“I guess the farmers aren’t allowed to plant on the grassy part,” Garrett noted.
“They may plant there, if they wish,” Sir Baelan replied, “but nothing will grow save the grass.”
“Huh?”
“This is a greenway,” Baelan explained, “one of the ancient roads that the fae folk used to cross these lands when once they ruled here. The fae desired that nothing should take root upon this road but the grass, and so it has been ever since. Even in winter, the grass remains green, though it may be buried beneath a blanket of snow.”
“Do people still use it as a road?” Garrett asked.
“In some places,” Baelan answered, “but here it only serves the local farmers moving from one field to the next.”
“Where does it go to?”
Baelan fell silent for a moment as he considered it. “I do not know. I am not overly familiar with this region.” He turned in his saddle and looked back toward Mirion.
“This path leads to Gob’s Hollow,” Mirion said.
“I do not know the place,” Baelan replied.
“An old ruin,” Mirion replied, “Nothing there but stones and ghosts.”
“How far is it?” he asked.
“If we press, we’ll reach it by nightfall,” she said.
“We’ll make our camp there, then,” Baelan said, “We should be able to reach the garrison at Terrelshire sometime tomorrow. Captain Hiles can be trusted to see us to Braedshal safely from there.”
“Why are we avoiding people?” Mirion asked in frustration, “Sir Anders governs these lands. He’s a good man... I thought he was your friend.”
“He is,” Baelan answered with a touch of annoyance in his voice, “which is why I do not wish to burden him with this duty.”
“He can help us!” Mirion insisted.
“No!” Sir Baelan barked, “I will not be swayed in this! I would not involve the nobles in this matter, unless I had no other choice.”
“But the nobles are...”
“No!” Baelan shouted, cutting her protest short, “And it is not my nature to suffer the questioning of my orders more than once. You will do well to remember this, squire!”
“Yes, m’lord,” Mirion said quietly.
They rode on in gloomy silence after that. Garrett watched the sun climb ever higher in the sky, his butt already aching from the unfamiliar saddle. At least his hunger pangs had faded, as though despairing of ever finding satisfaction from their host.
Shortly before midday, they crested a hill to see the greenway before them disappearing into a thick forest almost a mile away.
“Hold,” Sir Baelan said. He pointed to where the farmland ended at the edge of the woods.
Garrett saw a wagon, heavily laden with baskets and pulled by a pair of mules, moving along the tree line toward the greenway. Two figures sat atop the wagon, apparently unaware of the riders on the hill above watching them.
Sir Baelan guided his horse over into a nearby copse of trees, and gestured for the others to follow. They waited in the shade and watched to see which way the wagon would turn.
Baelan breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it turn down the path leading into the forest. “We’ll rest here for a while,” he said, “Give them a bit of a time to get ahead of us before we continue.”
Garrett swung down from his horse, his legs gone a bit numb from the morning ride. He winced as he pressed his fingers against his tailbone, but then smiled at the sight of the loaf of bread that Sir Baelan now pulled from one of the packhorses’ saddlebags.
Mirion tethered the horses to a nearby tree as Sir Baelan kicked experimentally at a fallen log. Satisfied at its solidity, he gestured for the others to take a seat upon it as he portioned out a meager lunch of bread and cheese. Garrett wolfed his down in a few bites, drinking sparingly of the wineskin offered to him by the Astorran knight.
“You don’t care for the taste?” Sir Baelan asked, noting Garrett’s grimace.
“I don’t like wine,” Garrett answered.
“You prefer the blood of the innocent, I suppose?” Mirion snorted as she tore at a hunk of bread with her teeth.
“Yeah,” Garrett said, “It tastes great with fresh baby.”
She glared at him.
“My apologies, Deathlord,” Sir Baelan said, “It is all we have.”
Mirion turned her glare upon Baelan now, her lips twitching.
“Speak your mind, Mirion,” Sir Baelan said as he lowered himself slowly into the crook of a tree root, opposite the fallen log.
“Why are you being so nice to him?” she demanded, “He’s our enemy!”
