War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  He liked all of the young ladies who flew the king's eagles, but probably Lanae Brookhouse the most. Like his own people she'd been born a simple freeperson, a farmer's daughter from Walcox, up Northcraven way. If he'd had a daughter he would have liked one like Lanae, he mused. Maybe a little taller.

  The sundial in the yard told him it was coming up third hour after noon, so he rang the bell to bring the watchmen in. It was time for shift change, and soon the afternoon squad would be coming in from the bunkhouse. He alone worked both shifts, morning and evening, for he had no home to go back to each night. As Captain he had his own quarters, but he had no desire to spend the rest of the day idling there. Besides, he might miss Lanae's return if he did so.

  That was odd. He'd rung the bell at least five minutes ago and none of the watchmen had come in. Certainly after the last trouble they knew better than to be up to mischief.

  He stepped out of the tower and began to make his way to the first watcher's station.

  Some second sense must have warned him, because he was suddenly wary. He drew his sword from its scabbard, something he had not done in earnest for several years, as he approached the secluded watch station.

  He saw a boot protruding from the edge of a bush. He crouched and moved closer, as silently as he could. He saw that above the boot was a leg, wearing the insignia of the royal guard.

  "Lashan?" He called in a low voice, knowing instinctively that it would do no good. Lashan was beyond hearing. He stooped over the dead boy, feeling the wrist. The arm was still warm, but the life had gone out of it. Lashan D'mere, eighteen years old, dead in an empty forest forty leagues from home. The boy’s face wore a look of surprise. Jaren shook his head grimly.

  For an old man, Jaren was alert. He turned the body over and immediately the cause of death was clear. A tight thicket of gull feathers bloomed like an obscene flower from the dead boy's chest. The three crossbow bolts had been driven nearly through the body, and they were spaced less than a handbreadth apart.

  Quickly, keeping his sword at the ready, Jaren made his way to the other three watch stations. Begen Salth, Terim Ghass and Roteney Bith, all boys no older than Lashan, and all dead. Shot to death with two or three crossbow bolts each. The archers were men of skill, too, he noted, to kill instantly without giving their targets a chance to cry a warning. This was a bad business.

  Jaren walked quietly through the thicket. His was a soldier's stealth, a veteran's alertness. His sword, although not of steel, was sharp iron, thick and practical, a footman's weapon, and better balanced than most. His duty was simply this, to stay alive long enough to warn Lanae and any other riders that the landing was unsafe. He knew that giving the warning would probably cost him his life, but that was duty, and he'd served duty all of his grown days.

  A noise ahead and to the right. A foot breaking a branch. Jaren knew it was not an animal, for the only animal careless enough to make such noises in the forest was the bear, and there were no bears this far from the Whitewood. It was a man.

  He leaned tight against the bole of a tree. He must remain quiet, must remain alive. He could not hunt down the killer or killers of his men, for to do so might give away his own position. Dead, he would have no chance to warn Lanae away. Silently, he let his back slide down the trunk of the tree and squatted on his knees.

  The noise came closer, from directly ahead. He heard the crossbow being cocked before he saw it, an ugly weapon with a broad wooden head like a viper's peeking around a tree trunk. That ugly head swung inexorably toward him, and still he could not see the man behind it. Desperately, he rolled to his right and down, just as the crossbow bolt struck the tree against which he had been leaning! The bolt entered the tree well up the haft, right where his heart had been, burying the steel tip in the wood.

  Blindly he lunged forward, parting the bramble and thicket with his sword. There, ahead of him, a shadowy form wreathed in the colors of the forest. Yes! It was a man! A wiry, elfin sort of man dressed in hunter's motley green and brown. The man seemed to be trying to re-arm his crossbow.

  With a supreme effort of strength Jaren lunged forward, even as the man abandoned his attempts to recock his crossbow and began fumbling with his scabbarded sword. It was too late to change weapons. With a litheness surprising in a man of his age, Jaren cleared the last hurdle of bracken and thrust his sword forward, passing an arm feebly raised at the last moment. The blade bit into the man, and Jaren felt the ribs part cleanly as the point of his weapon pierced the assassin's heart. He'd got him!

