by T. O. Munro
He leant back in his chair and shut his eyes. Softly at first, but then growing louder came the sound of a woman singing. Pure notes and a mournful melody that soared high into the domed ceiling of the chamber. Niarmit was captivated by it, catching at fractions of verses, a refrain about a journey across the sea. But then the words became indistinct and the tune discordant and Eadran opened his eyes with a sniff of irritation. “I can never remember it exactly right, not anymore.”
Niarmit looked at him puzzled.
He frowned. “Morwena was such a songstress that she could make an elf weep for shame. Maelgrum used to hear her sing. It soothed even that old bastard.” He slapped one hand down on the arm of his throne in irritation and bit the knuckle of his other hand. “I wish I could remember it.”
“You could leave,” Niarmit said. “You could leave here.”
“I’ll not leave, girl, you must know that can’t work. Not for me and certainly not for you,” he saw her frown but chose not to elaborate. “But do me one favour. Don’t be a stranger to this place.”
She shrugged, “Death may find me on the battlefield tomorrow. You’ll have company enough then.”
He grimaced at her pessimism. “Well neither of us want that. We should make plans.”
“You were about to share a plan to destroy Maelgrum when,” she hesitated. “When your son appeared. But that was when we had all the others here. Will it still work?”
He shook his head. “It never needed them. It just needed you to trust me.” He paused, his gaze boring into her through the blank visor of the Helm. “Let me see your eyes, girl,”
She raised the Helm’s avatar and shook her head to loosen her hair before she met his eyes.
He nodded slowly. “The plan needed your trust, I will need your trust.”
She swallowed and then pressed her lips together, unwilling to answer the question that hung unasked between them. Did she trust him? Could she trust him?
“Do you have the ankh still?” he asked.
“Always.” Even sitting on the glilded throne she could feel its weight around her body’s neck.
“The gem at its heart is uncommonly pure, it had to be for the bloodline charm to work. That will serve us as a new prison for Maelgrum.”
“You needed three to imprison him before.”
“That was only because I could not destroy his body. It needed a thrice woven spell to not just imprison him, but to sever the link between body and soul. But this is different.” Eadran’s eyes glowed brighter as his own plan enthused him. “If we can destroy the body he has stolen then his soul will fly free for an instant and we may catch it, just as he meant to catch us.”
“And I must trust you with the ankh?”
He shook his head slowly. “You must trust me with that.” He pointed to the Helm suspended above her head and then at the throne on which she sat, “and that.”
She frowned.
“To cast this spell, girl, I need to be on that throne, wearing that Helm. I need complete control, control of you. Will you trust me with that?”
She dropped her gaze and muttered. “You could not destroy him before; How can you hope to destroy him now?”
“He will not be able to harm us with a blow, not while your body wears the Helm. He is no soulless zombie, nor an abherration like the medusa sundered from her soul by a schism in time. He has a soul a warped and evil soul cradled in that stolen body and it is souls that provoke the Helm’s defences. Provided I lay no trail by casting magic at him, he will not be able to penetrate this place with any enchantment. We must merely trust to our swordplay. Fine swordsman that he is I will wield both The Father and The Son in your hands. There was more than one reason that I was called the Vanquisher.”
“I can swing a blade too,” Niarmit said stiffly.
“Quite so,” Eadran rolled over her wounded pride. “So once we have laid him low, we’ll trap him.”
“And then?”
“We look after the ankh, very carefully, hopefully for longer than a thousand years this time.”
“Will it work? Are you sure?”
“Do you have any better ideas, girl?”
“No.”
He nodded. “I thought not.” Niarmit looked down at her lap. It seemed so desparate a plan, that they should first defeat Maelgrum in single combat.
Eadran walked over to her and clapped a hand on each shoulder. “Now girl,” he said. “When the time comes, when Maelgrum stands before us, will you trust me?”
She looked at him, peering into his eyes for some hint of treachery. He did not waver. “Do I have a choice?” she said.