Sir Baelan shrugged. “And how can we say that we are better than our enemies, if we do not hold ourselves to a higher standard?” he asked.
“By treating him like some kind of... honored guest?” she demanded.
“Courtesy and respect are the cornerstones of knighthood, Mirion,” Sir Baelan countered, “Sir Jons taught you that.”
“And I have learned it!” she snapped, “Never have I shown discourtesy or disrespect to any that deserved it, but...”
“All deserve it, Mirion,” Baelan interrupted, “That is the true measure of a knight... not how he treats those he deems his betters, but how he treats those beneath him, and even those he would seek to defeat.”
“This thing deserves nothing but a brutal death and a nameless grave!” Mirion shouted as she sprang up, hurling her tattered scrap of bread at Garrett’s feet.
Garrett gave her a very insincere smile in return.
“It is not who he is that should govern your behavior toward him,” Sir Baelan said, looking up at the angry young woman, “but who you are.”
Mirion shook her head with a look of utter loathing in her eyes as she stared at Garrett. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can never...”
The distant scream of a woman’s voice cut her off.
Sir Baelan pushed himself to his feet with a jingle of his mail armor, his hand on his sword.
“The farmer’s wagon!” Mirion said.
Sir Baelan’s face darkened as he considered his dilemma.
“We have to help them!” Mirion insisted.
Baelan nodded. He rushed to untether his horse, and pulled one of the scabbards from his saddle. “Sir Jons’s sword,” he said, passing the weapon to Mirion, “You may need it.”
The Astorran girl nodded as she took the sword and then hurried to mount her horse.
“Deathlord,” Baelan said, passing Garrett his sword as well.
Garrett nodded his thanks as he took the blade, noting the look of disbelief on the girl’s face.
Baelan looked to Garrett as they both climbed into their saddles. “I do not ask that you join us,” he said, “This is a matter of honor for us... but I expect you to keep your word and be waiting for us when we return.”
“I’m with you,” Garrett said.
Baelan nodded gratefully, and Mirion sneered at Garrett as they reined their horses out onto the greenway again.
Garrett groaned in pain as his horse followed the others in a wild gallop toward the forest. Every bounce of the saddle beneath him felt like a Templar’s boot in his backside.
Sir Baelan and Mirion both had their swords drawn, mirroring one another in technique as they charged. Garrett had opted to simply shove the scabbard of his own sword through his belt and hold on with both hands as his Astorran horse rushed eagerly toward glory.
The woman’s scream came again, cut off abruptly this time, leaving only the pounding of hooves to echo back from the trees as the forest closed around them.
“King’s Guard!” Sir Baelan shouted, “King’s Guard!”
The sun had yet to reach its zenith, and the shadow of the forest still lay across the lingering mists of the green path. Half-shrouded in the fog, Garrett could make out the outline of the farmer’s wagon with its two mules straining against their harnesses. Baskets lay overturned, and a bushel of small apples lay strewn across the grass. Of
the two farmers, they saw no sign.
“King’s Guard!” Sir Baelan shouted again, wheeling his horse as he scanned the misty forest for danger.
“King’s Guard?” a rough voice shouted from the shadows of the forest, “Things must be worse than we thought, if this is what passes for a royal guard these days!”
Mocking laughter sounded from the trees on either side of the road.
“Stand and present yourselves, at once!” Sir Baelan shouted, his face red with rage.
“You hear that, boys?” the man’s voice answered from the forest, “I guess we’d better do as he says.”
“Looks like we’re in for it now, Sam,” another man laughed as he emerged from the trees a short distance up the road. The smiling bandit wore a buckskin coat and carried a poleax with its haft resting over one shoulder.
“We’d better go quietly,” a bearded brigand said as he stepped into view behind the riders. He held a loaded crossbow in his ragged mittens, pointed at Garrett’s chest.
“Yeah,” another bandit said as at least twenty men now appeared from the shadows of the trees, “If we’re good, they might only hang us a little.”