  As the assassin fell to the leafy mould beneath him, Jaren looked into his eyes, strange unearthly eyes like a cat's, lit from within by the certain knowledge of death. The man hissed at him as he withdrew his sword, a strange, animal sound, but mixed with the words of a language Jaren had never heard. "Uvah…Tarchanisti…Ehol Brizaki…."

  When Jaren looked up he saw the second crossbowman, bringing his weapon to bear. He’d known there would be more than one, but he’d hoped not so close by. Gretti was waiting.

  A tight pain in his chest, and then he saw no more.

  Chapter 3: Aelfric, A peasant's journey

  Aelfric sat on a solitary tree stump and picked the gravel from between the horse's shoe and hoof, using his dagger's blunted tip. Haim stood silently by, scanning the road to the south.

  "No sign of 'em following us." He said quietly.

  "No." Aelfric replied. "It will take them time to cross the river with the ferry out. They'll have to go back to Root’s Bridge and hire a boat.

  "Still," He continued, "We'd best be getting away from the river. They'll naturally assume I'm following the river road north."

  "If we hurry they won't be able to catch us up." Haim offered helpfully.

  "You forget the dispatch riders." Aelfric replied. "There's a road on the east bank, too. It won't take them long to send word ahead to Kundrell. The mayor of Kundrell would be more than happy to send a patrol across the river to intercept me. He has little enough love for my father."

  "Aye, well, that could be said for a lot of folks, couldn’t it?" Haim spoke with a lack of deference Aelfric found disturbing. "I been hearing what a fool thing it was to come and work for your father for two months, now."

  "What does that mean?" Aelfric's voice was sharp, for he did not like Haim’s tone. He knew his father could be arrogant, but surely he wasn't universally disliked.

  "I don't rightly know what it means, Lord Askelyne." Haim responded. "I just know that there's been plenty of talk about the Duke of Elderest setting things to rights in Root’s Bridge, and I've heard it. You ain't heard it, seemingly, and that don't surprise me neither. The lords is always the last to know when a change is in the wind."

  "Well, I guess I know it now, right enough." Aelfric replied dismally. In a single day his past and future had been wiped away, it seemed. Ahead there was only uncertainty.

  He was a young man without friends, he realized suddenly. His position as the lord in waiting in Root’s Bridge had always kept him aloof from other boys as he grew older. His father had never encouraged him to make friends with those upon whom he would one day pass judgment. He might have made friends with others of high birth, but the opportunity never arose. The two years he'd spent at Arker in training had served him well enough, he supposed. He knew the longsword. Even the fencing master acknowledged that he had a gift. He knew the ins and outs of running a fiefdom, he knew his Tolrissan history and his Kirluni well enough. But he'd made no friends there. The other 'little lords' as the instructors called them, seemed always to be more interested in drinking and courting ladies than in serious study. Aelfric had always felt apart from them.

  "I suppose I should count you as a friend." He muttered, not meaning to speak aloud.

  "What's at?" The large man asked, only half hearing.

  "I said I suppose I owe you a debt of thanks, friend. Without your help I'm sure I'd be on the way to a hanging by now."

  "Naw." Haim replied. "Not hardly. The
m as was after you wouldn't have bothered with that. Hanging a noble is too public, and they'd of had to say why they hung you.

  "Nope. I guess they'd of just run you through or shot you and left your body to float down the Dunwater. By the time you washed up you'd of been in Elderest Duchy, and nobody would of asked no questions there."

  "For a simple workman you sure seem to know a lot about what the nobles are thinking." Aelfric complained.

  "No more than any good cotholder knows about his laird, I reckon." Haim's broad, well-tanned face was pensive. "We as has to abide with you gentry know enough to keep our ear to the ground. I guess it's us as has little or nothing who has the most to lose by politics. A man like you loses a title and some poor sod like me loses a head, gets flogged or winds up in the blackhill for ten years just for being on the wrong side."