“That’s my girl.” He gave her a playful shake. “Now you should get some sleep.”
She loked around the bare and empty chamber. “What about you?”
“I’ve been alone here for a thousand years. I think I’ll survive the night.”
She lowered the Helm’s avatar upon her head, readying to leave the Domain. She drew in a breath and first said, “Eadran, thank you.”
“For what?”
“For letting them go, for letting them all go.”
“I never meant for this to be a prison, or a hell.”
“I know.”
She lifted the Helm from her head.
***
The gardens of Lavisevre in summer were a splendid creation even in that half-light before the dawn. The trees full clothed in green leafed finery, hung heavy with the morning dew. The flowers flooded the air with their scent and hinted at the myriad colours that the rising sun would reveal.
Hepdida hugged her shawl about her shoulders and trod the curving paths. She had walked them with Kaylan so many months ago when the thief had first taught her knife work and drawn her in to the dark task of uncovering Lady Kychelle’s killer.
That work was long since done, the murderess not just unmasked but dead in the ruins of Listcairn castle. Hepdida shivered in the cool pre-dawn air. Kaylan, Sir Ambrose and Vezer Khan had seized control of the fortress town while demoralised orcs and outlanders fled west towards Morwencairn. The thief and his allies still lingered there gathering forces for a march on the fallen capital. The princess, however, had hurried in the opposite direction determined that Lady Giseanne should hear of Rugan’s fate from her lips alone, she owed them both that at least. The tale should be told by one who had been there at the end. But as she rode the long avenue to the prince’s palace she found the news had outstripped even her own frantic ride.
Giseanne had greeted her kindlily, though there were deep shadows beneath the lady’s eyes and no artifice of the beautician could hide the redness of fresh weeping, not conceal the void which lurked behind her smile of welcome. The lady had told how her husband had appeared in the grounds of the palace mortally wounded the very night that Listcairn fell, and she had asked what Hepdida knew of how the prince had come by his injuries.
Hepdida had told the tale without ornament, she had not trusted herself to say more than the bare facts. Giseanne had thanked her in a strained voice, mumbled some gratitude that Rugan’s sacrifice had not been in vain and then excused herself claiming she had heard Andros crying though the nursery was on the other side of the palace.
The walk to the pre-dawn garden had taken the princess along long empty corridors. The thriving city that was Listcairn had become a ghostly place. The prince had already been laid on his funeral pyre attended by the many courtiers he had gathered round him, either because he valued their counsel or doubted their loyalty. Then Giseanne had dismissed them all and paid off half the servants who had attended upon them. Cloths hung over the rich furnishings of a home being laid up in summer hibernation. Its lord was gone and the pulse and beat of the palace had dulled and slowed in funereal respect.
So, waking early and finding a return to sleep elusive, Hepdida had paced the palace and its gardens for a full half an hour without seeing another soul about. She had got so used to the solitude of her promenade that she started in shock when
, on ducking through an arch of sculpted yew hedge, she found she was not alone.
Giseanne looked up from the garden seat, her eyes empty.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” Hepdida said. “I did not think to find anyone here, I thought myself alone.” She hesitated a moment. “I should leave,” she said but she made no move to do so. Giseanne blinked twice and shook her head, then patted the seat beside her.
“Come sit with me,” she said. “Like you, I’ve searched for sleep but found none. We may as well take a break together from our fruitless hunt for rest.”
Hepdida slid onto the seat, tugging at her shawl. They sat in silence for some time before the princess found her voice again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t think I told you how much I knew I owed him. Without him, Quintala would have killed me, she would have ruined everything.”
Giseanne sighed. “She sent him back you know,” she said. “He told me how he came to be here. In the end she used her last strength to open a gate and send my husband back to me.” She shook her head. “Why did she do that?”
Hepdida shrugged. The workings of Quintala’s mind had ever been a mystery to the princess.
