by Jeff Wilson
Ominously, Edryd realized that there might be another reason why he could no longer feel his master. Aed Seoras might be dead. It didn’t seem possible. Edryd knew that his teacher feared the draugar and did not have the means to overcome them, but he couldn’t believe that Aed Seoras wouldn’t be able to easily protect himself. Edryd began to hurry. He wanted to get back to Irial and Eithne at the cottage as quickly as he could. He could figure out what to do from there.
When Edryd arrived at the cottage, his strength exhausted and his concentration spent, he saw a man he had seen only once before, waiting beside the door. Aelsian stood, his movements showing the signs of a stiffness which betrayed his age. Edryd could also see a pair of bodies. They were lined up beside each other, well away from the entrance. Dark circles in the earth showed the places where they had died, only a few feet from where Aelsian now stood. A trail of blood led back inside the broken doorway to the cottage. Edryd was too afraid to ask the navarch what had happened.
“I thought for a moment that you might be Ruach,” Edryd said, “but as I get closer, I can’t see how I made that mistake.”
Aelsian looked squarely in Edryd’s eyes, his expression grave and severe.
“This does looks like some of his handiwork, unless I am to believe it is yours,” Edryd said, looking at the bodies and trying to remain calm. “Can you tell me what happened?” asked Edryd, his body growing weak in anticipatory fear of the answer.
Aelsian said nothing. He could not think how to deliver the dark news he carried.
“Where are Irial and Eithne?” Edryd demanded. It was plain that something terrible had happened. Edryd silently prayed that they were simply missing, instead of come to some harm, but Aelsian’s answer shattered that hope.
“She’s gone Edryd; she’s dead.”
Edryd felt as if he had been struck by a weighted weapon, with the hammer of the impact felt all the more severely for his having anticipated the blow.
Aelsian had not said who it was he meant, but his phrasing indicated it was only one of the two girls, and not Irial and Eithne both together. Aelsian, having never met either of them before now, might not have known their names. Edryd dared to hope it was someone else, not the woman he had promised to protect or the young girl that she was caring for. He knew it was a false hope though.
“I will take you to her,” Aelsian said, his eyes full of sympathy.
Edryd followed Aelsian and together they passed through the damaged entrance to the cottage. Edryd had expected scenes of a horrible slaughter in the large open hall, but apart from the damage to the broken doors, the building had barely been disturbed. Led by Aelsian, Edryd stepped into Irial’s bedroom, steeling himself against the grief that he could not hold back as tears began to fall from his face.
Irial was laid out on the bed, her arms posed across her body so that they covered the wound that had ended her life. Her face was calm and peaceful, but utterly pale and drained of color. Edryd wanted to cry out, and he needed to find someone on whom to vent his anger, but he could do neither of these things. He had no words to give to his pain, and no target on which to exact any vengeance. And there was a more immediate concern in that moment than his need to express his sorrow or seek retribution.
“Where is Eithne?” Edryd asked, his fear for the young girl driving all other thoughts from his mind.
“Ruach said they took her.”
“Is he alright?” Edryd asked, wondering why Ruach was not there. His officer apparently would have more answers than Aelsian did.
“He was out in front when Ludin Kar and I arrived,” Aelsian explained. “He had tried to stop them and was nearly killed in the process. He is alive, but not by a wide margin.”
Edryd recognized the name of the navarch’s friend, but he couldn’t remember from where. As to what had happened, Aelsian could tell him little more. The men who had done this had been gone well before he had arrived, so he had not seen himself, any of what had happened. Ruach possessed the only answers that could be had. At Edryd’s insistence, they went to Edryd’s room where Ruach was resting, carefully tended to by Ludin Kar.
“If you had been there with me,” Ruach said, smiling weakly at Edryd as his captain took a seat beside the bed, “we would have killed the lot of them.”
It was a perfectly horrible thing for Ruach to have said, and it filled Edryd with intense unbearable guilt. Ruach had not intended to suggest that any fault lay with Edryd for what had happened, but Edryd placed the blame where he knew it belonged. This had happened because of who he was, and it had happened because of the decisions and the mistakes that he had made.
Ruach, in trying to protect Irial and Eithne from the danger Edryd had brought to their door, had been severely hurt. The warrior bore dozens of superficial cuts. It was plain that these were not from combat. Ruach had been tortured. In addition to those lesser injuries, Ruach had been stabbed through once in the shoulder, deeply cut in several places on his sword arm, and twice pierced through by the end of a sword in each leg. It defied reason that he had survived so many injuries.
“They knew what they were about,” Ruach said, shrugging painfully. “They were careful to keep me alive.”
“But why,” Edryd wondered.
“They had two types of questions, those which I refused to provide answers to, and a great many more for which I knew no answer.”
Edryd did not doubt Ruach. The disciplined soldier would have told the enemies nothing. Edryd was worried that he might not be showing the appropriate amount of concern for his friend, but he wanted to know more, and he was far more interested in what Ruach could tell him about the men who had done this, than anything Ruach might have revealed under their interrogation.
“Who were they?”
