When at last she found the northern boundary of the Whitewood, she was nearly on top of Walcox, and her first sight of it came as a shock. The mill was the first building she saw, and it was half destroyed, the vanes burned to nothing and the upper floors blackened and half burned away. A bustle of people gathered around small wagons and carts gave her hope, however, for they were plainly Mortentians and not Auligs.
She crested the hill upon which the great mill sat and got her first look at the remains of the town. Every building had been burned to the ground, and only the stone tower at the heart of Walcox remained, standing fire-blackened and lonely in a field of charred and broken buildings. People walked among the ruins looking like ants whose queen had died, but she saw that they walked with purpose, either clearing or repairing buildings. The sound of hammering reached her, even three hundred paces high.
The city wall was half destroyed, and only the portions of it around the south gate remained intact, seemingly untouched by the flames. Around that gate there was a gathering of tents, and a coming and going of people, many of them wearing military uniforms. Lanae circled Walcox once, taking in the remains of an encampment of burned and trampled tents on the north side of the town, and what looked like thousands of bodies that had been lined up in rows, some of them covered with tarps torn from the tents, and some of them exposed to the sky. A burial pit was being excavated by no fewer than thirty weary looking freemen. The Nevermind muster, she thought to herself, dreading the news she would have to bring back to the Lord Mayor.
She began to see faces turned up in her direction, for some had looked up from their tasks and seen her, and word quickly spread. Several men in rust colored tabards began to waive her down, toward a large tent that had been pitched by Walcox’ southern gate. They cleared a large space and she brought Sentinel down, sliding from his back and rubbing the cramp from her back.
A tall young man, looking harried and disheveled, with a thick beard and broad shoulders approached her. His eyes looked tired. She gasped when he drew closer. “Levin Askelyne?” She asked, then saw her mistake. This man was thicker and a bit older, and his face slightly less refined, although he was nearly as handsome as Levin had been. His eyes widened and took on a look of fierce intensity when she spoke.
“How do you know that name?” He demanded, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, my manners. I am Aelfric, commander of the Red Tigers, and I’m sort of in charge of the clean up here. Madam King’s Eye, how do you know that name?”
She apologized also. “You look like someone I met recently.” She explained. “A resemblance, that is all.”
“Levin Askelyne is my brother. I guess he favors me. Where did you meet him?”
She looked around at the gathering people. “I can explain that later.” She said, not wanting to reveal any details of her captivity and rescue in front of so many curious eyes.
“I would rather you explain it to me now.” The young man said, and then he turned to one of the men with him. “We need some privacy, please. This is king’s business.”
“Yes, Lord Privy.” Said a tall man with graying hair and a hard, competent look about him. He was dressed in the off-white tabard of what looked like a mercenary company, with an orange hammer on his chest. “Half an hour?”
“I wouldn’t think more than that, Faithborn. If Madam King’s Eye has the time.”
Faithborn ushered the other men out of the tent, and Lanae saw a bishop and an armored godsknight who looked so beautiful he was almost feminine. They left her and Aelfric alone, although the knight looked half-scandalized and half-amused as he bowed and allowed her to pass into the tent.
“I recognized Sentinel from a woodcut.” Aelfric began. “That means you must be the king’s eye that went missing. I hope my brother had nothing to do with that.” The inside of the tent was warm, and smelled of stale sweat and ink. The canvas was thin enough so that the sunlight illumined the area, and papers and maps lay scattered on tables throughout.
“No.” Lanae said, surprised. “No, not him. In fact, it was Levin who rescued me.”
Aelfric nodded, not surprised. “That’s Levin.” He said. “He’s either the knight or the knave and nothing in between. When and where was this?”
“It was on the coast by Nevermind. I was being held captive on a ship with Sentinel, and Levin was part of the crew that attacked the ship. They were Thimenians, and I think they would have let me drown, but Levin freed us and allowed us to escape.”