  "What about a sod like you?" Aelfric asked, pleased by his companion's frankness. "Where's a man like you fit into all of this politics?"

  "Me, I'm a freeman." Said Haim. "Got no place to call home, got no kin beholden to me. I was born a freeman and I intend to stay that way. I go from place to place and I work when there's work to be had. If there isn’t work, I move on."

  "Ah, yes. I know that one. 'and his shield shall be his pillow and no man shall call him slave or master'."

  "What's that, poetry?"

  "It's a quote from the song of St. Lovell the Strangled. From when he spoke to the ghost of Hazrax the Black."

  Haim made the sign of the rising sun in front of his massive chest, circling his thumb and forefinger. "Don't speak that name, if you please. We don't need to be calling ill fortune on ourself any more than we've already got."

  Aelfric grinned at his companion's reaction. Over a thousand years in the grave and the name of the Dragon Emperor still had the power to evoke superstitious dread among the peasantry of Mortentia.

  Haim's reticence seemed to return after that exchange, so Aelfric stopped asking him questions. Instead he looked around. The fogs and mists had lifted, at least on this side of the river, and Aelfric could see clearly.

  To the north and west the land rose in folds and moraines spotted with occasional trees and farmhouses. To the east lay the river, close enough to the road for barge chains to reach, although this early in the year there was little trade on the Dunwater. It was now close to noon, and the sun revealed all of the land in the sullen browns and grays of early spring. The cattle grass lay thick and brown about them, and when he chanced to step off the road the grass was damp beneath his feet. Still, on every tree the buds were getting ready to open and true spring was just around the corner. It was a pleasant enough day, walking in the sunlight, although Aelfric hoped they would reach an inn by nightfall.

  Aelfric walked the horse. The great gray horse was called Tangalion, a fanciful name given it by Aelfric's father. It seemed to be depressed, catching Aelfric's mood perhaps, for only now that they were out of danger had the impact of the day's events settled about his broad shoulders like a dark cloak. His father was dead. His home had been stolen. His title and the entire course of his future was now uncertain. All that he had known had been swept away in a single morning of fear and reckless flight.

  Beside him walked Haim, a brooding, silent man with callused hands as wide as baskets and the slightly stooped back of a workman. Aelfric noticed the thick, mud-encrusted boots and the threadbare woolen pants for the first time. He realized that Haim must be quite poor, for a free ferryman's wages would have hardly paid the man's board. Aelfric carried enough gold to see his way through two good years without working, if he was careful of it, but he doubted if Haim had two silver marks to rub together.

  "I should pay you for saving my life." He said after a moment, thinking these thoughts. Haim's angry reaction surprised him.

  "Aye, you would think of that." He spat. "Listen to me, nobleman. I'm going to tell you this for your own good. I'm a free man. Not just a freeman, but a free man. I do as I please, see? Back there at the ferry I seen that fat bastard boss of mine doing a wrong thing. I figured you was as good as dead if you didn't get across the river, and I could just see Loseth laughing at it if you was to hang or get gutted. I got no use for Loseth, so I done what I did to spite him, not 'cause I thought to see any coin out of it."

  "Well, there's no reason you shouldn't be rewarded…" Aelfric began, but he was interrupted.

  "I been rewarded plenty. I seen Loseth backed up by your sword and I seen him standin' there knowin' he couldn't do nothing. That suited me just fine. I got the reward I was lookin' for and all I want. I been in a lot of places, up and down the Dunwater, see? Many's the time I could've swore feetly to some laird or other or taken his money right enow. But I'm a free man, and I won't be beholden to no man, not to you nor anyone."

  "Alright, then." Aelfric said, stung by the suddenly contemptuous tone in the half-breed's voice. "Now I am beholden to you, though, for you saved my life. I will not forget it."

  "You're a nobleman." Haim smirked cynically. "You'll forget if it suits you."

