A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  Wayland was sure that if Bole was put in charge, it would then take an act of God, or perhaps at least Grotoy to retrieve the countess, if Bole hadn’t contrived in the meantime to somehow get her killed. It was natural for Sir Byrning to seek such a display, but reckless to jeopardize the hope that had recently been kindled. He wanted to see swords, but perhaps he was just thinking out ahead, farther into the future than any of the rest of them.

  “We would of course guarantee either way that you and your men are paid,” Sir Byrning told Pawel.

  “How would you do that?” Pawel asked him. Sir Byrning raised his foot, and stamped it back down on the top of the chest, and kept it there.

  “The ransom demand from the beasts?” he asked, holding out his hand. Pawel took a step toward him and gave over the leather flap. Sir Byrning wasted no time and fished the parchment out, then unfolded it to read what was there.

  “This appears to be genuine,” he declared. “It’s written by the Countess Sunnil.” He held his hand out next toward Wayland. “Show your chivalry now, young man.” Wayland loosened the cloak and let it fall away to the floor. He reached behind him and pulled free the heavy purse of gold. He handed it across to Sir Byrning, and then the knight stood there holding everything, seeming to weigh it. It would have been easy to jump him, and overpower him, but no one dared. They were all under his spell.

  “What’s that?” Pawel asked then, about the leather purse.

  “That’s the change,” Wayland answered, and knew he was found out, but this was a natural progression of his scheme that could not be helped.

  “Well I thank the Three for this knight from the Old Coast, to keep the rest of us here honest,” Pawel said, thinking about it. Sir Byrning nodded back in acknowledgement, and then Pawel spread out his hands, motioning for the rest of them to move back. “It’s best to give these two men some room.”

  There was almost no question that Wayland would be the one to fight with Bole. Temmi looked like he wanted to give it a try, but he knew Wayland had the greater skill and chance. And yes, Wayland was in command of their mission here, and it was his to lose.

  “Two strikes with blood,” Sir Byrning said, making it almost sound like a detail. Wayland took hold of his sword and dagger and drew them out in quick succession, then noted all the wooden poles standing up around them, used as supports to hold the beams and the roof. Bole drew his weapons also, and went into a guard that demonstrated he had learned how to fight somewhere.

  A person never really knew who they were fighting until it began in earnest, as one of Wayland’s teachers had been prone to say. Bole had been riding around for a couple of weeks now with the bandits, doing and eating whatever they did. Wayland had been resting in a pleasant, relatively clean castle, and was free of injuries and sickness. He liked his odds.

  They slowly advanced on each other, and then they traded a few shallow blows along the edges of their swords. Bole tried to bring one of his points in, and they moved their blades around, swords and daggers locked against each other for a moment. They broke apart with a scraping of metal on metal and Wayland allowed one of the wooden poles to come between them.

  Bole struck out at him and caught a piece of the post with the tip of his sword, and Wayland used the momentary bind to dart in and strike him in the shoulder, his sword pricking down through the edge of the man’s brigantine. Bole felt the point, grunted, cursed, and leapt back off Wayland blade.

  “First blood!” Sir Byrning called out, in case anyone was unsure.

  Wayland waited for Bole to recover himself, to see if he would continue to fight now that he was cut. Bole flexed his arm a couple of times, and then he looked over at the blood on his sleeve. He gestured that he was still fit to continue, and he came forward again. They moved away from the posts, to a new spot that gave them more space to fight in. The circle of men around them followed, shouting encouragement, while others banged on the furniture and the top of the serving bar.

  They went back and forth, the snip and clack of metal announcing when their blades had met, and grating hisses where the edges were pressed and locked for a moment against each other to push back and forth. Wayland began to sweat under his armor, his jacket and his leggings. He followed Bole’s sword and dagger with his own, moving back and forth as if in a practice yard, wearing away at him. The torches and men streaked by, sometimes on the edges of his vision. He stamped and lunged, then moved his feet quickly to the left. Their swords clattered together, their cuts a moment later both went wide.

