A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  The hands of Rydol seem tied by this fact, and I received after my audience there no additional help but some provisioning, and was immediately put back out of the city by the man in charge, her uncle Lord Wenslig of Berize. On arriving in the West Lands I was challenged to a duel by one of his men who saw himself as more fit to champion this effort. I prevailed, and it shows my lord’s sagacity in appointing a swordsman to such a precarious task. I point to my recent success as proof that my own efforts were at least sufficient to complete a part of the task set upon me, with hope that the countess and the others will eventually be returned.

  I remain your commissioned deputy of the Traveler Knights in Gece, Wayland of the Isles.’

  He shook sand out over the top of the letter to make sure it would not stick to itself or the envelope when he folded it, and then he leaned back in the chair to let it dry. He would send two copies to Troli by different routes, and also one to the city of Grotoy. He only knew Count Erich Fork Beard by reputation, but he thought that the man, whose own children were fist cousins to the Countess Sunnil was now most likely to aid her. Grotoy also needed to know that Wenslig was cautiously interfering in Rydol’s natural sovereignty, perhaps hoping for a promotion, since he was her uncle by blood, and the next in succession.

  He completed and sealed up the three letters, and put his merchant’s stamp upon them in wax. On the fronts of each he wrote a brief address. He looked out of one of the arrow slits and saw nothing but a wedge of blue sky. He sighed and let the last warm breezes of the day play through the chamber. The great task that had been unjustly laid on him now almost seemed complete.

  Lady Tazah came into his corridor then and strolled across the wooden floor. She had been sitting earlier below with the other ladies and maids of Krolo, stitching dresses and doing needlepoint. She bit into an apple to get his attention, which was unnecessary. He turned his gaze to her and smiled.

  “I’m sorry Lady Tazah. I was thinking of my home.” She leaned on his table, across it, and looked out the arrow slit with him.

  “That can be forgiven, as long as you did not first look at me, and then wish yourself away.” She seemed in a good mood, willing to play with him today.

  “You remind me of something that I have never seen before,” he said to her.

  “Really? And is that supposed to impress me?” she asked. “At least Sascha’s stolen prose makes a little sense. Do you expect to glamour your woman with a collection of vague riddles instead?” Wayland smiled to her and replied.

  “I travel to all kinds of places. To the great cities, over wide blue seas by ship, to the high points on maps where you can look off and see the land spread out before you for a hundred miles beyond. And sometimes when I come around a corner, out through a doorway, or over the crest of a hill, I see something spectacular, something new and breathtaking there right before me. I say to myself: ah, now the whole trip has been made worthwhile. Thank you Lady Tazah, for being there in my road.”

  She choked on a bite of her apple and almost spit it out. She recovered herself, covering her mouth and beginning to fan her face as she turned away for a moment. Then she looked back and studied him with her intense blue eyes.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “I feel the same.” She held the fruit away from her face and leered at him, showing her teeth. “You do have a way about you it seems, don’t you? So tell me, how many rooms does your castle have?”

  “None my lady,” he admitted. “I am a merchant. My home is a strongbox of silver, usually not even fully mine, but loaned to me on interest to make another man rich. It’s cold and hard at night when I use it as a pillow, and sometimes I must. It doesn’t keep the snow or rain off either.”

  “I think that Lord Sascha said something similar,” she said. “He told me that the Krag has over three hundred rooms, mostly carved out inside a mountain. Imagine that! He said that they also have a great field, nearly fifty hides of land on a promontory beside the Vessa River near Veps. But then he added that the rooms in the mountain are full of the Grande Prince’s armory and baggage, and that the land is rocky, and stands on the river as a natural castle for the storing of supplies and gathering of men during war.”

  “They have goats and sheep out on it,” Wayland told her. “They eat the goats and cut the wool. That’s a fine business to be in: the kind that puts gold coins in your pockets. Most of the lords I’ve met are busy folk involved in something or other like that. Some sit around when not courting or fighting, but when you do that for too long you tend to think up things to do that the serfs and burghers don’t have time for. Pretty soon you are out trying to do one of them.”

  She turned her back to him, staring at the stones in the wall instead. Her voice got quieter. “I can’t stay here forever, and line up heads outside my father’s gate until I go gray. I’ll go mad before then. It’s the duty of every daughter born in the West Lands to try and get away from this awful place.”

  “I think you have it in you to do so,” Wayland said. “I told you that I have seen wonders, and I know that they are not often moved by the world. Instead, the world moves and works of their accord, to accommodate them.” She bit into the apple and chewed it as she thought.

  “As smart as ever aren’t you, my Traveler Knight. I came to tell you what Sascha said to me. He said that it is now almost time for him to go.” Wayland considered that convenience, and the message it implied. Gece would be going to war against the Sund and other Goloks fighting in Bagheri, who were testing the borders of Gece already.

  “It was right for you to do so,” he replied. “I will send him with some of my men through Grotoy. It will give him a chance to talk with Erich Fork Beard directly and convey to him the situation here in much more detail than a letter ever could. Perhaps you should go away with him now?”