“She tried to kill me,” Giseanne went on. “She killed him, and in the end she does some stupid nonsense thing for which I must be grateful.” Giseanne shook her head. “And I am grateful, so grateful for the chance to say good bye, to know I told him how I … that I made sure he knew before…”
Hepdida reached to offer Giseanne her handerchief, but the lady was quicker pressing a sodden rag to her eyes. “And I am grateful to her and at the same time,” she gazed at the eastern horizon where a strip of pale blue heralded the imminent arrival of the sun. “At the same time I am angry with him, furious, so mad if he were still alive I could kill him.” She coughed a hoarse laugh. “Where is the sense in that, Hepdida? To be grateful to her that killed and furious with him she slew. Has all the world gone insane?”
Hepdida frowned trying to remember her own feelings after the murder of her mother and her father. The weeks of ordeal which had followed had rendered grief not just impossible but irrelevant. After Niarmit had rescued her it had been impossible to track a single thread within the tangled briar of emotions that consumed her. Had she been angry at her dead mother? Possibly. But then she’d been angry at a lot of people.
“I was his fourth wife you know,” Giseanne said, sniffing back tears. “When you marry a man who is near enough five centuries old and who has nursed three woman into old age and a respectful burial, you don’t expect to outlive him.” She sniffed again. “You don’t expect to be the one left alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Hepdida said automatically. “You’ve got me.” She threaded her arm through Giseanne’s and wished her words did not sound so stilted and clumsy. She wished she could instead conjure some silken turn of phrase which would match the depth of Giseanne’s grief and in so doing soothe her loss. “You’ve got Niarmit too,” she added wishing also that the queen herself were there.
Giseanne said nothing. The wet rag dabbed uselessly at her eyes, replacing as much water as it removed and at last she accepted the offer of Hepdida’s fresh handkerchief.
“Have you had any word,” Hepdida asked. “Any news from Niarmit?”
Giseanne blew her nose; a mundane explosion of noise which, for a moment, robbed her sorrow of its dignity if not its sincerity. “Sir Vahnce was marching west to join her. He passed some leagues to the north of here but sent a messenger for any tidings we had.” She folded the handkerchief carefully. “He had no news for us, and we had none for him. That was the day before Rugan came back to me.”
A fresh flow of salt water brought the handkerchief back into play. “I am so ashamed,” she said.
“There is nothing to be ashamed of, my lady,” Hepdida told her. “Your husband was a brave prince, the very bravest, he saved us all. There is no shame in mourning such a husband.”
“I wanted him to save me, to save his son, to be here with us still.” Tears fell freely from her crumpled face. “I am so angry at him, and so ashamed for being angry. And I miss him. I miss him so much.” No cloth would have been equal to the task of stemming that grief. Giseanne folded against Hepdida and the princess wrapped her arms around her aunt and swept a strand of hair away from the lady’s sodden face.
The first rays of sunshine broke over the horizon, casting shadows of the treetops against the tall walls of Rugan’s palace. Hepdida cradled the grieving widow and fretted as to when and where the sun might rise on her cousin. She hoped she would be spared a sorrow as deep as her aunt’s.
***
“Well bugger me,” the one they called Stennal said. “Where did that lot of bastards come from?”
“They all come in while you was sleeping,” Trajet replied dourly. “They’ve been waiting patiently ‘til sun-up just so you could have a lay in.”
Kimbolt smiled. Let the soldiers have their banter, anything that raised their spirits and vented their fear was to the good. He had his own reasons for feeling nervous. More than the tens of thousands of orcs, zombies and men forming up in the valley below, it was the companion at his side who made the seneschal stupidly anxious. Kimbolt clasped his hands infront of him until he thought it must make him look like he was praying. Then he clasped them behind his back, until he thought it made him look like a bound prisoner. Letting them hang loosely by his sides was a pose too reminiscent of the shambling undead, so in the end he found himself stroking and scratching at his unshaven chin.
