A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  He immediately went about checking the wound, but it smelled and looked clean. He put several more stitches in it, and then bandaged it back up. He moved his things around to free up another bag, and carefully gathered the split halves of the gold chalice up into it. Sir Byrning would still want it, he figured, even if cleft in two. Perhaps that would make an even better story. The Pendwise Legion thrived on religious, heroic pageantry, and he thought that this incident: the destruction of an evil relic by a magic sword might be the event of the season. Kulith had been sleeping on the winding steps of the tower, and now he yawned and stood up. He walked up the rest of the stair to the break and looked off the wall, it seemed both back at the Priwak, and then off the other way into the Vara.

  Wayland worked his leg a little and gathered up the rest of his things. He went out to his horse and brought it closer in so that he could saddle it. The troll was drinking water and eating his food when he returned, but he made no comment and let it pass. As the troll finished up, he talked to Kulith about their plan of travel back into the West Lands.

  “We could get almost all the way to the edge of the sand today,” he considered to the troll, “or maybe there by noon tomorrow. Then it will be at least two more days to the most southern keep.” They were going to intercept the road well north of the Darkling Gate, he could tell by their travel so far across the land, and then work their way up to where the villages started along the river. He thought of that, as it would then dawn on the troll that he was in danger of being killed by the first lord who saw him there.

  “What do you plan on doing when we come into farm country, and pass peasants, riders and wagons on the road?” Kulith laughed back.

  “Put on a cloak, put up the hood. Wear some leggings. I will pass right along. You will talk enough for the both of us.”

  “You’re tall, even for a pike man,” Wayland observed. “The farther into the West Lands we go though, the harder it will be to keep up your disguise. Perhaps you should go on up into the hills west of Krolo, and just wait there for her reply. I doubt anyone is living outside the walls yet, and food should be easily gotten.”

  “Far away, still,” Kulith remarked.

  “My experience as a merchant has taught me to expect and know ahead of time what to do up the road before you get there,” Wayland said. “What you saw us do at the lake was well thought out, plotted quite in advance to take advantage of the habits of your people. I can only hope that you also think about what you will do when you are discovered, when every guard with a sword and squire with a lance comes out to slay you and take away the Tuvier Blade for their own. Many would risk dying for that honor and notoriety, but you only need to die once.”

  “Shut up stone man,” Kulith said angrily. “You talk more than Little Toad, and about less.” He lifted up Wayland with his arms and dropped him down onto his saddle. His horse snorted and took a nervous step.

  Wayland cursed the troll as he watched him stride off ahead, down the hill toward the parched lands spread out below. He moved his horse out, and followed along a nearby trail. They made good progress, leaving the broken tower behind, the troll out in front, eating up the ground with his long stride, taking the irregularities they came to with ease. The hills they went over had sparse vegetation, always getting thinner, and anything moving for long across them was seen by everything else.

  They stuck to the lows, and to the saddles that stood between the hills when they came to them for passage, finally coming out onto a hot, level plain of sand, shrubs and small, lonely hills in the late afternoon. In the distance ahead, Wayland could see the old road shimmering in the heat, and there was no one upon it, either to the north or south.

  They went out to it and Wayland looked for signs that the others had passed by. There was nothing but a scatter of windblown prints in places, and some dropping that could have came from their horses, or from anyone else’s. Perhaps one group at least had traveled by recently, so the other group was still behind them somewhere to the south, and unaccounted for. They needed water themselves, and he was in no shape to adventure down the road and get into a fight. And also, someone needed to get to a hall full of warriors and tell their tale, so that these men could then be mobilized and search.

  He therefore eased himself up and pointed off to the north-east, past the broken line of Mancan towers that stood between them and Kassal. Kulith followed his hand with his eyes, and though he narrowed them in contempt, he looked back and nodded in agreement. The traveled along, with nothing in front or behind, until finally Kulith saw some deer, and tried to take them down with thrown stones. As they bounded off, he shouted and kicked the sandy ground with his rough boots. They reached a spring later, at the base of a tower. It was near twilight, the western sky filled with layers of yellow and purple clouds, and Wayland had no time to look around the place before night fell.

  It was too hot for a fire, and they had nothing much to cook. He ate a hard corn biscuit soaked in water, with a dried piece of meat. He had two dried apples, and he gave one and most of the dried meat to Kulith, who ate it all quickly and looked like he needed more. Wayland worried about the hunger of the troll again, but felt they were so close to the first village that they could make it by noon of the following day.

  The night was quiet, with the usual sounds in the desert, but near morning they were both woken up by the noise of animals trying to get at the water, fighting over it, or something else. The horse was uneasy, and they used the first light to saddle it and get back out on the road. Wayland’s leg was better and he was able to partially flex it now, but the cut from the spear was still running and raw. They reached the green lines of olives and grape vines as the sun beat down full upon them, and Kulith found a rocky cleft to haunt up the hill while Wayland approached the village alone.

  He rode down the street, coming up abreast of the inn before the dry moat of the keep; it filled in with sharpened, tarred stakes instead. He didn’t know what he wanted to do first: to go into the public room a few feet away, or to report up to the lord. He caught himself and knew he would get fed and watered either way, and went on to the gate on the fortress’ outer wall.

