The Brotherhood (The Eirensgarth Chronicles Book 1)

by Philip Smith

  “No!” Paige cried in protest. She looked over to Robert who was grinning ear to ear.

  “Well, you can’t exactly pass as a soldier, can you? And you wouldn’t be able to pull off a child,” Dinendale jumped off the wagon.

  “Ugh, fine!” she gave a sharp glance to Robert. “But what about my hair?”

  This was a reasonable cause to worry. As a race, the Shauds were known for their dark features, including dark black hair. Robert could hide his blond hair under a turban, but hers was a different matter altogether.

  “Drahgir ye loughnen beh,” Woodcarver said, placing a gentle hand on her head. Paige felt a tingling at the base of her skull, and reached up to scratch an itch on her scalp. One by one, a grin or astonished look spread across her friends’ faces.

  “What is it? Woodcarver, what are you...?” Paige started, and then she grabbed her braid and pulled it over her shoulder.

  Her hair, which had been the same beautiful gold as her mother’s, was turning black like fire burning along a piece of birch bark. She untied the cord holding the braid in place, letting her long locks fall down on her shoulders like a flaxen waterfall as the black coloring ran down the length hair. Soon, not a blonde plat was left on her head, replaced by a mop of silky raven locks as dark as any Shaud.

  “How did you?” she started, but was so astonished, she couldn’t finish.

  Woodcarver just smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s not permanent. It will return to its normal color if you wash it with water infused with pine bark.”

  “Wait, Woodcarver,” Jensake said, his head popping up over the back of one of the large horses. “Will that spell work on any hair?”

  Woodcarver was thoughtful for a moment.

  “I can honestly say I’ve never tried,” he said, approaching the horses slowly. “But there’s only one way to find out.”

  He slowly stroked the larger of the two creatures on the mane, clicking his tongue softly. The gentle draft horse nuzzled him.

  “Drahgir ye loughnen beh,” he whispered again, and within half a moment, the horses mane began to bleed from white to black just as Paige’s hair had done moments before. Within a few seconds, the white mane, star, and socks of the beast were all black as a raven. Dinendale and Duelmaster clapped in appreciative applause.

  “Well done! Another!” Duelmaster laughed. Within a few more moments, both horses stood shoulder to shoulder, black as night and bearing no recognizable features.

  “That should make things considerably easier,” Jesnake said. “A nifty trick indeed.”

  It took a little time to get all the extra gear cinched up, but they managed to throw it on the backs of the horses within an hour and began making their way towards Aschin. They took a route off the narrow path, just in case more soldiers were trailing them. The night grew cold and dark, but they kept up a hurried pace, adrenaline giving their tired feet a much needed boost of raw energy.

  When the moons were almost to the zenith of their celestial dance, they took a sharp turn and began climbing what Paige hoped would be the last ridge of mountains. Twostaves offered her one of his arms for support as they began zigzagging the steep switchbacks leading up to the crest. This side of the valley was significantly rockier than the other side, with far fewer trees and vegetation to grasp onto, so they took their time with the horses at a slow and steady plodding as they continued higher and higher once more.

  “Thank you,” she said appreciatively to the giant.

  He smiled awkwardly. “I must say, that hair is going to take some getting used to!” he chuckled. “Threw me off for a moment!”

  “Well, I’m sorry it’s so off putting,” she laughed, hopping past craggy rocks that resembled bison in shape.

  “Oh no, my dear it isn’t that,” he took her hand and picked her entire body up like a rag doll. He then carried her over a fallen log blocking the narrow pathway. “It actually looks quite natural on you.”

  “Probably because Papa had dark hair. I always favored him in appearance,” she said softly.

  “I never got to meet your papa,” Twostaves said, compassion lacing his words. “But I’m sure he was a fine man.”

  “The finest,” she said simply. “He was the kindest, most warm and loving man I’ve ever known.”

  The giant chuckled. “My father was like that, too. Never turned down a stranger he could offer hospitality to, my pops.”

  A sad, somber expression replaced his default jovial nature for a moment as he plodded ahead. Paige recalled the story Duelmaster had told her about the giant’s troubled and tragic past. As annoying as his endless laughter and argumentative nature could be, she knew he too had suffered just as much loss and hurt as she herself had.

  “Well, I’ve been told he was the finest of giants,” she assured, patting his arm. “I’m sure he would be right proud to see the warrior you’ve become.”

  “Pops? Oh no, princess. He was literally and figuratively the biggest pacifist you’d ever meet,” Twostaves laughed. “Ten and a half feet tall my pops, loved hugs more than halberds. This second staff on my back is his. He used it for walking with his hounds back on the estate. I suppose I have sullied its purpose in my quest for justice. But I hope he would understand.”

  “I’m sure he would,” Paige assured. She smiled at him encouragingly once more as she hopped up a few more boulders.

  “Princess!” Robert called from up ahead. He had just crested another hill, beckoning her to hurry. She quickened her pace, ignoring the throbbing in her side from her still mending ribcage.