“There were two groups,” Ruach said. “One of them was led by Esivh Rhol. He was the one who killed Irial. I didn’t see it happen but I’m sure that it was him.”
“And what of Eithne?” said Edryd.
“It was Esivh Rhol who took her as well,” Ruach replied. “I heard him tell the draugr that she was insurance.” Ruach began to smile as he explained what had happened next. “Eithne must have told the Ard Ri at least a dozen times that the Blood Prince was going to find him and kill him, and he went a new shade of pale every time she said it.”
The look on Edryd’s face told everyone that he was going to go and do exactly what Eithne had predicted.
“A draugr?” said Ludin Kar, his voice laced with concern. Apparently Ruach had not yet told this part of the story.
“A great big fellow in a cloak showed up after everything had already happened. He said someone called Aodra was dead. A great shock that was to one of the thralls, but not to the other, Hedryn I think he was called. He seemed to have already known that she was gone, and if I am not wrong, quite relieved to know it.”
Ruach seemed to be skipping important details, but Edryd needed just one more thing. “Do you know where they took Eithne?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ruach said, “they left me alive for that very reason. You are supposed to go to them in town. The draugr told me to tell the son of Elduryn that he cannot run and that Lord Seoras can no longer hide or protect him.”
Edryd had never quite felt as if he were being protected by Aed Seoras. Manipulated and outright directly endangered yes, but never anything that in any way made him feel supported or safe. It was possible, Edryd realized, when re-examined in light of all that had happened today, that he had failed to appreciate the extent of the dangers from which he had been shielded.
With his link to Seoras broken, Edryd had to rely only on his basic perceptions. Extending them as far as he could, Edryd searched for Seoras. Edryd was able to get a sense of his master, as well as the draugr and two others, all in the direction of the town, but he could be sure of very little at this distance. What he did know for certain, was that there was also a thrall who lay dying in the tunnel beneath the cottage.
Edryd told them th
en what it was he intended to do. It was completely foolish to go after Esivh Rhol, for there could be no real hope of saving Eithne, but Edryd didn’t consider that there was any other choice. He had no powers with which to confront the thralls let alone face off against their immortal master, and someone should have tried to talk him out of it, but no one did.
Ruach had a word of caution. “Esivh Rhol and his men are not much to contend with. They are inferior really. But the thralls, you will need to be careful of them.” Ruach’s injuries were the only confirmation any one could have needed to affirm this. “There were three. I killed one, when I surprised him down in the tunnel. I fought two more outside, but either one would have been too much for me. They were fast. You wouldn’t believe how fast.”
Edryd did believe it. Seoras had shown him how fast an accomplished shaper could strike and how impossibly strong they could be. “Your friend in the tunnel,” Edryd said, “he isn’t dead. Probably best I do something about that.”
Before anyone could stop him, Edryd was up and heading for the entrance hidden under the floor of the adjoining room. Aelsian trailed behind, grabbing a lamp as he went. Edryd pulled the entrance open, lowered the ladder, and began to climb down. Aelsian handed him the lamp before Edryd completely descended below the level of the floor.
“You are staying up there,” he said to Aelsian when it became clear that the navarch intended to go with him. “I don’t care what happens, no one else is to come down here,” Edryd ordered. “He is still a danger to anyone who gets near him.”
Edryd found Elek only a few feet away from the ladder, staring blankly into the air from where he sat with his back against the tunnel wall, his eyes blinded by Edryd’s lamp. Edryd felt it as the thrall gathered in the dark and began to shape. He was trying to pull Edryd closer where he could really do some damage.
“I would stop now if I were you,” Edryd warned, intensifying his aura as he did so. The bluff completely intimidated Elek into submission, and the shaper released his hold on the dark.
“You, you are the one who killed Aodra,” Elek said, his eyes widening in comprehension. “If you could destroy Áledhuir as well, I would take it as a great favor. I would like to be freed from his tether before I die.”
“They left you here. Why?”
“My master has no use for a dying servant. He has another thrall, and he will most likely manage to replace me with Hedryn as well, now that Aodra is dead.”
Edryd didn’t care about any of this. He needed to know where his enemies were, and what they had planned. Elek was more than willing to supply everything Edryd wanted. He explained that he could still feel the anger of his master. Áledhuir was somewhere in Esivh Rhol’s palace. Elek also told Edryd of the ship that transported them to the island, and confirmed that they were here to capture Lord Aisen. Elek could not say why, other than that his master’s master, for whom Elek either could not or would not give a name, took an interest in the politics of all the nations and in the men who ruled them. Elek provided another interesting detail. Áledhuir was more interested in killing Edryd than he was in capturing him. The draugr had been made wary though, afraid even, by what had happened to Aodra.
Edryd returned to the room where Ruach was resting under the care of Ludin Kar, who looked worried, both about Ruach and in fear of the shaper in the tunnel. “He won’t live much longer, and he doesn’t pose a risk to anyone as long as you stay far away from him,” Edryd assured the scholar.
Aelsian entered the room a moment later carrying a long cloth wrapped bundle. Edryd knew it for what it was. This object was the locus of a sigil knight’s power, a focus for spiritual strength, and a weapon against unnatural constructs born of the dark. Edryd was surprised to discover that he wanted to wield it once more, and he was unprepared for how desperately he felt he needed it.