“He was with the Thimenians?” Aelfric frowned. “Actually part of their crew? Not their prisoner?”
“He was fighting right alongside them. Why did that man just call you Lord Privy? That seemed very insolent.”
“It’s a long story.” Aelfric replied. “A story I think you are going to need to tell them in the King’s Town. I have written it all down, as well as a list of casualties and a declaration of losses in Walcox. I’m afraid the town is a complete loss, but the king is going to want to build a fortification here…”
Aelfric continued speaking to Lanae for a few minutes, and at each turn she was amazed at what had occurred in Walcox. This had been a major battle, she realized, and when Aelfric told her the number of Auligs that had been killed, she was stunned.
“Over forty-thousand!” She exclaimed. “It is a great victory.”
“Well, it didn’t feel like a victory at the time.” He replied. “We were fighting for our lives. Tell the king that I think the Auligs will come again. We need to properly fortify this town, like I was saying.”
“I will tell him if I see him.” She responded truthfully, if not honestly. Like so many, he thought the king’s eye had a direct line to the king’s ear.
“Was he really fighting alongside Thimenians?” He asked again after a moment. “I wonder how that happened.”
She took from him the written report of the battle, as well as some papers detailing the heroic death of the Duke of Dunwater, an unpleasant man she had met once. He had looked at her like she was something he had found stuck to the bottom of his boot. There was a long list of casualties that she knew would break many hearts in Nevermind when she delivered it, as well as a status report on the mercenary companies and a request for more funds. Once she had all of the papers, she rolled them up in a tight roll and put them in a courier case, which she strapped to her waist. “Your brother was very nice.” She told him. “He saved my life, and I won’t forget it. If ever I can do anything for him, or for you, please let me know.”
As she left the tent her arm was taken by the godsknight. “Madam King’s Eye, I am Sir Celdemer Ferris, First Captain of the Mereham Cathedral Godsknights.” He said with a bow. “My body servant has made an excellent nuncheon, and you simply must join us. His food is truly delightful. Our quartermaster has peaches, as well.”
The peaches reminded her of her family, and she stopped walking, pulling her arm free of the knight’s. “I am very sorry, sir knight.” She said. “I am afraid I must leave immediately.” Leaving him standing there dumbstruck, she walked straightaway to the paddock where Sentinel stood preening himself while a curious crowd stared at him and whispered appreciatively. She climbed onto his back without ceremony and launched into the air, for she needed desperately to check on her family.
Sir Celdemer stared after her for a long time.
Chuttering hens and squealing pigs made a comforting din as Jannae Brookhouse wearily walked across the wooden floor of her farmhouse and stepped out through her newly painted door. Everybody called her Mama Brookhouse, which annoyed her to no end, for she was barely fifty and still thought of herself as a beauty. She dusted flour from her apron and looked to the western hills. The smoke from Walcox and the distantly visible mill had ceased to blacken the sky sometime yesterday, but the burned and busted frame of the building that had once housed the area’s chief business was a stark reminder of their danger. It shocked Jannae that the Auligs could strike here, so far from distant Northcraven City, and there wa
s talk of organizing patrols and a militia. She pushed a stray strand of her graying hair up under her bonnet and gave thanks to the Secret Gods that Ambarae was home safe. She walked to the orchard and looked at the grove of ancient peach trees there.
The thirty trees were older than the farm, and older than her family’s possession of this land, tall and gnarled trees with wrinkled dark skin like old ladies from a time out of mind. Twice she had nearly gotten in trouble because of these trees. They bore fruit out of season, and in fact she could find ripe peaches hidden in secret places among the branches from as early in the year as Mardis to as late as Jember. She had once eaten a delicious ripe peach on the morning of the Winter Solstice. The peaches were sweet and juicy, with thick and purple skins that were nearly as black as the bark.
