A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  This was however a direct affront to the Grand Prince. Instead of bringing the ransom letter straight to Sarwin of Krolo, who everyone knew was the individual most apt, he had held onto it and posed a fee of his own. It did not make sense to Wayland why this man bothered so much over such a small amount. It was obvious he would have been rewarded anyway for bringing it in, unless the bad blood was too thick already and had prevented it.

  “Now you are the one thinking too much,” she said to him, and she laughed easily.

  “My scheming does get the better of me sometimes,” he said, and he laughed along with her. But then he was right back to the same business. “How many men does he have?” Wayland asked her.

  “About thirty is the lowest number needed to garrison,” she told him. “But if he is planning something big, he could interest others in helping him, such as the men inside the forest.”

  That was what they called the outlaws and bandits who lived in the Khaast. The men were loosely organized under leaders like Oskar on the Roof. They didn’t usually bother the trade road running through the Khaast from Rydol to the West Lands. There were also usually no Traveler Knights present here, and so it had possibly set up a new precedence for ill will.

  “Now I have lost you completely to your troubles,” she said. “Just know as you play at this that my father is completely capable, and you should always trust in his judgment. Now go and tell the Krag to bathe, as I will be sending him a note this afternoon.”

  She leaned in and gave Wayland a kiss on the cheek, and they both smiled and parted, he leaving and going back up into the castle. When he got to the hall he found another message with a dark wax seal waiting for him, with a flap of leather holding something else beside it. These had been delivered by a sour looking border man in a black cloak.

  Lord Sirlaw was sitting in a chair at the opposite end of his hall with two of his guards close at hand, appearing to go over some of his correspondence to do with the marshaling of the West Lands. But he was really just waiting there, watching to see what would happen. Wayland came across the room and stopped before the table on which the items were set. He picked them up in turn, and then looked across at the dark-cloaked man. He waited there, and Wayland expected he was doing so in the hope to being paid, and to perhaps get an answer that he could take back.

  He examined the sealed message again, and then opened it with his dagger. It explained that a fresher ransom demand had been received, and that the older one, now out of date, had been forwarded to him as proof. The new demand was in the possession of the sender, and it would cost him twenty pounds of silver to get it.

  “I don’t understand why your captain didn’t deliver these to Rydol immediately,” Wayland said across to the waiting man. “This price is acceptable.” He wagged his dagger at him. “Go and get the new ransom letter, and return with it here. You will be paid when I have seen it, and know that it is real.”

  “My captain feels he may not be welcomed in Krolo,” the man said, “and he does not trust another to handle the money in his stead. He would like you to bring it to the inn under the Strike: a ruin of stones near here, to meet there tonight when the moon rises up over the trees. He will make the exchange there in good confidence with you, free of any border quarrels.”

  “That seems acceptable,” Wayland answered, and he tossed the man a silver swan for his troubles. Then the man bowed and left, and a guard came back a little later to inform them that he had passed out through the wall and gate.

  “Why I do not know, but it seems like someone wants to kill you,” Lord Sirlaw said to Wayland.

  “It’s as bad as Ballatch here,” Wayland agreed, shaking his head. He stalked back and forth before the fire, wondering who he had wounded or aggrieved enough to do this. The service in Gece was perilous it seemed, and it was no wonder they were impressing foreigners to hold the courts of the kingdom together. He rejected the notion that the Sobrezeks were behind it almost immediately, but then felt that he really could not. It seemed the other possibility was that Lord Wenslig had left men here to cause trouble, to make his schemes come true. He wished that Temmi had been present there, since he might have been able to identify the footpad they had just talked to.

  “It would waste time if something happened to me, wouldn’t it?” Wayland asked Sirlaw. He lifted the edge of the leather flap, but then decided to use his dagger to just slice it open. He picked it on the corner, and let the folded parchment fall free from inside.

  “Your mission would be postponed,” Sirlaw said. “Perhaps it would not happen then for a long time, if the mobilization of Gece starts. The countess would be for all that time stuck, down in the Dimm.” Sirlaw’s last words had an ominous sound of finality to them, like the closing of a coffin lid, and Wayland didn’t like it.

  “So there it is,” Wayland said. “I was forced to do this job because I killed, and I have been killing ever since. Let’s kill them all I say, if they give us reason. At any provocation in fact, just as long as we are the only ones who can say later what happened and who was right.” That was the stick, as hard as he had ever thought to swing it. He frowned, then pinned open the two pages of the ransom demand on the table and looked at them, and though he did not know the countess, it appeared genuine. The girl wrote here and there of her captors with some disgust.

  “Well, welcome to the West Lands,” Sirlaw commented, nodding in approval of his plan, when Wayland glanced back up. “But let’s now look at it from my point of view. If they are killed, it’s one more hold fast that will need to be garrisoned by someone else, and some of these people are no doubt innocent, at least of this. It will also eventually hurt more innocents and cause strife, and we have had enough of that. What if the goblins see us fighting, and decide to sweep through again afterwards? We can’t just go killing everyone right now we would like to kill.”