  “What is it?” she asked, reaching his side. He motioned for her to be quiet and took her by the hand. She followed him through some heavy pine brush as he shoved the branches aside with his spear. The moonlight shone in wisps through the scant trees, making everything appear bluish in tint as they jogged their way across the crest of the mountain. Soon the brush thinned out even more until they came out of the woods and onto a rocky cliff. Jesnake alighted onto a boulder and squatted, pointing a slender finger to the horizon across a large, stoney valley.

  A mass of craggy, bleak, grey mountains outlined the near twilight sky, reaching to the heavens like tips of a line of spears. Clouds hung low over cliffs, threatening rain from a heavy, foggy blanket of mist. In the middle of the valley, hardly a day’s walk away, lay a large city as grey as the cliffs surrounding it. It was bigger than any village Paige had ever seen, with somber looking slate buildings surrounding a massive fortress that was carved into the mountain. Three walls surrounded the town, dividing it into separate sections, like tiers on a cake.

  The keep lay in the center of the third wall, backed right up into the mountainside. Its onion dome raised high above the town like an all-seeing eye, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of its inhabitants. Flying proudly from the pinnacle of this dome flapped a white standard, with a coiled golden serpent at the center, it’s swallowtail shape flapping in the breeze, crimson tassels fringing the entire banner. Paige felt a chill go down her spine.

  “Well princess,” Robert whispered in her tapered ears. “Welcome to Aschin.”

  ◆◆◆

  The fire crackled, casting flickering shadows across the faces of each member of the Brotherhood. Most of them stared into the flames, deep in thought. Paige, however, couldn’t keep her crystal blue eyes off the dimly lit city to the northeast. It looked to be about as cheerful as a haunted tomb. Somewhere, beyond those solid granite walls, her sister dwelt in a dirty, rotting dungeon. She felt both sick with dread and a thrill of exhilaration burrowed in soul knowing she was within a day’s journey of Olivian. Even if that journey was through several stone walls, gates, countless guards and myriad passageways.

  They had marched along the ridge towards the city for a few more hours that night till they’d stumbled upon a cave large enough to shield themselves and the horses from prying eyes in the valley. It also helped to block the harsh wind that had kicked up as the night wore on. They now all huddled about the sma
ll fire chewing on what was left of the Impasca jerky, which wasn’t much. Paige felt her stomach growl. She squirmed, uncomfortable, and took a swig from her wineskin, hoping the water might quiet her abdomen.

  “Princess, I’ve been meaning to suggest something to you, and now this close to the army I feel it necessary to bring to your attention,” Woodcarver sat beside her and pulled a small rolled up cloth from his satchel.

  “What is it?” she asked, eyeing the little parcel. He unwrapped it carefully, taking his time with each of the folds so as not to spill it’s contents.

  “I’ve been thinking about what to do with the page, since we can hardly risk it being found or captured,” he said. “So, if you will allow me, I’d like to sew it into your moccasin.”

  “Into my moccasin? Can you even do that?” she asked skeptically.

  He nodded his head slightly. “I believe I can. If I’m right, the spell protecting the page acts more like a healing spell than anything. If we were to try and cut it, the pieces would just mend themselves back together, but if we simply sew it, the bond will become tight and should allow us to hide it while not having to entrust it to a hiding place.”

  “But if I’m captured,” she said, “Isn’t my boot the first place they’ll look?”

  “Perhaps, but if it’s part of the boot,” Woodcarver explained, “I think we’ve more a chance of it going unnoticed, should the worst happen.”

  Paige thought for a moment, then yanked off her moccasin and handed it, and the page, to Woodcarver. He selected a needle from his precious sewing kit and quickly threaded what Paige assumed was dried animal sinew. He picked the pair up and walked over to his own bedroll, rummaging around in his pack before sitting back down cross legged to begin sewing.

  “So once more, just so we’re on the same page,” Duelmaster said, shifting to a more comfortable position, “What is our plan tomorrow?”

  “We’ll split up and go into the city at different times during the day,” Dinendale said, poking the fading fire back to life. “We need to skirt the entire grid and get every detail of the layout we can. We’ll meet back half an hour before sunset.”

  The men grunted in agreement. The plan was simple enough.

  “What about after? Assuming all goes well?” Woodcarver asked.

  Robert looked up sharply.

  “There is no assuming,” Dinendale insisted.

  Woodcarver held up a hand in apology. “Very well. When we are done, what then?”

  “We come back and, with the information we glean, formulate a plan. Then we act on it as quickly as possible,” he tossed one more log onto the fire. Dinendale looked each of them in the eye during the moment of silence that followed. “If we do this,” he said, “we won’t just be a bunch of miscreants in the Wild to the Shahir or his sons. We will have faces to them, and they will hunt us like animals.”

  There was a slight pause as the gravity overwhelmed them. Up till now, they had been of little concern to the Empire. But once they freed Olivian and made off with the page from the Book of Death, there would be a price on their heads forever. The Wild might never be safe for them again.

  “I am prepared to take that risk,” Dinendale continued. “But I don’t want anyone else to have to.”