A week ago she had sold some to a quartermaster, receiving four silver pennies for a bushel. Almost four years gone a stuffy and ascetic prior down from Northcraven had eaten some of the peaches while staying at the Dashing Snake, and had demanded to know who was selling fresh peaches in early winter. Upon arriving at the Brookhouse farm the prior, who was apparently new to the service of Lio and quite the young zealot, had claimed that they must be the product of witchery. Fortunately the Lord Mayor had laughed in his face, telling him that the orchard had been there since the time of the hundred kingdoms, and that everyone in town had eaten her peaches for years.
The second time the peaches had gotten her in trouble had been more serious. Ambarae, her oldest daughter, had given some as a gift to a passing young merchant she was some taken with, and he had proposed marriage on the spot. The man came sniffing around for two or three months, trying to get upside of Ambarae’s skirts, and when Karl had threatened him with his woodaxe, the man went and filed a complaint with the warders. Like the honest fool he was, Karl had told the warders the simple truth, and wound up in stocks for weaponmongering. That had been a hard week, and when Karl came back he was bitter and mean for a long time over it.
Fortunately Ambarae had seen sense at last, and she told the Appleman brothers the whole story. When Karl came home after his week of punishment the merchant was long gone, having received a good talking to. Maybe he had finally seen sense and run, or maybe he was buried in one of the many orchards on Appleman land. They were always digging holes for new plantings.
Now Ambarae was in her bedroom with her paints and canvas, determined to fix the likeness of her latest hopeless crush, the so-called Privy Lord of Walcox. Jannae had seen him only the one time, when she’d gone desperate to Walcox after the burning and found Ambarae lingering and mooning among the refugees there. Fool girl could have at least sent word that she was well. “The Privy Lord saved us all.” She declared, and more ominously, “Isn’t he handsome?” Well, Jannae supposed he was, in a scruffy and downtrodden sort of way, with his uncut beard and his stained red tabard, but she wasn’t having Ambarae run off and be a camp follower to any mercenary commander, no matter what he’d done. She’d practically dragged the girl home by her ear, wishing for the umpteenth time that the Secret Gods had given her sons.
Well, the Secret Gods had, she reflected sadly, looking over at a line of tiny headstones. Given three sons and then took them each away before they were old enough to call her mama.
Ambarae was what she had left. Poor Lanae flown off and disappeared, eagle and all, gone three months now without a trace. Being a Brookhouse, she’d known that Lanae’s fortune was too good to last, and she’d wisely set aside half of the gold the poor girl had sent home. Lanae had been dutiful right until the day she’d vanished, and the last payment of gold had come the same day they learned she was missing. It came as little surprise that it was over Zoric that she disappeared. The seven devils could have that stinking, wretched country.
She took up a basket and started harvesting a bushel of peaches from the low branches, keeping her eyes on the ground. Karl could get the higher ones with his ladder. ‘Keep your eyes fixed on the good green earth, and you will not stumble.’ Her grandmother had said. ‘It’s when you look up that you fall.’ Well, that had been her Lanae, she supposed. Looked up to become a king’s eye, and now she was gone, which comes of messing about with Tolrissan folk.
She hummed a tune she’d learned as a child, the bedraggled remains of a hymn to the Secret Gods, the gods of the hundred kingdoms:
“Kralakir for justice, his arm is strong.
Krala for law, so you don’t do wrong.
Lio is golden, he holds back the night.
Ellakan is vengeance, he sets things right.
Tarchan is the darkness, where you hide your sins.
Jinsit is death, where our life begins.
Sheo for sky, he brings the storm
Caharr is the fire that keeps you warm.
Hidor the water that puts him out.
Skahaza the lightning that turns you about.
But our god is Srari, for she is love.
She fills our hearts and she waits above.”