“Have you got fleas, Seneschal Kimbolt?” King Gregor asked acidly. “A certain stillness would be more becoming at a time like this. It is unsettling to the men to see their commander fidgeting like a boy about to walk out with a girl for the first time.”
“Just stretching the tiredness from my limbs, your Majesty,” Kimbolt insisted moving into an exaggerated yawn to support his lie.
Gregor graced him with a suspicious scowl, but there was a chuckle from the line of soldiers behind him. “See Trajet, even the chief reckons we’ve time for a bit more shut eye before the bastards come up here.”
The king gave a brisk nod as Stennal’s wit provoked an echo of laughs within the ranks. “They’re taking their time,” he said. “More than they did at Proginnot when that fool brother of mine charged in and nearly lost the battle.” Gregor was quiet then. Kimbolt knew of Proginnot. Dema had told him of the great battle she had missed, the battle where at the end Xander had killed Gregor.
“It is maddening to stand up here watching them deploy at their leisure,” Kimbolt said lightly, when the king’s silence had stretched into a long minute.
“Well we can hardly go charging down there, Seneschal,” Gregor snapped. “It would be rank stupidity to abandon a strong position and plunge into a mire where their numbers, however disordered they may be, will still overwhelm us.”
“I know your Majesty,” Kimbolt said testily, irked that his attempt at companionable talk should have been confused with tactical naiveté.
They fell once more to still and silent watching.
***
Pietrsen stood up in his stirrups, though the extra few inches of height added little to the sweep of his vantage point. The crest of the ridge, looking over their own lines into the valley below already gave the best panoramic view of the unfolding battle. “They’re starting to make their move, your Majesty,” he said.
Niarmit’s horse stamped its feet restlessly. Bred for war its patience had been tried by the long hour of inactivity as the full force of the enemy were deployed in good order on the plain. She might at most have let the archers try their luck, but the range was too extreme to do much more than waste arrows and reveal where Niarmit had concentrated the bulk of her bowmen.
“See,” Pietrsen pointed. “Orc wolf riders.”
Niarmit nodded. She had noted the movement before Pietrsen had, the lines of enemy infantry parting so that the baying lupine cavalry could form up along the northe
rn wing of Maelgrum’s army.
“He means to test the Salicia troops,” the Master of Horse added.
“That is to be expected,” Niarmit kept her voice level. “It is where the ridge is lowest and the approach to our lines shallowest.” She did not add that it was Kimbolt’s division, or the place where her father had chosen to place himself, though those facts pre-occupied her thoughts.
She felt the tug of Eadran’s will from within the Helm, impatient to turn her head so he could view the whole scope the battlefield through her eyes. She let him scan slowly from left to right across the crowded valley floor.
Thirty thousand orc infantry were drawn up in six tribal divisions, two each to face off against the three distinct corps which Niarmit had arraigned on the ridge under Kimbolt, Torsden and Vahnce’s commands. The lumbering orcs presented a well disciplined front. Niarmit mused at the impressive feat of having wrought such ordered unity from a fundamentally unstable species. Eadran interrupted her thought with an observation, “it is fear that binds them girl and fear alone, fear of Maelgrum. If we can lay him low, then the orcs will as soon fight each other as anyone else.”
Niarmit’s eyes scanned back and forth at Eadran’s bidding. “Where is he?” the Vanquisher hissed. “Where is he hiding?”
Behind the orcs an equal number of the stumbling undead swayed in the rays of the morning sun. The zombies were confined in a crude formation of five great squares by the will of a net of robed necromancers. Even though the nearest square was a full mile from the hill top, the reek of decay was still strong enough to catch at the back of Niarmit’s throat. But there was no obvious sign of a central focus where the Dark Lord might have pitched his command post.
The orc charge at Kimbolt’s battle division was to be a wholly mounted affair. Wolfriders had been drawn from every tribe into a force of five or six thousand cavalry. Eadran and Niarmit’s gaze settled on the gargantuan loping pack as the wolf riders walked the first few hundred yards between the lines.