  Wayland brought his sword back in first, and lunged to strike Bole again with the point, almost in the same spot as before. Bole tried to catch it with his dagger, as he also went forward and pressed the point of his sword through Wayland’s brigantine and into the skin and muscle that lay underneath. They hesitated there for half a heartbeat, each realizing that they had been struck, and that the duel was over, and then Bole gritted his teeth and tried to push his blade down farther into Wayland’s chest.

  But Wayland had pinioned it with the cross guard of his dagger, almost avoiding the jab altogether, and as a reflex when the tip of the blade came forward, he twisted it. The first six inches of Bole’s sword snapped off with a loud crack, and flew away into the audience. Wayland’s own sword thrust deeper down into the man until it rammed into bone. Bole groaned, dropped his sword and fell backward, allowing Wayland’s sword to now slide back out of his chest.

  “That’s second blood. The Traveler Knight has won the duel,” Sir Byrning commented. He looked over at Pawel and hefted the purse of gold. He threw it to bandit, and he caught it with both hands from of the air.

  Wayland cleaned the tip of his blade but didn’t sheath either of them. It was still a tense, dangerous situation that they were in. He held it up to the light, showing it to the bandits and other men around him.

  “Let it be known that Pawel and his band have performed a valuable service this day for the Grand Prince, as well as for the house of Rydol,” he said. “We leave you to your good fortune, to celebrate with it, or do otherwise as you wish.” Pawel had opened the purse by then and he now held up two of the gold coins and laughed, his eyes darting around, sharing satisfied looks with his men.

  “Let them go boys. Their money is good, and who knows, they might pay us again someday.”

  They backed out of the road house and saw that their mounts were still waiting for them with the two men. Also, Sirlaw’s riders had drawn up in a file a little way off the road, facing the house and the ruins. The broken walls were topped in response with several score of roughs, holding bows and other weapons, glittering in the torchlight. Wayland sheathed his sword and dagger, and they moved over and got up onto their horses.

  Pawel came out behind them. He lifted the small chest up and threw it down on the ground, shattering it and releasing the black coins inside, as well as the clappers and strings of cow bells. He looked back up, curious.

  “The knights have kept to their deal,” he souted out to the other men. “Let them withdraw from here without harm.”

  They rode back into Krolo a few hours later, and by then Wayland could not wait to strip out of his brigantine and see what kind of damage Bole had inflicted on him. But they were met by Lord Sirlaw, and taken up into his hall, and after he had heard a short story of the dealings and fight inside the tavern, he had casks of ale brought up, and set all the men down to a meal of whatever he could quickly draw out of his stores and serve.

  They began to toast his duel with Bole, with the different travelers getting up and saying how it had gone, and then Sir Byrning got up and went into a glorious description, of how it had happened from his viewpoint, from his viewpoint as a Knight of Pendwise. He droned on, some snickered, and Wayland lost track of what was said.

  Then he was suddenly being lifted up, and they were cheering for him. They wanted to see his sword, his arms, and the wound he had taken. When he lifted up the bandage he had stuffed inside his armor and jacket on the ride
back to Krolo, it was all bright red, and the men looked concerned for a moment, and then they cheered and banged on the tables tops. Wayland slipped backwards from the edge of the table and swooned.

  He awoke in a soft yellow light, and he thought that he might be in Heaven for a moment, or at least one of the Varri hero-hall paradises, because there was an angel leaning over to look down at him, her hair all a blaze of gold, silver and light.

  Lady Tazah then pressed a cold rag against to his head again, and it shocked him back to his senses. He was in the families’ solar at Krolo, by the look of it. The room was appointed with heavy carved furniture and there were colorful hangings on the walls. A matron was over by the tiled fireplace, moving water around from a pan to a pail.

  “He’s awake,” Tazah said, and leaned back away from him with a little smile now on her pink lips. Her blue eyes darted back, and she stared down at him across her bodice.