  “Wayland of the isles?” One of the guards asked him, as he got down off his horse. He took off his road hat and waved it to the man.

  “The very soul you see,” he answered him, and then he handed his reins off to a servant. The guard pointed over at the hall door.

  “The rest of your party has already arrived,” he said. “They are inside the hall, taking the hospitality of the lord.”

  “Who is the lord here?” he asked.

  “Lord Hesher is, and this is Braus Cote.”

  He entered the hall and looked across the trestles and benches at where the ladies of the castle were waiting on a group of weary travelers, all sitting along one side of a table. He saw the lame archer Edou, and the builder Ludt, who had made Weech’s hall on the Dimm. Wulman was there also, talking to the lord at the end of the table, sitting there in a chair near the tiled hearth.

  Wayland walked over and poured himself some mead from a pitcher, then sat and drank it down. He looked across the table as they all turned and saw him there, and began to exclaim and ask him questions. Wulam came across and clasp his hand with his good one. His wound was bandaged up, reminding Wayland that his own was still rw and badly tended to.

  “It is good to see you, traveler knight,” he said. “Where are the Pendwise Knight, and his grace, Johnas Tygus?”

  “I had hoped that I would find them here with you,” Wayland admitted. “We were successful in our quest to rescue the countess, but I broke company with them to keep a promise I had made with the troll.” He looked around.

  “Are Getline and Sabine here somewhere? I must apologize immediately to those ladies.” Ludt put his hand over on his arm, to turn his attention back.

  “I’m sorry. We were startled when we stopped by some goblin warriors. The Lady of Sabine ran off into the night.” Wayland sl
ammed his cup down on the table.

  “And Getline?” he asked him.

  “She’s resting upstairs,” Ludt said. Wayland stood up and stalked over to the other side of the hearth, to lean against the stones and tiles on it, as he turned back.

  “We came into the lair of the witch who had imprisoned the countess,” he related,” and defeated her minions with the help of the magician Leofind. She had used some glamour to hide herself, or was just lucky, and jumped onto Sir Byrning when he disturbed her magic cup. He threw her off and we fought with her. She was struck down and her head taken off by Sir Byrning, a man who apparently knew what he was doing when it counted.”

  “Well fought!” Lord Hesher said, and refilled his cup. Wayland nodded in thanks and then drank it down. He thought about Wulman’s wound, balanced against his inability to keep the Lady of Grevies secure with two other men at his disposal. How would he explain it to Captain Tig Morten?

  “Where are the others?” Lord Hesher asked him.

  “As I said my lord, I left their company after the countess had been rescued, to go keep a promise to the troll who had sheltered her during her time out on the Dimm.” The Alonic man tried to say something contrary, but Wayland forbid it with his eyes. Wayland’s own words right then had seemed as stupid as Wulman losing the girl.

  “The troll had smelled something in the wind in the meanwhile,” Wayland said. “He attacked the chief; a beast named Weech, killed him and his warriors, and burned the village. I returned here, after a small skirmish with some goblins.” He opened the saddlebags he had brought in and lifted out the leather bags with the two parts of the cleft gold cup.

  “I ask you Lord Hesher, to place this somewhere very secure. Do not open it, or touch it, for it is the ruined foul vessel of the witch we slew, and I do not know if it will ever be safe to handle.” He put it in an empty wooden trencher, and one of the guards took it away to a strong box in the keep.

  “I must clean myself, and have my wound properly cared for,” Wayland said. A man, either the guard captain or the bailiff was standing nearby, waiting for what the lord would have to say.

  “Lord Hesher,” Wayland asked, looking at them, “please send out soldiers with water, food, and extra mounts back south down the old road to Bezet, to look for the rest of our party.” The two exchanged glances, and then the officer went off to see it done.

  Wayland went back outside to a trough of water near the stable. He put his head down into it and let the water run into his coat and brigantine for a minute, and then he sat back refreshed. There was some soap and a separate basin, and a bucket. He cleaned himself off, then took the bandage away and cleaned the outside of the wound. He cut the leather back and hobbled back inside where they put hot water on it, and cleaned it out the rest of the way.

  Perhaps the troll had helped a little, because it did not go sour, and the stretching of the puckered skin and new stitching went quickly, but not without pain. When it was closed up, it went very stiff, and so Wayland just went back over to the hearth, and ate and drank wine there, looking occasionally down at the new neat line of red, stitches across his thigh. There were two haunches of a pig cooking for dinner, and caldrons of potatoes, bread and greens. He drifted off to the murmur of the other’s voices, and the sounds of the keep’s great hall.

  He woke early the next morning, from a pallet they had put him into, he hungry and sore. The hall was lowly lit by rushes, with curfew pots still set over the coals in the fireplaces. He supposed that several of the lord’s servants had just come through, and that the noise had disturbed him. He was stiff, sore, and thirsty, but the wound had apparently been more superficial that what he had first thought after taking it.