A man with a rusty billhook tried to snare the reins of Mirion’s horse, but she turned quickly to slap the weapon away with the flat of Sir Jons’s sword.
“Easy now,” came the voice of the original speaker, a broad-shouldered man, dressed in a stained red surcoat, who now stepped into the dim light of the greenway. He held a well-polished sword in his right hand and looked ready for a fight.
“Chadiri?” Garrett said, noting the style of the man’s sword and the cut of his garb.
“Imperial service did not agree with me,” the bandit leader said with a crooked grin.
The other highwaymen shared a laugh.
“Deserter,” Sir Baelan scoffed.
The man in red shrugged. “I didn’t exactly agree to join the army in the first place,” he said, “so I don’t lose much sleep over my decision to un-join it!”
“Release your captives at once, and send them on their way!” Sir Baelan shouted with the tip of his sword pointed at the bandit leader.
“You don’t give orders here, King’s Guard,” the bearded crossbowman laughed, “These are Red Sam’s woods.”
“These are the King’s woods!” Sir Baelan hissed, “and this is your final warning!”
Garrett thought he caught a glimpse of a dark shape moving through the forest behind the Chadiri bandits, a glimpse of brown cloak in a patch of sunlight between the trees. A glint of violet light passed between the branches nearby. He smiled, guessing that his secret bodyguards were not far off.
“Something funny to you boy?” the bandit known as Red Sam snarled as he noticed Garrett’s grin.
“Huh?” Garrett said, “Oh, I was just wonderin’ what the Chadiri’ll do when they catch you.”
“Give him somethin’ new to laugh about, Jakes,” Red Sam snorted.
“How about a hole in his belly?” the bearded archer chuckled as he squeezed the trigger on his crossbow. The sinewy bowstring creaked, but the arrow did not budge as the man stared down in wonder at the ice-crusted weapon in his hands.
Garrett laughed wickedly.
“For the King!” Sir Baelan shouted as he spurred his horse into combat, riding down two startled bandits as he charged toward the Chadiri deserter.
Mirion’s horse danced clear of a thrusting billhook, and her sword neatly sheared the weapon’s haft in two.
Garrett’s warhorse lurched beneath him, nearly unseating him as it kicked out with its hind hooves, catching a bandit in the face. Garrett yelped as he struggled to right himself, even as his attacker fell.
Red Sam howled in rage as he parried Sir Baelan’s sword, falling back to take cover behind a nearby tree.
Garrett saw a young man with a bow take aim at Baelan’s back. The bandit pulled the bowstring back to his ear, but then cried out in dismay as his bow snapped into icy splinters, leaving him only with a frost-crusted arrow dangling from between his fingers.
Garrett’s horse reared again as two young men rushed forward with wood axes in hand. They hesitated, dodging clear of the horse’s deadly, steel-shod hooves.
“Get behind him!” one of the bandits shouted.
“Yeah, that’ll probably work,” Garrett laughed. He grinned broadly as a ring of icy blue flames erupted from the grass all around him.
“A wizard!” one of the young men shouted as he leapt clear with a look of terror on his face.
“Necromancer,” Garrett corrected him. He glanced around quickly as his horse danced beneath him. He thrust his hand toward the body lying on the ground behind him, hoping that the horse’s hooves had left something useable in the man’s skull.
“To the flesh a quickening gift!” he shouted.
The dead man suddenly sat bolt upright, shrieking hoarsely through broken teeth.
The two young axe-wielding bandits screamed and ran.
Garrett laughed maniacally until his horse finally managed to throw him from its back and fled in the same direction as the two bandits.
“Ow,” Garrett winced as he lay in the center of a ring of blackened grass.
His newborn zombie stood above him, staring down with two flickering blue lights shining from his confused eyes.
“Gimme a hand,” Garrett groaned as he reached up toward the zombie.
The dead man reached down and pulled Garrett to his feet.
“Thanks,” Garrett said.
The zombie only grunted in response.
Garrett rotated his aching shoulder as he turned a reproachful glance toward his fleeing horse. “That never happens with wolves,” he grumbled.
The zombie moaned his agreement.
