A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  “It’s blue, and that would mean it’s the Sundus King,” Sascha thought out loud. “That leads me to think that the closer banner is one of his vassals: the yellow with green stripes, with the blue of the eastern river god at its center. That’s the royal banner of Isur.”

  “They can’t be,” Temmi said.

  “Then maybe it’s the Pendwise Knights?” Sascha offered.

  “No more arguing,” Sir Rolis told the two, pointing at them with his finger. He looked around and nodded. “Let’s get back now. I’ll assemble the caravan members, and tell them the situation.”

  They hiked back around the mountainside, and by the time they got to the road most of the men in the caravan were waiting there to see what was going on. The Ballatch merchant was useful for once. He waved them all down to quiet, and they turned to listen to what Sir Rolis would say.

  “We have gone forward and looked down across the Golden Slopes at Kraxika and she is currently under siege by the Goloks, and probably also by the Sund. You can go and assess the situation for yourselves if you want, but I hazard that if we go down into the city, no one will buy your wares and you will be entering into the peril of its siege. I therefore intend to return this caravan to Troli, and you can store or sell your goods there at the knights’ canteen.”

  They snarled and swore. They threw their arms up into the air and stared off into the brush and trees in shock. One of them just abruptly turned around and stomped off back down the road to his wagons. Sir Rolis’ words meant that their entire profits and efforts for the year were now gone. They would have to bear the loss, or apply to those who had insured them. The men were mostly Islanders from the kingdoms of Tolwind, and had already come across Alonze, through Gece and into Bagheri only to not be able to trade because of the army of barbarians from the east.

  “Uffo, go get that man and bring him back here,” Sir Rolis ordered. “I’m not done talking.” Uffo gave him a look that seemed to say it was a waste of time, but then he skipped off down the road after the trader. Sir Rolis called out to the others still there. “If you have another destination in mind on the Golden Slope, I will make out an agreement and let you pass on alone to it. But I warn you against that. No one will be buying anything but food and weapons down there, and if this is the same horde that menaced Tiger Bay during the summer, then I would not be surprised if they have sent raiders forward into the valleys and hills.”

  Sir Rolis began to call out the order for the change of wagons, and of how they would all turn around on the grade and go back down it, taking advantage of the turnouts that the travelers had built along the way up the pass. Most of the merchants wanted to go out and look down at Kraxika, and Wayland of Tolwind was no exception. He went and watched the siege, and the army outside the city. But while the others exchanged their feelings and regret, he just clicked his teeth a few times, shook his head, and accepted what had happened.

  When the wagons were all turned around and headed back down Uffo, Wayland and Sascha again rode together near his wagons, and the two Traveler knights offered their sympathies for his losses.

  “There will be no summer fair now,” Sascha said for himself. “I had wanted to look through the bride tents.”

  “Make her the lady of the Krag?” Uffo scoffed. “What are you going to do when you show up back at the Krag with some fat, yellow-eyed Golok girl? It will kill your mother and shame your father. Can’t you find some local lady to wed with the promise of your rich estate?”

  “The stock available in northern Gece is not hearty for adventure, or inclined to my prospects,” Sascha confided. “I was thinking more along the fine fit of a Pendwise milk maid.”

  They all shared a laugh at the mention of this mythical beauty that populated minstrel songs and bawdy stories. But then Wayland cut their humor short with a long sigh, and he talked instead about the opportunity lost due to the fighting in Bagheri.

  “My uncle and father talked about years like this where the road was closed,” he said, “as if it were some great event. Perhaps this means that it will never happen to me again, a thing that I will look forward to. Now that the Three have shown us this fate, what will the Traveler Knights do?”

  “There will be a general muster of the Knights along the roads, from Bagheri to Alonze, from the Varrek Steppes to the Kappernian Sea,” Uffo replied. “And because the basilica and the major shrines of the Daughter are all in Kraxika, there will be a call from the church for the orders of knights and lords of Espeth to go out on crusade.”

  “All the mountainsides and swamps in Galfan and northern Gece will soon have lords,” Sascha declared knowingly, bringing up how the church rewarded crusade service with marginal, speculative lands. “I wonder, if I could dump the Krag into a swamp, perhaps the two would level out and create a nice meadow.”

  “For your milk maid’s cows?” Uffo asked. He turned and looked over at Wayland. “What will you do now?” Wayland considered his options and made no solid declaration back.

  “We’ll see what happens at Troli with my merchandise. I prepared for two years for this trip. It would be a shame to come half way across the continent from Tolwind and not get a closer look at the Daughter’s city.”

  Sascha and Uffo exchanged glances. They had all wondered a bit about Wayland, with his excellent kit and belt with gilded fittings. He looked to be more than just a merchant. They thought he might be a courtier, or a man of intrigue out on some secret quest for a rich patron.

  Officially, the Traveler Knights took no sides in politics, sworn to serve on the trade routes that the Bagheri Prince, Grand Prince of Gece, and King of Alonze maintained and held in company. Even if a renegade noble, spy, or outlaw should travel openly among them, they could do them no harm or arrest to them as long as they didn’t cause disruption to commerce or travel.