  “Oh, please,” Robert cut him off, jumping to his feet. “We all knew the risk when we first set out from the willow tree.”

  “He’s right, Din,” Twostaves said, uncharacteristically somber. “It’s a little late to turn around now.”

  “You’ll have to dig me a hole and plant me if you plan on leaving me out of the fun,” Duelmaster chuckled, crossing his arms and leaning against a large boulder.

  “Besides,” Woodcarver added, “If we’re doing it right, they won’t know what faces to pin this on, will they?”

  “Agreed,” Dinendale said, a slight, smug smile playing at his lips. “We’ll then… let’s play ‘dress up.’”

  ◆◆◆

  “No, I’m not going to hold your hand!” Paige spat indignantly as she and Robert walked towards the huge gates of the stone fortress city of Aschin. Robert looked at her, wiggled his eyebrows and grinned. It looked so odd to see him in Shauden clothes and a turban.

  “Oh, come now, my dear,” he trilled. “Over the honeymoon phase already?”

  She glared at him under dark lashes. He only widened his smile.

  “Sell it, Paige. It’s all about selling it.”

  “Moron,” she hissed, slipping her slender fingers through his.

  He chuckled. “There’s a good lass, obeying your husband like a good woman!” he laughed. The chuckling ended abruptly when several joints in his hand popped.

  “Oh come on, Paige. It was just a joke. Blimey, you have sharp nails!”

  “And don’t you forget it, husband dear,” she growled. Paige wore the dress from the supply wagon and felt no envy for the woman that would have worn it if it had made it to the outpost. A mostly black garment, the sleeves and bodice were made of yellow satin and trimmed with red embroidery. The skirt was full length, and would typically have ended at a lady’s ankles, but it was a bit big for Paige’s smaller frame, so it dragged along the hard packed earth like a wedding dress train. The bodice was stuffy and restricting; a living nightmare to a girl born and raised free in forests, a place where a man’s shirt was just as good for a lady as it was a man should she decide to wear it. There was enough material in this dress to make a tent, she was sure.

  The only upside was that there was plenty of room to hide the several daggers she’d procured from the wagon yesterday. One was lashed to each leg with a leather cord just above the knee, and her antler-handled hunting dagger lay under the front apron of her dress. This, in addition to her hairpin in her tied up bun, was comforting psychologically to her. Yet these weapons did nothing to ease the pressure on her middle, thanks to the contraption Woodcarver called a “stay.” She wondered how on Eirensgarth woman wore these things daily. It was a webbing of linen and cane that was supposed to make rich women look thinner in the middle and wider in the hips and chest. Aside from agitating her healing ribs, all it was doing for Paige was making her waist hurt and keeping her breath short.

  She had protested this entire outfit heavily as the boys all started dressing in their own disguises. Sadly, there was nothing to do but clench her fists and change into the dress; Dinendale was right that she wasn’t young enough to pass for a boy, and any other disguise would have aroused curious eyes in a place they needed to stay invisible. Still, that did not mean she would go quietly.

  “Honestly, how do these women even function?” she’d hiked up the several layers of petticoats and aprons surrounding her hips so she could tug on her moccasins, the left of which, thanks to Woodcarver, now held the page stitched seamlessly into the calf portion of the footwear. The boys had chuckled mirthlessly.

  “I’m afraid you’ll find human women in the east are not afforded the same kind of leeway the women in the Wild are,” Jesnake had said, clipping his black robe over his shoulders with a silver brooch. “Anything less than what you’re wearing would be seen as improper.”

  In the end, each of their costumes turn out quite well, all things considered. As long as Dinendale let his dark hair hang over his pointed ears, and Jesnake kept his hood up, no one could see the points in their ears. Paige had been worried about this too, since she’d already seen how easily those in the outside world noticed her tapered ears, even if they were significantly less defined than the pure-blood elves in their posse. Woodcarver had alleviated this concern by offering to do her hair up. The princess had been skeptical of this idea, but once she allowed the magician access to her dark locks, she’d been surprised at how apt he was in hair styling.

  “I had two sisters,” he explained, finishing off her bun with a tight tying of cord and inserting the magic hairpin-sword into the side. He’d left just enough hair to pull down on either side of her face, just covering the tops of her ears. The men all nodded and murmu
red approval. Duelmaster even clapped. The dryad’s own hair was shaggy enough to cover the half-moon shaped taper in his own ears, and the beard he’d developed over the last few weeks rounded off his square features just enough to make him look fully human, albeit a shaggy mess of one.

  Those who were infiltrating the city had hiked through the early morning and on into the greyish dawn till they were hidden just beyond the city’s outskirts in a clump of scraggy fir trees; Twostaves and Broadside, who would stick out like sore thumbs in the city, had opted to stay behind in the cave to ensure their gear and armor would be unmolested. Though remote and gloomy, there appeared to be no lack of activity coming in and out of the city, which would actually be a help to them. At least that’s what Woodcarver explained to them.

  “With more people going in and out, there will be less of a chance being noticed as strangers,” he said, eyeing the road coming from the south of the valley as well as the one coming from the north.