  He limped over to a drinking barrel and drew half a bucket out. He went and sat with it on one of the benches and waited for the sunrise, when the real activity would start. The bailiff came around with two guards when light appeared in the casements, and they roused everyone up for breakfast. When it was complete, Wayland got the builder they had rescued and two of the guards to help put him up in his saddle, and he rode out with them as the dawn came over the Varmond, turning it gold, and the hills of the Priwak to the west a mottled pale white and brown.

  He angled first up toward the rocks where he had left Kulith the day before. As he thought, the troll was no longer there, though he could see where it had laid down and moved around. Though it was foolish he threw down a loaf of bread, in case it might return. But he doubted that, sure that it had turned around by now and went back to where it had come from. Such creatures were not a part of the human world, and like the tales told about them, were prone to return to folklore as soon as no one was watching.

  He rode back out to the old highway and went down it with the men, to see where Lord Hesher’s guards were now, and to find the rest of the people he had gone to Warukz with. After two hours, he saw horses and ponies coming back toward them, a dark but distinct bobbing line of movement there on the road, appearing and disappearing as he watched in the heat and the haze.

  He stopped, got off his horse with the others and waited for them to arrive there. He counted the number of mounts as they got closer and came out with a number that told him that the group of people he had left in the Priwak after the rescue had met with the guards from Braus Cote. As the light glinted off Sir Bryning’s armor, he stood and waited to see what had happened, and to whom. Johnas Tygus Grotoy rode out to them when they got closer, and he dropped down off his horse to come over and clasp hands with Wayland, and then pat him on the back.

  “I thought we had lost you for sure to be cooked over a fire, when you went back to talk to that troll,” he said.

  “The monster was burning down the village and slaying the goblins when I arrived there,” Wayland told him. “He knew what had happened to us, or got tired of the goblin lord and took things into his own hands.” Johnas Tygus nodded.

  “Did you lose anyone?” Wayland asked him.

  “It might look like we have,” Johnas said, shrugging. “The injuries that Gatan took in the witch’s ruin made him fall behind on the second day. He had us go forward without him, and he took shelter out in one of the towers. He’s a strong young man, and the soldiers will find him for sure.”

  “How are the girls?” Wayland asked him, but of course he was mainly interested in the countess, as her safety made his fortune bright.

  “Better than the Lady of Sabine fared from going through the same ordeal,” Johnas said. “They are weak, but both still have their senses about them.”

  “We lost her, you should know,” Wayland disclosed to him, at her mention. “Wulman’s group was surprised by goblins when they stopped to rest. There was a fight and the Lady of Sabine ran off into the night. They could not find her afterwards. Not a very good showing for his first command.”

  “No one will go back for that lady, and not into the hornets’ nest we have now stirred up along the southern shore of the Dimm.” Johnas shook his head. “Lots of men in the guard do stupid things every day, and we try to teach them better. Many end up getting killed by no one’s fault but their stars. Wulman was hurt, and the girl was her own worst enemy. He does not merit a greater reward for this, but he has done as best he could. I am sure his star will shine brighter on another day.”

  “My sentiments also,” Wayland said. He had after all abandoned them himself, during a critical part of their quest. He was not out looking for a knighthood though, and he had by his action at least distanced them from the horrible incident involving the gold cup. He had done what he had been asked to do by Captain Tig Morten, and a great deal more perhaps, and he could now move on down the road to some other posting.

  “You have done rather well though, making and carrying out this plan,” Johnas Tygus said, indicating that his deeds were not going to be forgotten so easily by some. “What do you want for helping in the return the Countess of Rydol?” Wayland shrugged.

  “I am paying back a debt to the captain
of Troli for defending myself and Sascha from his cousins, who wanted to kill him and seize by default his hereditary title.”

  “That is what Sascha told me when he passed through Grotoy to the Krag,” Johnas said, and then he added. “That’s worth some accolade in of itself. People say: who cares what the Traveler Knights do? They’re just a bunch of burghers and road guards. As soon as your back is turned, they act worse than the bandits say they defend against.”

  “I’ve heard that plainly a few times, and thought it myself at least once,” Wayland said. “Make a donation to my chest, if you must. I’ll be sore in need of it after the outlay for this adventure.” Johnas Tygus shook his head.

  “The picture of a merchant sitting at his counting table is not as aspiring as that of a lord in his seat, dressed out in armor, holding a sword,” he said. “The first image may no longer suit you well, and you need to figure out who you now are. Sir Byrning will take the head of that witch and her goblet back to Pendwise and hold a grand pageantry, telling the whole story, over and over again. The Geciks and Varri will fit bard words to it someday. When young men hear those songs and look for your picture, will it inspire them to try and do at least as much as you did?”

  “If you must,” Wayland replied. “You will find something of merit then, and I will be content with it. Remember, I left you all, which was a foolish thing for me to do, though it may have ultimately played out for the best.” He looked back along the line of riders.

  “I would like to have a private word with the Countess Sunnil now, in regards to her uncle and the beast that held her captive. It will fill in some of the facts for my report.”

  “She’s just been through a great trial,” Johnas said, with some irritation plain in his voice. “Why pick at a scab just starting to heal? Some of those things also, are not fit to put onto paper.”