  “I came to have an adventure, and I might have just found it,” Wayland said. “Though I do not know how I fit into it yet.”

  “Time will tell for all,” Uffo said, agreeing a little now with Sascha’s earlier speculation.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SUNNIL

  THE WATCHED ROAD

  EAST OF GILSFLOR POOLS

  “Scourge all the goblins from the earth!” Sir Augustus cried out, as he drew forth his sword with a hissing snick. His mount danced around for a moment outside the window of the coach, creating a blur of green, gray and silver. Then the driver slapped the traces and picked up more speed. The two people inside gripped the leather straps and corners of the seat mounts and held on for life. There were several more dark shadows and flashes of metal as mounted archers and lancers rode by, going the opposite way.

  Sarwin jumped across the coach’s interior and closed the heavy wooden rain panels and fastened them, giving the riders inside more protection, but also making it so that Countess Sunnil had nothing to look out of. The scribe reached down and cut the straps on the chest of silverware that Grotoy had put in with them. He then opened one of the panels back up and slipped the top half of his body out through it, to look about at what was happening.

  Lancers rode ahead and tagged behind, while others had spun around and were now lost to the rear in the turns and dust of the road. Every few moments the coach would catch a rut or hit a small hole in the road, and the whole frame would shake, move, or jump. Sunnil’s driver was crouched down on the seat, holding the reins and his own girth strap. Sarwin turned his head to look past him, on up the road.

  Immediately a burned-out peel tower flashed by on the coach’s left side, the yard in front of it covered with broken furniture and bodies. Some of the lancers and swordsmen had turned off ahead into the clearing and struck through a group of goblins assembled there, riding forward and dropping their spears to jab at the creatures, those running before them or fighting back. The archers were riding the road on one side, shooting at the creatures that showed themselves nearby as they passed. Sarwin watched as a long wooden pole sailed out from the opposite side of the road and hi
t an archer’s horse, throwing the soldier and the mount sideways, careening them until they crashed off and turned over in a drover cut. He saw the flash of its metal shoes as the horse wheeled over and then lay in a heap.

  He ducked back in as the body of a rider and horse approached him, and passed close by. He went into the chest and pulled out some of the silver goblets and plate. As a group of goblins used their wolves to jump at the lancers riding behind the coach, Sarwin flung the bright metal out onto the road. He watched to see what would happen, but in a moment the scene was gone and he could not tell. He sighed anyway in relief and watched the fight for a moment, until an arrow struck off the top of the coach roof right next to his head. Then he ducked back down inside.

  Sarwin did not see it, but Sunnil did. She had gone to the other side of the coach and undone the window panel there, holding onto one of Grotoy’s silver bowls in her hand to toss it out onto the road. She looked out and stared forward as three great trolls rose up on her side of the road. They were on an incline, a few feet higher up than the cut, each of them holding onto a long, narrow piece of wood. They looked at each other, and then threw their piles down at the horse team and the coach as it drove by. Sunnil let go of the bowl, pulled herself back inside, and braced herself for whatever was going to happen.

  The horses screamed, and the coach slewed sideways. There was a ripping crash as one of the wheels jerked and was torn away. The coach bounced, came down, and then vaulted over through the air. The bottom was now the top, and the top was again soon the bottom. The silverware got free and flew about dangerously. The coach came down with a great shock, and the frame burst. Sunnil landed on top of Sarwin, and then they were both roughly bounced about ten more times as the wreck hit things, slowed, and then ground to a halt.

  The trolls came down from where they had stood and surveyed the wreck of the carriage and the dead and injured team of horses. The soldiers who had been escorting it went to fighting on the road, and in a nearby field. They rode back and forth before the advancing goblin line, slashing and shooting arrows as they were in turn struck down or pulled from their horses. The splendid knight in blue and green rallied a dozen men to his side and they charged back to protect the smashed coach, but by then the goblins and trolls had partly surrounded it. Outnumbered, they were again shot, stabbed and pulled down. There was some hesitation, and then the remaining riders began to escape on their horses off down the road or to the east through the trees, abandoning each other to do as they may.

  The trolls and goblins pulled apart the coach and picked out the girl and the man inside. With disgust a troll realized he was a priest of the Three, and he threw him down. The troll that had picked up the girl held her suspended up by a leg like a doll, and he shook her.

  “This could be one of the ones that he was talking about,” he said over to a couple of the others.

  “Yeah, but she is bleeding,” one of the goblins observed, pointing. The troll lowered her back to the road. “All females can bleed a little and live, but you should know that. See, she’s breathing.” The goblin was angry at the insult he had been given, but let it pass.

  “Then it should be fine,” he said. “One of you can carry her back with the others. I have a good feeling about this one.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KULITH

  FUGOE CASTLE

  Kulith had waited patiently in the pillaged keep while his army did its work, he sitting in a chair that the lord might have once used to settle disputes from, or to feast in. It was one of the few that had survived the siege and the sacking of Fugoe Castle. Goblins generally disliked chairs, and a rock, stool, bench, or any other moderately high surface would serve them well instead. They held a superstition about being stabbed or killed if they sat down in a chair. The rickety, thin wooden ones men made were quickly broken up with glee and thrown into fires. But Kulith could appreciate a chair.