  “You’re the talk of the West Lands today: a real hero,” she told him. “By tomorrow though,” she said with a little sigh, “they will start to get tired of hearing about it, and no one will buy a drink for another telling of the tale. Then they will say that you are a foreigner, and question how it must have really been. In a week’s time another fight will occur, and they will forget about you almost completely, except for the name they are calling you now.”

  “What are they calling me?” Wayland asked her.

  “They have dubbed you the Cow Knight,” she said. “They think that you are obsessed with the creatures.”

  Well, that was an expected turn, after his riding of the cow into Rydol. He thought that the strings of bells he had gifted to Pawel with the chest of black coins might have also contributed. Traveler Knights were used to being called such things. Perhaps it was yet another alias he could someday use to hide behind to his advantage.

  “Who undressed me?” Wayland asked them.

  “That’s one of the great perils of getting into a sword fight,” Tazah said to him. “There may have been a bit of a struggle involved in doing that, and perhaps some kissing.”

  “I undressed you,” the matron said quickly, smartly cracking a wet linen towel out in the air as she unfolded it, “and if there was any kissing done, it was done by me.”

  Tazah laughed and stood back up from the bedside. Wayland reached across and felt at his wound and found it stitched up and smartly dressed over with a thin strapping of linen.

  “How much blood must be spilled out to celebrate such heroics?” The matron mused. “I think you tried to find out last night. You would have been fine today if you had seen to that cut right after returning, but of course you did not.”

  “I could not, in good conscience,” Wayland said, but he knew he should have demanded it. But the outcome of not doing so had proved very pleasant. Just as much as they were all getting ready to go take back Fugoe Castle, the duel had been necessary. He should have been guarded afterwards, to protect what he had won.

  He would now go up into the hills with the West Lands marshal and not fight, but instead do his job, as Captain Tig Morten had ordered him, as the Grand Prince had directed. He was finally set into it, and there would be no more reckless adventures. Having now eliminated his rival in the West Lands, and also alienated Rydol openly, he felt certain about what he needed to now do.

  “I request that you bring me a writing desk and the ransom note we retrieved last night,” he asked them. “I have letters to write and work to be done before we leave on the expedition to Fugoe Castle. It cannot wait.”

  Lady Tazah frowned, and made a pout with her lips.

  “Go on girl and get what he wants,” the matron ordered her away. “Like as not, now that he’s awake, one of your brothers or your father will soon come along and throw him back out into the halls.”

  She went away and returned with the lap desk and the ransom letter. Wayland read it over and went to work with what he now had. He would send two sets of letters, each in duplicate. One would go to Tig Morten of Troli by the regular traveler service, followed by a copy three days later that included with it the original ransom letter. The other would go north to Grotoy by the regular service, followed by a copy delivered by two of his own archers, whenever they arrived there. Into this one he would place the new ransom letter, with a plea for assistance.

  The contents of the fresh ransom letter did not provide much more information than the first had. It did show that she was still alive, but the position of the countess had now moved, out onto one of the other islands that existed in the middle of the Dimm. She also reckoned herself closer to the swamp on the west side of the lake than to the Priwak. The places she identified had no meaning to him, as they were all names that the local buggers used, and she described a great struggle between them that she was in constant danger from.

  He was directed to go now and talk to the leader of the goblins at Fugoe Castle, and they would set the occasion of her release and payment of the ransom. The chief at Fugoe was trusted by the current leader of the goblins out on the Stones, and he could communicate across to the places that the countess referred to.

  Sirlaw and his sons came back after they had finished a planned inspection of the castle and town to be sure everything was taken care of during their absence. They saw him sitting up in bed, sipping some stew while Tazah sat near him in a chair, reading a book and looking innocent. They had a stretcher made immediately from blankets and spears and he was carried out of their solar into the barracks, where he got a final round of cheers, as the men banged on their shields, buckets and pot helms.