  "You must have had some pretty awful dealings with noblemen if you believe we are all so faithless." Replied Aelfric. "Besides, I'm hardly a nobleman anymore. My estate, my father and my title have all been taken from me this day. I would say I'm a freeman like yourself, nothing more." He could hardly keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  "What do you think this is?" Haim responded with scorn. "The Church of Haim? You lost a title that meant next to nothin', an estate that was losin' money and a father who run it into the ground. I'll not listen to your sorrows and give you solace. Lots of folk have lost more than you had or never had it in the first place. You'd better toughen up if you mean to take it to the folks who wronged you."

  "You don't think I'm tough enough?" Aelfric's hand went to his sword hilt.

  "Not nearly." Haim's glance went to Aelfric's hand, then he pointedly ignored it. The big man continued to walk on, undisturbed. "You may know the sword all right, and you may be able to fight, but you ain't tough in the gut, where it counts. This whole time we been walking you been thinking about getting away to some place safe or over to some family estate that'll take you in. I ain't heard one word from you about getting even with them as did you out of your own. Not that you was much of a lord to start with."

  "What does that mean, not much of a lord?" Aelfric's face flushed. "I'll have you know that I was well trained for the court, as well as with the sword."

  "Were you now? How is it that you had the biggest panderer and crookthief on the whole Dunwater livin' in your town and the worst you ever done to him was fine him fifty marks?"

  "Who are you talking about?"

  "That Amar Stoneholt, you fool. Didn't you know he run a brothel and a gambling house out of his cothold down by the waterfront? He was runnin' goods duty free across into Orr, as well. Half the folks in town knew it, and it was right under your nose. I lived in Root’s Bridge less than two months and I knew it well enough. He give you some line about you bein' as just and fair as your old man and he's laughin' behind his hand."

  Aelfric suddenly decided he was more comfortable with Haim when he was silent.

  Ch 4: Tuchek, The End of a Job

  Tuchek gazed at the thin veneer of purple-red wine just coating the bottom of the silver goblet, and half-mindedly swirled it around a bit. The fragrance was still strong, as if the cup was still full, but he was experienced enough in the ways of men and situations to know he would not get another taste. This was regrettable, for the little village of Alidis was known for its wine.

  His feet were on the table, a rude show of casualness that the innkeeper was forced to ignore. That balding nothing of a man sweated his nerves out in a reddish forehead sheen reflecting the single lamp's lurid light. He would say nothing, dared not, but Tuchek felt his simmering disapproval, even as he ignored it.

  Although his eyes were on the bottom of the cup, his mind was on the three men at the bar. There would be a fourth and a fifth, p
ossibly even a sixth, he knew. The others would be waiting outside, and when they gathered together, their courage would reach the fatal point. Fatal for someone, and Tuchek was determined that it would not be him.

  The men looked what they were, three ill-clothed broken-nosed jagtooths who fell into that dimly defined but easily recognized category of men that included drifters, thieves, black marketers, heretics and sellswords. From the way the three leather-armored men patently ignored him, he knew that he was the object of their attention. They carried long knives openly, but Tuchek could see the outlines of at least two poorly concealed short swords.

  He smiled grimly to himself, an expression that anyone who knew him well would recognize as a danger sign. The Aulig mercenary rarely smiled, rarely spoke, and was rarely seen, even by the Baron who employed him. It was said that he was a dangerous man, although few men could really say what he did. He was not tall, nor was he particularly big, but there was that thing in him that made a man think twice before speaking. Usually by the second thought, the words no longer seemed important or wise.

  For forty miles up and down the Dunwater he was probably the only man of full Aulig blood who was permitted to wear a longsword openly. A nobleman's weapon, it nevertheless did not look incongruous standing in its scabbard next to Tuchek. He was known to be the Baron's man, so the weapon was permitted, despite his ruddy skin, night black hair and dark eyes.

  Tuchek was not his real name. That was what everyone called him, however, since his first day in the employ of Baron Brego D'Tarman of Pulflover. The Baron had asked him to double check something another of his men had reported, and the Aulig had replied, "I two-check." Or at least that was how the story went.