Nonsense, of course. A poem for children, and indeed she had learned it as a child in this very orchard, picking peaches with her mama. The orchard was magical, she supposed. When they took saplings or cuttings from her peaches and transplanted them elsewhere, they did about as well as peaches should, blossoming in spring and fruiting in early summer, but no hidden treasures out of season. Maybe in the time of the hundred kingdoms, when this place had been called Valkaz and home to a mighty king, this orchard had belonged to royalty. Maybe it had been a magical grove planted and tended by the Hidden Folk, like her mama said when she was a child.
Then again, maybe not. She certainly didn’t know, and she didn’t need her fancies running away with her. Next thing you know she’d be running around after some scruffy lord in Walcox.
A shadow swept over the orchard, but she did not look up until after, and by the time she noticed that the sky was cloudless, seven hells had busted loose in the farmyard.
The hens were screeching, the pigs were squealing in terror and even the normally docile milk cows were bawling. Bully the watchdog came racing around the cottage like he’d been scalded, whining and barking like the shameless coward he was. She put down the half-filled bushel of peaches and began striding toward the cottage, stopping to pull the woodaxe from the block on the way. If it was them damned Auligs she’d teach them a lesson as hard as they’d learned in Walcox, by damn.
Karl came around the corner, looking stunned and shocked. “Mama.” He said, and she bristled a bit. Her name was Jannae, and it irritated her to no end when he called her mama. She was his wife, not his mama. He persisted, however.
“Mama, she’s back.”
“I know she’s back. I dragged her home myself. She’s been back since yestereve.”
“Not Ambarae.” The infuriating man said. “It’s our Lanae. She’s come back.”
When Jannae saw the little girl in the flying leathers step from around the cottage, and behind her a gigantic eagle strutting there looking like nothing so much as an enormous brown gamecock, she stopped walking and stared. Her little Lanae was back from the dead.
“Mama?” Lanae said in her little girl voice, and then her face got took by the ugly like it always did before she cried.
Jannae wanted to speak, but a hard lump of something was caught in her throat, and her feet were stuck to the ground. The woodaxe fell from her hands. Lanae ran toward her, and the fool girl was smiling like an idiot and crying. She took a good look and her voice came back.
“Lanae.” She whispered in a little choking voice that didn’t sound like her at all, and her fool husband standing there grinning, and the child come back and all. She reckoned her own face got took by the ugly for a second. Then she got a good look at her lost daughter, and she saw something new. “Sweet Srari, child. What have they done to you?”
Lanae came into her arms and began bawling like a baby.
Chapter 51: Levin in Jutland, Hrulthan’s Steading
“Ooooooooh.” A wild-ey
ed kilted man in the eye-bewildering tangled checks and stripes of Vherador roared while forks and knives beat a furious and accelerating rhythm on long tables and booted feet thrummed on the rough-planked floor amid the dogs. “Ooooooh …” Other men, similarly dressed, joined in his cry:
“The kingdom’s gone and the king is gone and the castle’s fallen doon and doon,
Oh the kingdom’s gone and the king is gone and the castle’s fallen doon!
Oh, we never did see the way they come with wind and fire and storm and pain,
No, we never did see the way they come with wind and fire and pain!
Oh they come in the dark and they come in the day and they break us down again again
Oh they come in the dark and they come in the day and they break us down again!
Oh, we never did see the way they come with wind and fire and storm and pain
Oh, we never did see the way they come with wind and fire and pain!
But we’re gonna go back, I swear we’ll go back and take the old land back again
We’re gonna go back, I swear we’ll go back and take it back again!
For the kingdom’s gone and the king is gone and the castle’s fallen doon and doon
Oh the kingdom’s gone and the king is gone and the castle’s fallen doon!”
It was a song Levin had never heard, but sung in the style called a reel, and every foot was pounding the rhythm and every knife and fork dancing, except for those of a small band of Vheradorans, who were dancing themselves, singing, spinning and stomping on the tables, careless of the wooden plates, bowls and mugs or the crockery they smashed. This was a song of fallen Vherador, sung by warriors who had been exiled from their homes far away on the eastern side of the Tolrissan Sea.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 57