  He was given a fresh, soft pallet and left to sleep or do as he pleased. So that is just what he did, the next morning sleeping past breakfast and only getting up in the afternoon to send out the first set of letters he had written. Four days later he was shouted awake in the early hours, as someone lifted up the corner of his pallet frame and dropped it back down on the stones.

  It was still dark outside, but lanterns and rush torches had been placed around so that they could see. One of the guard sergeants came out into the main guard hall, and shouted down the pallet line at the men. “Time to get your sorry hides over to the church!”

  They dressed, then moved out of the halls and across the court, then down through the tunnel and out into the town below. The church was in the center of the town, and it was now lit up in the darkness before them by large sconces of candles that had been brought out, and from a distance it looked like fires were burning behind all the windows and doorway glass. Wayland mused that an enemy could look down from one of the ridges of the Priwak right then and certainly see it, and figure out that something big was about to happen.

  There were a few benches for those who needed them, but the church was an open hall like any other hall and they filed in and mostly stood or got down on their knees on the stones. It was a military service, and those that had swords took them and put them before themselves, to rest their hands on the arms of the guard. The prior had a large gold touch piece on his chest representing the stair, the fire, and the star, and he led them in the Accolades. Wayland felt an immediate nostalgia, and a nearing of the holy spirits to his own that he had not felt since his youth, or at least not since he had fought in Galfan.

  “And then,” the prior said, reciting a part of the Discovery, “hearing of Elius teaching on the isles, and of the wonders he did there, the satrap of the Abbeds sent out three wise men to listen to him, and three more magis to watch what he did, and three more to confide between the others, and between their threes, decide what to do.”

  Wayland loved the parallels in the verses and it ended for him too soon. After some last words of encouragement they all rose up and drank the wine of union as it was passed around in brass goblets. Then they went out in a line, most of them singing a hymn together, and processed back up through town to the gate, and then the castle.

  The sun had still not come up by then, and it was just the time of the morning where the sky turned
from black to blue. There was no heat to burn away the field fogs, or to take the chill from the air. They put on their armor and checked their horses, and then waited for their turn to move down and out the passage in the wall. Wayland’s horse was not suited for a charge or for battle at all, but had been fitted anyway with a quilted blanket and the ornamental shaffron matching the shield. He remembered what Lady Tazah had told him about it being part of a tourney set, and here it was, and he was going to now use it.

  When their turn came they rode down and out through the gates. Wayland had brought a piece of white sacking and a butted spear to hold it, and use for a sign of parlay. Most of the mounted soldiers carried short lances and swords, while the archers just their weapons and extra quivers.

  There was a field camp raised outside the town wall, now with a protective ditch dug around it, and it was mostly filled with tents. Another column of horsemen and infantry were coming out of it, much larger than theirs, and they all met on the road near where the goblin heads had been mounted for display. When the wagons were in line, moving behind them, they turned around in a great half circle and went back westward, down to the ford of the Gure River and on across it. It was a hard bottomed ford, and not very deep, and the horses went smoothly over a scattering of rock and gravel, and up onto the other side.

  Lord Sirlaw hailed the leaders of the other men, their shields each bearing a different emblem that told of what holdings they were from. Wayland’s band fell in and rode with men who carried a red shield, with a white flower painted in each quadrant. This was Halgrim of Kassal, a great neighboring lord whose village lay about three days travel to the south. Wayland raised up his arm, as a greeting to the lord and his men.

  They rode up an incline where the fields slowly gave way to pastures, and then the pasture stopped at the edge of a series of wooded hilltops that ran across their view from the north to the south. They rode over the top of this and immediately were abreast of a burned out stone watchtower, the landscape beyond it more ruined than what Wayland had previously seen. They descended into a valley, spread before another ridgeline. The fences were broken down in places, or pulled up and stacked, and burned in fires. The crops and fields had been trampled over, and then harvested for what could still be gotten. Bits of household and farm equipment lay broken or ruined, and the houses were mostly vacant.