him was actually left in there?
Eventually they were both dressed, although Shiri had to help Arwhon with his mail, buckle his belt on and show him how to strap the sword to his back. He even needed assistance to tie his bootlaces. Shiri decided to carry Arwhon’s helm and secretly wished he could pull up some more of that strange power, they needed the energy and had no food, nor prospects of it for a while. At least by following the river they would have water.
It was time to make a move, so she led Arwhon out of the cave and showed him the best place to climb up the wall of the gorge. He seemed able enough after their ordeal but his mind was simple and when they reached the top he just stood, looking out across the miles of wind-silvered grass, a smile of wonderment on his placid face. He studied the Ring on his hand then looked at Shiri calmly.
“I know the Ring and I know you Shiri but what of the puppet?”
She had no answer, so took him gently by the hand and led him off through the long grass. A small blond girl in chainmail carrying a helm bearing odd engravings, leading a mail clad warrior who was incapable of using his weapons or his memory. She wished she had the key to unlock it. Perhaps her mother would know but it was a long way to the Darkwood and they had no food.
Shiri was sure from the maps she had seen of the area that the river they were following, which wound back and forth along their line of travel, was the Black River. She dearly hoped so, as it ran in the general direction of Crossroads before turning north after joining with the Swift River to empty into the sea of the Rift. They would follow this river until it met with the Swift River then decide what to do from there.
Freed from the confining cliffs and gorges, the Black River had broadened and slowed somewhat; running a more meandering course. In order to save them time, Shiri cut across the larger loops of the river which swung to the north in order to reduce the distance they had to walk. It was pleasant in some ways, being alone together in the sea of grass. Birds burst into the sky, their song lilting into air freshened with the tang of the herbs which grew amid the grass. The only detraction was Arwhon. After his ordeal and near drowning, he was tiring and regularly complained of hunger.
As Arwhon was obviously becoming weaker, Shiri called a halt in the early afternoon at a place where the river shoaled over a gravel bottom. She left Arwhon slumped wearily on the bank and waded into the knee-deep water to build up the gravel and add rocks to her construction. It took quite a few hours before she had water channelling through the centre of the gravel patch, running much faster but only five to six feet wide. Her feet were cold as ice but she clambered out of the river to cut some slender branches from an old willow tree leaning from the bank. She pruned the tree carefully, trying to leave no obvious traces for a casual observer, until she had a fair stack of thin branches. These she wove into flat panels with a long conical basket in the centre. Satisfied, Shiri took her handiwork back to the channel she had made in the gravel bed and anchored it in the centre.
Arwhon was stretched full length, sleeping she hoped, although he could be slipping back into unconsciousness. It was time to see if her plan worked. She picked up a sizeable stick and after stripping off, jumped into the river further upstream and started to beat the water on top and run her stick both sides of her under the water to scare any fish hiding there. Her effort was rewarded, for in less than ten minutes her makeshift fish trap contained a number of variably sized fish. Shiri calmly collected them and smacked their heads on a rock before throwing them up onto the bank and placing the trap back into the water flow.
Shivering, Shiri left the river to dry off and reclaim her clothes. The air was chilling as the sun descended. It had taken quite a few hours and a lot of effort to capture the few fish lying on the bank but at least t
hey had something nutritious to eat.
Leaving the trap in place Shiri quickly gutted, headed and scaled the fish with her belt knife before filleting them. Picking the fillets up, she took them to the top of the low bank where she had left Arwhon. He was pale and hard to wake but she sat him up and made him eat the raw fish. He moaned and complained like a small child at having to eat uncooked fish but she persisted, not wanting to risk a fire which would act as a beacon on the open plains and might have given them away.
After dark, Shiri spooned her small body into Arwhon’s back to try and keep him warm as they slept fitfully in a nest of grass. The padding under the mail helped and she was glad it was summer; winter would have killed them. Out on the plain the sky was alive with myriad stars, pinpricks of light in the dark heavens but the grass of the plain was a night-black sea, not a light to be seen anywhere.
She slept through both moonrises, exhausted from her labours.
Arwhon was brighter in the morning and appeared to have more energy, so shucking her mail and clothes again Shiri repeated her efforts of the previous afternoon and was rewarded with three more fish. Two she gave to Arwhon who ate them without complaint this time and soon they were on their way again. Later that morning they came across a place where the ground rose slightly. Across the whole area the grass was beaten and worn flat. Evidence of a lot of horses was dotted in small clumps throughout the grass surrounding it and the hillock itself had scattered low bushes growing around its perimeter. Some bore just-ripening red berries which Shiri picked and shared with Arwhon.
His condition had improved greatly from the previous day but he was still weak and wore an air of innocence about him like a small child. He found pleasure in the wildflowers dotted through the grass and once stopped to watch ants at work on an anthill. She had to draw him onward. It broke her heart to see him like this but it also upset her to spoil his fun. To think what he had once been before his mind had been damaged. The potential he had. She stopped early and tried to fish again but was not so successful this time and only managed to catch two small ones. She gave them both to Arwhon who screwed his face up as he forced the fillets down.
The Ring Of Truth Page 31