  Wayland thought about what Sirlaw had said. He took the writing desk and placed it down on top of the table. He took some parchment out and began writing on it in silence, not telling Sirlaw what he was doing until he was done. He dried the two letters, made envelopes for each, and then sealed them inside. He then handed them over to Lord Sirlaw.

  “This gives you charge of my mission, should I be killed,” he told him. “If you do not wish to take it on, you can burn them. I have given you two copies, and one of them is intended to inform Grotoy, and this is where you should send it and look for help, because the countess is also their kin, and they seem to care.”

  “Now I must go prepare for my part,” Wayland said. “I think we will keep Sascha behind, unless he insists. I will need about thirty of your men who can watch what happens, and be ready and come to my aid if needed.”

  “There are old grudges between Pawel and my sons,” Sirlaw said. “I will send one of them out to help you. They know that place well and you do not, a fact that I think these men count on to use against you.”

  “I will have to go arrange for this amount also,” Wayland said. He scratched his chin as he considered what he could do regarding that. He thought of something, in response to them appearing to have already acted in bad faith. “We must have everything ready by dinner, and I still bear a message to tell Sascha. Until then, unless I am needed, I leave you.”

  The night came, after a grand red and gold sunset through several purple layers of broken clouds that had slowly drifted across the sky from the Priwak. Wayland and the others assembled in one of the courts of the castle, having had their horses readied by Sirlaw’s servants. One of the lord’s sons and another officer had set out earlier with twenty men each, on routine patrol sweeps that they would break off from to unite in private, and approach and wait near the Strike.

  Wayland had traded cloaks with Temmi, and he had assembled a small casket with strings of cowbells inside, the clappers packed tight with black coins, with thirty of them only worth about a flonnet. It would give the bandits something to focus on, he figured, and he could use it as an alarm, or cha
se the noise coming from the chest. He carried the actual money all in gold in a purse, as he realized he couldn’t really trust anyone else with it but himself, and even he was a bit tempted, but the others around him and his bearing kept him straight.

  Sir Byrning wanted to bring along a boy he was thinking of taking on as a road squire. There was a damsel to be saved, and it was without question that the knight was going to somehow be involved. As for the boy, the Pendwise Legion served as an outlet for many young men who had been passed over for one reason or another. The castles along the coast of the Kappernian Sea were full of bastards and men who had made a first misstep somewhere else, only to go on in the order and accomplish great things.

  “He can watch the horses with one of my archers,” Wayland said. He looked back at the knight and narrowed his eyes. “I hope you understand that this is not some lark. Sharpen your sword, because you will probably have a use for it soon.”

  “This is the first real seriousness I have seen you possess, so don’t start making light of mine,” he snapped back.

  “Well done then,” Wayland replied. Was the knight now referring to him riding the cow through the gate of Rydol? In back sight that might have played out well for Wayland, as it set up the whole business they were now engaged in. His opposition probably saw him as a weak, easy mark.

  They mounted their horses, with little or no plan of what to do once they got to their destination, and they followed a trusted soldier down through the tunnel in the wall and out into town. Torches lit their way through Krolo’s streets, and in no time they had reached the gates. They went out through them, smelling the heads and burn pits as they passed close by.

  They rode south in darkness, down an unfamiliar road, it winding between the planted fields and swales of pasture, the sweet smell of ripe corn and grain coming off the still warm crops, carried to them by a cooler wind that had started at dusk. After a couple of miles, the outline of the hills to the west appeared and rose up, the summer grass on them all dried to a pale yellow, making them visible in contrast against the black sky and stars. There were streaks of old burn marks going down them in places, where the goblins had started fires during their reckless but ultimately successful foray.

  One of these black marks came down the side of the hills and pointed like an arrow point at the Strike. It was a standing stone obelisk on a low hill of other rocks, and before it was a group of old stone walls that were reused every time the tavern was burned and rebuilt. The current structure had a couple of lit torch poles outside of it, and the light showed the timbers and wattle of its face, covered with a thatch roof, it all leaning a little for support on the stone wall that now served as the building’s rear. It had the general design of an open hall, or a long barn, and Wayland expected that is what they would find when they went inside.

  They stopped on the road there and waited, looking off to the south east where the moon would eventually rise up over the trees. There might have never been a better time to attack them, Wayland thought, but it did not happen. Instead a soldier who had gone out earlier in one of the patrols approached, and joined them there.

  “We are close at hand,” he told them.

  Wayland had eight men, not including Sir Byrning and his squire. They watched the tavern ahead and considered it, and when the moon rose up, they led their horses forward the rest of the way down the road to the front of it. The soldier they had met and the squire put them in a line, and took up guard.

  Wayland had watched the tavern and decided that something was interfering now with the regular movement of patrons, so that it was being avoided. Word might have spread earlier, or perhaps men waited on the paths and warned those who tried to approach. That was the way that it would have been done in Tolwind. He figured he would find some sort of fight inside it, and he counted on Temmi being able to identify Lord Wenslig’s agent and appraise his possible danger to them, right before the choice was made about what to do.