  From his view of the hall, the feast and looting could not have been going any better. The goblins had cooked up most of the potatoes and corn they had found below and set it in troughs down the center of the tables. Every day they would slaughter four or five more animals and cook them at the various hearths, or out in the yard over fires. There were now four great bands of goblins camped outside the castle, alongside the smaller groups of thyrs and trolls. The raiding groups he had sent out were now coming back from the countryside, bringing in more food and spoils for their chiefs to judge over. They brought the things they could not divide evenly to him for judgment, and they also bought him the captives. Through pleasant or brute inquiry, he shortly learned who they were and what they were worth.

  He had stuck a matron’s foot into one of the fires just that morning and the goblins had laughed and made a lot of it. They said it had been the smart thing to do, since to put one of her hands into the fire would have made her useless as a scullery or a field slave. He hadn’t done it for long, and she had told him the truth right away after that, and so had several of the others. Afterward he had felt reproach from the holy sword that he carried, as if it was judging him. It would sting him now and again, as he touched it with his hands or fingered the golden pommel.

  He did not mind the pain that much and had played with it, seeing if he could avoid the little twinges by moving his fingers deftly away just before they intensified. He did not doubt that the sword was in some way conscious; with a will and desire for holy vengeance wherever it was needed, however small the injury. Kulith felt that he had already given it a great opportunity: a prize that it could not have ever gotten close to by staying on Sir Theodor’s hip. The butchery at the hill had to have been a major event between the forces of good and evil in the world. If the blade waited and endured what his duties required of him, then it might find itself rewarded again by another great string of murders.

  Kulith was of course thinking now of Sterina, the one that they called the White Child, the Lord of the Knife Back Palace. Rat Ears had disappeared into the night after rudely escorting him up the hill to Sarik. He felt sure that the messenger had survived and run off back to the Dimm and was even now courting her and working on his return to favor. What was the goblin saying, Kulith wondered, and how would it try to wreck his plans?

  At that moment he was eating a carcass off a wooden plate. He had thought that it was a big squab of some kind at first, but had eventually been told that it was a badger. It had wonderful dark meat and had produced rich gravy rimmed with fat. One of the goblin bands had broken into some dens for sport and cooked them all up. Kulith had been given other things, including a bag of salt and a jug of wine that he had used to get the smell of the burned matron out of his nose. He recalled getting a box of silver and gold coins, a jeweled brass cup, three good swords, and a black wool cloak trimmed with bear fur. He didn’t know what had happened to most of it. He assumed that he had given them away to others and used the coins to arbitrate the split of booty, or perhaps the goblins and trolls had just stole them all back.

  The rich meal and his rumination on treasure turned him to think about the true loyalty of the goblins, thyrs and trolls. Their allegiance was not held through fear or for the promise of wealth from raids. It was instead mostly based on hunger. Events like the casual torture that morning might make them feel better about their lot for a few hours, but later their stomachs would start to ache and they turned practical. When a horde became loot heavy and ran out of food, the tribal groups or individuals within it would desert to go get more. This was usually done through another battle, by raiding, or by returning down to the surface of the Dimm to forage or buy it.

  He saw that there was some new commotion going on at the door of the hall, and he put down the badger carcass. He considered how long it would take now for the plunder laden goblins and trolls in his horde to figure out that they could go down to one of the Stones, probably to Doom Wall there, and buy access to females. A new group of buggers were now marching in through the doors, shouting and showing off their fresh prison
ers and booty to the others in the hall.

  They threw them all upon the piles of waste bones and midden that had been made against one of the walls, and this in of itself was enough to get some of the goblins at the tables to laughing. There were five of them this time he saw: a priest, a girl, two soldiers and a liveried servant.

  The servant was in a bad way, with both of his lower legs looking like they had been crushed, the feet turned black and useless. He hadn’t made much noise when the troll had dropped him on the floor, which was usually a sign that he was near to the end. Kulith stood up and pushed aside the plate and its tasty remains. He had to spend a moment cleaning off the grease with his mouth because it was so good, and because it was smart to show the other trolls and goblins that he enjoyed the same kinds of things that they did. It made him less of a half breed.

  “Well what is this lot?” he asked the head of the returning reapers.

  “We met them on the watched road after burning out a few of the towers,” he replied. “The girl and the priest were riding in a fancy coach. It must have been four days ago now.”

  “Who shall we start with?” Kulith asked. One of the trolls stalked around, looking at the people lying against the wall in the bones and refuse.

  “We think the two from the coach are the important ones. Let’s start with this injured man. He doesn’t have very long anyway, and might make a tasty stew.” They pulled the man forward, dragging him out of the rubbish and bones, across the floor on his broken, black feet. He hardly made a sound and the two trolls looked at each other in surprise, then dropped him on the floor before Kulith and stood back to watch.

  Kulith had used the language of Gece more than the rest, even going down into the marches and into the West Lands few times to scout them, or to get things that they needed. The others could only speak a few words or sentences, but as often as not it would all soon devolve into the guttery talk and noises that the goblins made.