Edryd unwound the sword from the cloth and used the edge of the blade to cut a long strip of the fabric. He secured the ends of the cloth in a knot around the short unsharpened ricasso at the base of the simple blade. Edryd removed his long dark coat and looped the improvised circle of cloth over his right shoulder, with the other end cradling the sigil sword on his other side. He would only need to draw the blade a few inches to cut through the knotted cloth. Edryd replaced his coat, and once he was satisfied that the sword was as reasonably concealed beneath it as could be managed, which was not very well, he bid a brief farewell to Ruach and Ludin Kar before leaving the cottage.
Aelsian followed him as far as the road. “The Ascomanni are attacking the island tonight,” he said. “If you use the chaos to your advantage, it will give you a chance.”
Edryd suspected that the reverse might prove true. If Esivh Rhol were to pull men back to the palace, having been made fearful of the threat of the Blood Prince, it was going to make it easier for Logaeir to take and hold the piers, but it would make it more difficult to fight through to get to the Ard Ri. It would be better if he hurried.
Aelsian turned south as they parted, heading for the boat that waited to return him to the Interdiction. He needed to get back to his fleet as he would need to be in command of his forces in the aftermath of the fighting. Edryd headed west by his usual daily route, feeling the pain of Irial’s absence as he travelled the familiar path without her, drawing ever closer to the city of An Innis, the town which bore this island’s name.
As Edryd continued to walk he began to feel calm. He did not understand it. He was as angry and hurt as he had ever been at any time in his life. The pain rivaled the loss of his mother, abandonment by his father, and even the death of his brother at his own hands, but it existed beside a subtle undercurrent of joy that was in no sense rooted within his own mind. Nothing that had happened to him today suggested a possible source that could explain this feeling, but it was there.
His awareness seemed to expand by the moment, and as it did the calm increased. His anger and his fear were still there, but they were felt as if from far away. The experience felt foreign and strange, and very wrong, but Edryd did not resist this broadening of his conscious boundaries, the source of which seemed probable enough. He glanced inside his coat, taking a look at the weapon. Edryd truly expected to see it glowing with a bright white light, or humming with spectral warmth, but the sigil blade remained in all appearances, a simple piece of well crafted steel.
Edryd wished there were someone to guide him. That someone should have been his father. He could only hope that if he remained open to the sword’s influence, something useful would come of that faith and bring clarity to his confusion. Past experiences offered no encouragement. It was difficult to place his trust in an object that Edryd believed had once impelled an action which had ended in the death of his own brother.
Even without a link to his master, Edryd recognized Aed Seoras’s pattern and traced his presence long before he reached the estate. The property was shut tight, with the gates closed and securely fastened together. This was something Edryd could not recall ever having happened. Seoras stood before the entrance, waiting alongside another younger man with dark hair and a pale face, who looked completely inexperienced and out of his depth beside his former master. Edryd knew the man was a shaper. He was a former student of Aed Seoras and a thrall to the draugar. Edryd could no longer see his master’s emotions with quite the same precision that he once had, but he did not need anything but the rapidly dwindling daylight to see that Seoras was troubled.
“Which one are you, Seldur or Hedryn?” Edryd asked of the man standing beside Seoras.
“He was Aodra’s thrall, Hedryn,” Seoras answered for his companion.
Edryd turned his attention to his master. “Why are the gates closed?” He asked Seoras. It could easily have been a trap, with men hidden in the courtyard, but Seoras would not have needed such help, and from what Edryd could tell, there was only one individual within the confines of the property.
“I won’t be remaining in An Innis any longer,” Seoras said. “I have returned control of
the property to Master Tolvanes. He seems quite pleased, but he may miss our arrangement soon enough. It will be hard for him to hold onto it on his own.”
“You are only here then, because you were waiting for me?”
“Better you had not come,” said Seoras, his meaning plain despite offering no clue as to what side he had chosen.
“I have not come blindly or without the means to prevail,” Edryd said, opening his coat to reveal the long blade that he carried.
Seoras didn’t seem surprised, but judging from his demeanor, he was harboring a deep resentment. “You said that was at the bottom of the ocean.”
“I’m sure you can understand why it wasn’t my first impulse to tell the truth,” Edryd answered. “Will you help me, or are you here to interfere?”
“I can take you to the palace. Those are my instructions actually, to find you and bring you to them, nothing more. I told them that it was unnecessary, and it seems I was right.”
This was a frustrating answer, but Edryd should have expected it, given the company in which he had found Seoras.
“How can you possibly do this? After what Esivh Rhol did to Irial, I didn’t think that you would side with them.”
Seoras shifted his feet, discomforted at learning there was something he had apparently not been told yet. He looked expectantly at the man beside him.
“We never meant to harm her,” the thrall insisted, his fear of Seoras evident. “She was kind to me when I was here. None of us would have ever hurt her.” He seemed to think for a second and then said, “Well Seldur maybe, if he had a reason, but none of us had any reason.”