  They got into a file, with Wayland putting up his hood and one of the archers carrying in the small chest. Wayland felt that he needed to be free, being perhaps the best swordsman among them, and try at least for a few moments to hide his identity, until Temmi could reveal the man. The door was just a couple of flaps made from hide, and it could not be barred from either side.

  They pushed through these and came into a great room with a packed dirt floor, still dark from being made and set. Beams were driven into the ground in two rows to support the cross bracing of the roof. There was a fire trench in the middle below the thatch, and a crude serving and eating board across part of the rear. It might have usually been full of all kinds of people making music, being merry, drinking, gambling, and whoring, but it was not right now. The fire, torches and lanterns revealed that it housed a collection of armed men that Wayland considered to be his enemies, all dangerous, probably desperate. They were a rough lot by the look of them.

  They had occupied all the good benches, tables and chairs on the opposite side of the tavern, and had been drinking off the board. They all stood up and turned around to face them, like they had not had a man watching at the door the whole time. They looked back and forth, and Wayland had the impression that they were all together, but consisted of several different groups who were not accustomed to this kind of thing. Instead of the bravado that might have been thrown back in forth in Tolwind, they were all nervous, watchful and quiet. Waykand could not do otherwise himself, having chosen for now to guard his own identity.

  Temmi threw back his own hood and looked about the room. His unruly brown hair, blue eyes and upturned nose made him look like a boy, and this with his manner naturally angered them. He jabbed with his gloved finger out at the dark cloaked man who had delivered the message to Krolo earlier in the day.

  “What are you doing here Bole? Aren’t the West Lands a little far astray from your front door?”

  ”Where’s that Tolly who’s captaining you?” he just growled back at Temmi, and put his hand on his sword hilt.

  “Why would he come here to pay off a mere bandit? He would jeopardize his whole mission, over such a shady affair.” He gestured over at the archer. “Put down the money to show our good faith.” He looked back then at Bole, who was trying to think: to figure out how to salvage the situation. “I thought you would be for the cause of the countess, but I find you here, seeming to have gone against your prior service to her. I suppose that service was not done with the heart?”

  “Our service often takes us to strange places,” Bole replied to Temmi. “There were directions given, with the ransom demand that your captain needed to hear. Am I to trust such an important matter to a reckless street tiger like you?”

  “You haven’t even explained yourself,” Temmi countered. “And I seem to be just one of many animals present here. Who are the hunters, and who are the hunted? ” One of the men moved forward toward the chest, and Temmi now put his hand down on his own sword, as Bole hissed the man back.

  “Good faith,” one of the archers from Troli muttered.

  “You think you there can stop us from taking that chest?” One of the other men behind Bole spoke up. He stepped around so that they could get a better look at him, and he at them.

  “Yes, Bole is here,” he said, “but we were the ones who retrieved those letters, and we expect to be paid for it.” This was no doubt Pawel, the man who Lord Sirlaw had warned him about. Wayland had become bored, and they now seemed deadlocked. If these bandits did not have another letter, then this ruse was wasting their time, and they needed to leave, or get on to the fighting. He slowly slipped off his own hood and then stepped forward.

  “I am Wayland of the Isles,” he said. “Lord Sascha of the Krag is the officer among us in the West Lands. Do you think that the Grand Prince would put his faith in a man who rode a cow through the Mancan Gate on a bet?” Pawel had turned his head, and now he scowled over at him.

  “It got your attention though, didn’t it?” Wayland added.

/>   “You’ve been played finer here,” Pawel said over to Bole, looking at him. “There’s one way I know that I can still get paid.” He reached behind him, into his belt, and he pulled forth a leather flap. He held it up and showed it to all of them.

  “I have the letter right here. There’s still the matter of actually getting close enough to the buggers to engage them in talk. I’ll leave that up to you to figure out.”

  “Might I inspect this new letter, before I pay for it?” Wayland asked him.

  “Of course, since you have kept your part,” he said, looking over at the chest. He slowly moved forward and extended the flap of leather toward Wayland, who now reached out across and went to take it.

  “Stop!” Bole commanded, and drew out a foot of his sword’s steel with a scraping noise.

  “What is it now?” Temmi asked, frustrated, suddenly ready with everyone else to again go to arms.

  “It has just come to me that I should be the one in charge here,” Bole said, “instead of a dirty street tiger, a cow-riding fool, or a randy peacock. None of those are the requirements needed to rescue a princess.”

  “And fighting a sword duel is?” Temmi loudly, rudely asked him back. “What will you do afterwards, descend down into the Dimm and ask the buggers to all line up one at a time so that you can fight them fairly in turn?”

  Wayland reached across and tried to take the leather envelope again, and Bole began to step towards him, to do something rash. Sir Byrning loudly cleared his throat. They all hesitated, and listened as he stepped around so that they could all clearly see him.

  “I am inclined as a Knight of Pendwise to think that fighting is the only way something like this will be seen through,” he said. He looked back at Temmi, and at Wayland’s group. “You came to the West Lands and took things in hand because Rydol had not produced a champion. Well, one has now made himself known.”