A screaming man with a spiked club interrupted them, charging with murderous intent, directly toward Garrett. Two other angry bandits followed close on his heels.
“Sic ‘em!” Garrett shouted, pointing with his left hand as he drew his sword.
Garrett’s zombie lurched forward, moaning pathetically as it joined battle with its former allies.
The three men faltered in their charge, their eyes wide at the sight of their dead companion now lurching toward them.
“Yah!” the club-wielding bandit shouted, swinging his weapon in disgust. The poor zombie’s hoof-battered skull gave out at last, and Garrett’s newfound ally went down in a heap.
“Hey!” Garrett shouted as blue flames erupted from the blade of his sword.
“A wizard!” the wild-eyed club-wielder shouted.
“I’m not a wizard!” Garrett cried, “Wizards turn people into frogs and stuff. I’m a necromancer!”
“Whatever you say, m’lord!” the terrified bandit huffed as he turned to run. The others joined him.
Garrett sighed as he looked around the battlefield. Sir Baelan had dismounted and was now engaged in a rather noisy exchange of sword-blows with Red Sam. The bandit’s Chadiri training served him well, but not quite well enough to get the better of the older Astorran knight.
Across the greenway, Mirion’s horse still wheeled and kicked as she fought against a group of five bandits that surrounded her. None of them had yet landed a solid blow, but the sleeves of the unarmored girl’s tunic hung open in tattered red slashes where the bandits had scored a few lucky nicks. Three bandits lay, unmoving on the grass nearby, attesting to the skill of the squire’s blade.
One of bandits sprang forward, thrusting a spear tip at the girl’s back, but the horse shied to the left, sparing its rider the force of the opponent’s strike. Mirion cried out in pain as the sharpened edge of the spearhead grazed her shoulder. Her horse sidestepped quickly toward the over-extended spearman, and Mirion ran the man through with her sword.
Taking advantage of the opening in her guard, another bandit stepped in to swing his axe at her midsection, but Garrett blasted the man backward with a bolt of flaming ice.
Mirion and her attackers spun to face Garrett, their
faces blank with shock.
“Not a wizard!” Garrett shouted, hoping to counter any potential misconceptions.
The bandits’ eyes fell to the blazing sword in Garrett’s hand. “A wizard!” one of them shouted, and then they turned and fled together into the woods.
Garrett rolled his eyes in exasperation.
Mirion shot him a hateful look and then spurred her horse toward Sir Baelan and the bandit leader across the road.
Garrett shook his head as his flaming sword flickered out, and he tapped the icy crust from its blade on the heel of his boot before turning to follow Mirion’s horse.
Red Sam glanced sideways to see that his men had deserted him. His confident grin bled into a look of grim defiance. “You’re not taking me alive!” he spat as he traded blows with the weary knight again.
“I never intended to,” Sir Baelan panted.
“Sir Baelan?” Mirion called out as she maneuvered her horse to block the bandit’s retreat into the forest.
“See to the farmers!” Baelan shouted.
“But, Sir Baelan...” Mirion protested, her concern for him evident in her eyes.
“Go!” Baelan shouted, “Find them and see to their safety! I can handle this.”
Mirion nodded and then disappeared into the trees.
“That’s right, old man!” Red Sam growled, “It’s just you and me here, now.”
The two men traded thrusts and parries again, and the Chadiri bandit swung around, now noticing Garrett as the young necromancer stood watching the fight.
“You stay outta this, boy, and I might let you live!” Red Sam shouted.
Garrett only laughed in response as he sheathed his sword. He reached back to massage his sore buttocks as he watched the two men fight.
Sir Baelan growled loudly as he scored a cut to Red Sam’s upper arm. The bandit leader danced away, cursing. His smile returned a moment later as he circled the heavily breathing Astorran knight.
“Feelin’ your years now, aren’t ya, mate?” Red Sam chuckled.
“I’m forty-three, you jackanapes!” Sir Baelan huffed.
Trials of the Twiceborn (The Songreaver's Tale Book 6) Page 24