  “Elope to the Krag? I’m not ready to do that!” Tazah told him. She turned around and he saw that her cheeks had turned a bright red. “If I am truly a wonder to him, in time, he will return back to me.” That ended their light banter, but she was not done.

  “There is a column of smoke rising now from the Priwak,” she added, like it was an afterthought. It could only mean one thing, Wayland knew. Hovus Black Smile had formally abandoned Fugoe Castle, and he had ordered the keep fired, to deny it to the West Land lords. He got up and they went out onto the castle wall where others now stood, and they watched the distant column of smoke rise up into the air.

  Two days later Wayland watched Sascha of the Krag ride away north to Grotoy with Temmi and two other men. He sent out his other messages by different carriers to Rydol, and through Rydol to Troli. Tazah’s father had by that time poised himself as the savior of the West Lands, and absorbed the cost of the entire expedition to Fugoe, to be worked out later against his tithe and taxes with the Grand Prince. He had the favor and debt of all those that they had rescued and returned.

  Wayland spent some time out in the yard of Krolo Castle after that, watching Sir Byrning train his apprentice squires, or working out his wound. Lady Tazah spent less time with him now, having perhaps made her pick. It was the logical result of her comparison between the two of them, Wayland told himself, but he felt a little wounded in the heart. He would turn his attention then to what Sascha’s return to the Krag meant for Gece. He thought more often of the war, and what it might do to him.

  He also spent time in the town, learning what was special about Krolo and trying to get a good sense of its people. He received a torrent of applications and queries now, mainly of offers to sell him more letters from the countess, or from other, lesser captives of the buggers, petitioning for their ransom and release. It was now a regular racket in the West Lands to do this, and it seemed that for every two rouges he had ever met in Tolwind, at least one existed here of at least equal deviltry. He paid for several letters one day, thinking them to be less important, but after he read a few lines of one, he realized it was a copy of a letter written by the countess. It gave great detail, and wa
s obviously more recent than the others. It put her position now to the south, on an island known as Big Stone, in the bugger’s war camp.

  He had been able to locate several of the merchants that the troll Hovus Black Smile had mentioned, who entered the Priwak to do business with the buggers. They were a very reluctant lot, and he and Sir Byrning had to corner and threaten some of them. Wayland had to use the black stick, followed by some silver coins, and finally got the men to tell him about of the trade.

  Tazah’s father had old maps of the Priwak and Lake Aven, as well as notes left by the Pendwise Legionaries who had been stationed at Krolo three hundred years before. They wrote in old Mancan of the goblins, the trolls, and the thrings. There were even descriptions of ruins, a collection of legends regarding the place, and theories about what had happened there to turn it into what it was now. Wayland knew why he did this reading, because he thought that his next action should be to send messages back to the place, and perhaps he would then have to venture there himself. The information would prove very valuable, in that last case.

  A patrol out from Kitzy came down and confirmed that Fugoe Castle had been burned and abandoned by Hovus Black Smile. Though small bands of goblins and thyrs still raided in places, people were beginning to feel safer. So had it ended: the great campaign of Sarik and his monsters into the West Lands. When Wayland had only plotted out half of his plan, someone came down the road from Grotoy to match and question his wits with their own.

  They had turned out in the castle’s yard that morning and were busy fixing their gear and making preparations for his proposed journey when Tazah suddenly rushed out of the hall in her armor with her archers chasing after her. She turned and waved for them to follow her out through the passage in the wall, and they dropped what they were doing and did so. They came down into the town and went across to Krolo’s gate, where they saw that a new group of riders had just arrived.

  The shields were green with three diagonal bars of blue painted across them, which was the garrison mark of Gilsflor Pools. The young man in front of the others had a differently painted shield hooked to his saddle. This one bore the gold and blue vertical undy of Grotoy. Wayland knew he could only be looking at Johnas Tygus, heir of the Count of Grotoy, and so he went down and made a leg to him with the others.

  “I am pleased to see my liege lord’s son in Krolo, your grace,” Lord Sirlaw said to him, as he recovered from kneeling.

  “Don’t you have ambition enough to ask why I am here?” Johnas questioned him back, as he got down off his horse. His voice was edged and brazen, like a horn call coming from just down the battle line.

  “I know why you are here, your grace,” Lord Sirlaw said, “and you are too late.”

  Johnas Tygus wore a long blue riding coat tailored to open partway, with gold piping in designs on the collar and breast. Under it were dark riding leathers and a light brigantine. He was dark haired and had a long, fair face that easily showed his mood, and of course he had the piercing green eyes that marked all the direct offspring of Grotoy and Rydol.

  Ignoring Sirlaw’s comment, he looked around at them as they stood back up. “Where is this knight of the road?” he asked. “I wish to talk with him.”

  “Your grace, I am here,” Wayland replied.

  Johnas Tygus took off his gloves and pointed with his fingers over to the side, at the door of an inn. As his men began to dismount and take water, Wayland and the count’s son walked over to it and went inside. The room was almost empty and they went and stood by the hearth where Johnas could warm himself from the ride.

  “Any new news about Sunnil that I have not heard?” he asked Wayland.

  “The best we could hope for under such circumstances, your grace,” he said. “I believe she is still well and whole, kept by this leader of the buggers, on an island out in Lake Aven they refer to as Big Stone.”

  “I have naturally made contact with the men responsible for the movement of captives and their ransoms between Gece and the wilds,” Wayland continued. “Being a merchant, it would seem credible if I played this part myself and traveled with a small group to seek out our hostages there. Most important would be to make contact with this troll and the countess, by sending a message back to them, and then arrange for her exchange on some neutral ground.”

  “What about putting an army together and sending them a real message?” Johnas asked Wayland.

  “It concerns them when we do such a thing,” he said. “The tactic of responding with a force of arms was just used against them at Fugoe, but I have discarded that ploy, since by this method I have found that the monsters hide, or just give up ground. They rally together in mass and fight only when it fits with their interest. We were attacked at Fugoe primarily because they were hungry, and wanted to eat our horses.”

  “Imagine that,” Johnas said back in response.

  “I didn’t need to imagine it, your grace. It’s what happened, and none of it seemed to affect the fate of Countess Sunnil.” He amended that. “No, perhaps it did a little. They appear concerned that we will interfere militarily during their revolt against the thrings, when their army is fighting elsewhere.”

  “A little?” Johnas Tygus said skeptically. “I think we must try it again. My father and the Yellow Duke of Wallenz are talking. They are talking about putting a thousand foresters and two thousand pike men across the Priwak and down onto the north shore of Lake Aven, to burn it all and get ready to move across and assault the bugger stronghold they call Doom Wall.”

  “Do you plan on paying her ransom?” he asked Johnas Tygus.

  “If I have to,” he replied, “but that may just be a bluff. You know buggers don’t move unless you show them that you are bigger and stronger than they are, and that you are about to hit them. I know you’re just a merchant, in fact I think they call you the Cow Knight? But it is my experience that sometimes you just have to put your foot onto a hornet’s nest and crush it.” Wayland frowned at that. How would they secure her release once combat began?

  “I have just made contact with the men responsible for the movement of captives and their ransoms between Gece and the Stones,” Wayland confided. “It would be a waste of resources to not first try and make them work for us. I contacted you and kept you informed because I thought you might help.”

  “But you are a cow knight, not a man with access to an army,” Johnas returned. “You have never learned how to use that type of power.”

  “I have fought two duels in the last three months, one to save the Lord of the Krag, and the other to save the Countess Sunnil. How many duels have you fought lately, your grace?”

  “I’m the son of Grotoy,” he replied. “I don’t fight duels. I fight battles.” It was a quick, well made point, and Wayland knew that he was now looking at his new employer, and a slick one at that. He turned the conversation, as if they had just come to a mutual agreement no matter what they had just said.

  “A time and a place for the exchange will be arranged. Lord Sirlaw has agreed to provide a small chest of gold and silver, with the legionary who is here also attempting at that time to purchase back the Tuvier Blade, which he intends to take with him back to Pendwise.” Wayland spread his hands from his sides and then used them to help shrug.

  “Whatever great ambition this monster had by talking the countess has now played itself out. It would only be natural for it to make a deal with us and be shed of her burden.”

  “Yes,” Johnas said, scratching at his short, neatly trimmed beard. “The Tuviers were an Alonic dynasty. Why was that sword even in Gece?”

  “Lord Sirlaw will expect something in return for his efforts so far,” he said to Johnas. “He filled the shoes of Rydol when they abandoned the field, which you and I can both infer was done to further Lord Wenslig’s own private ambitions. Sirlaw has led the men, and born all the expenses so far in this campaign. He has done well.”

  “There are no greater nobles along this border by their own choice of old,” J
ohnas explained to Wayland. He shifted his boots and picked at the mud along the edge of one. “No one was to have those taxes or obligations on them because of the constant bugger raids.”

  “Perhaps something should come through the advancement of his sons,” Wayland advised. “And he also has a daughter, of the age to be wed.”

  “That blonde demon I just saw in the gate court? I don’t think there’s a nobleman bold enough in Gece to wed her,” he chuckled, and then scratched at his beard again in thought. “There are always holes in the guard, and manors for rente to the north. I could try to have something arranged at court for the girl.” Then he slapped his gloves down across the palm of his hand, like a new idea had just come to him.

  “If this is the way you want to do it,” Johnas said, “then you will certainly need my help. A bit of both approaches might just loosen the stones. Let us go out now, and not keep the people waiting there for us any longer.”

  Wayland’s could not argue any further, as it seemed they had come to an uneasy agreement to cooperate. He followed Johnas Tygus back outside into the courtyard. Lord Sirlaw and the others still waited there for them, because Johnas was a great peer of the realm and had not given them his permission to leave.

  “It looks like you have things here well in hand,” Johnas Tygus said to Lord Sirlaw, and for everyone else to also hear. “But in the matter of the Countess of Rydol, I have come now to deal with it personally. Let us now go up inside your famed castle, for I realize that I have arrived in very a dangerous place,” he looked over at Lady Tazah, “if even the flowers here must go about wearing armor.”