The Dame sotfk-3

by R. A. Salvatore

  They came in, and they killed. They dipped their bloody caps, and they moved on.

  After a very brief while, the crew still on the docks realized that their companions were into powrie bloodlust now and would not be coming back, so they, too, went up into the city. As their friends had assured them, there were plenty still to kill.

  It took nearly an hour, with hundreds and hundreds murdered, before Palmaristown even began to organize any semblance of defense against the intruders. Many, many more people died to powrie blades before the dwarves faced any real resistance. Even then, with armies of both Prince Milwellis and Laird Panlamaris out of the city fighting in the war, the fierce powries pressed on.

  With Laird Ethelbert on the run in the south and his own mighty warships securing the gulf, Laird Panlamaris had never imagined such an attack.

  The bloodbath went on throughout the night, a night that would be known in the region for decades hence as “the dark of long murder,” and, when the powries finally did retreat, they set fire to every structure they passed so that, by the time their barrel boats pushed back out into the river, a quarter of the great city was ablaze.

  By the time those fires finally died away days later, two of every three structures in the great city-the second largest in Honce-lay in ruins. One in every three residents within the city was dead.

  Warships sailed fast for home as the word of the tragedy spread, but the powries, with their shining berets, slipped past them unnoticed into the open waters of the gulf.

  Using the cat’s-eye gemstone set in his brooch, Bransen had no trouble navigating the darkness beyond the wall of Ethelbert dos Entel. He ran on light feet, falling into the malachite as well as the soul stone to provide added lift and distance to each desperate step.

  Soldiers walking perimeter outside the wall called to him, but he ignored them and sprinted on. They couldn’t hope to catch him with his magically enhanced speed, and even the few spears they threw out at him fell far short of the mark.

  Bransen didn’t look back, his focus squarely ahead as he tried to recall the exact route his spirit had taken as he tried to hear again the disturbance that had sounded so clear in his state of meditation.

  His heart beat even faster when he entered the small forest. He nearly fell over with fear as he skidded to a stop before the small cluster of ruined houses. Behind him in the east the sky was still dark, still hours before the dawn.

  Bransen tried to hear again the psychic cry, but all was silent. He summoned his courage and ran into the house, to find Jameston crumpled on the floor, blood pooled about him.

  “No!” Bransen fell over him, reaching into the soul stone, bringing forth mighty waves of healing magic.

  But Jameston was already cold.

  Bransen dug deeper, seeking any flicker of life energy, any notion that the man’s soul had not yet fled, seeking resurrection itself, something even the greatest of gemstone users had always believed impossible, something Abelle himself had never managed.

  Because it was not possible. Jameston, this man he had come to know as a friend, as a teacher and mentor, as a father, even, was lost to him.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Darkness Rising

  A storm?” Brother Pinower asked. He stood on the wall with Brother Giavno, looking out to the west. The sun was not yet halfway down from its zenith to the horizon, but a dull pall had already settled on the land, a premature twilight.

  Brother Giavno was shaking his head before Pinower even asked the obvious question. “No. Not a storm, not clouds.”

  Pinower looked at him curiously, and the man’s grim expression, horrified even, had the young monk even more perplexed.

  “Smoke,” Brother Giavno explained.

  “Smoke?” Pinower echoed, turning fast to regard again the strange phenomenon. “But that is too far… I see no flames. It is out to the horizon and more…”

  Brother Giavno didn’t bother to respond. It was smoke, he knew. Somewhere far to the west something big was burning.

  More monks came to the wall over the next few hours as the daylight waned and the gigantic cloud in the west grew darker and more ominous. Across the field the army of Palmaristown seemed equally engaged by the spectacle.

  Many brothers stayed on the wall after night fell to view the sky three-quarters full of stars and one quarter, the western edge, an eerie combination of blackness built on the foundation of an ominous orange glow.

  Dawn’s light showed the cloud expanding still, and that morning everyone in St. Mere Abelle moved to the towers and the walls to view the spectacle, even Dame Gwydre and Father Artolivan.

  The old father groaned at the site.

  “What could it be?” Brother Pinower asked from behind him.

  “Palmaristown,” the old monk said with certainty.

  The Highwayman is still out there,” King Yeslnik said to his perfumed wife.

  “And you think he is coming to slay you?” Lady Olym asked.

  “Do not be flippant with me, wife!”

  “He didn’t kill your Uncle Delaval.”

  “You know nothing!” Yeslnik scolded. “We found his sword…”

  “There are many swords.”

  “Not like his!”

  Lady Olym sighed and waved him away. “Perhaps he dropped it or someone took it from him.”

  “Plundered his corpse, perhaps?” said Yeslnik in a sneering tone that struck hard. “That would not please you, would it?”

  “I do not know of what you are speaking,” she said, but the possibility worded by Yeslnik had clearly knocked her off-balance here, and there was little conviction in her assertion.

  King Yeslnik slapped her hard across the face. It was the first time he had ever done anything remotely like that. When she lifted her hands to try to deflect him, he punched her squarely in the nose. She staggered back and fell on her backside, staring at him in wonder.

  “I will hear no more of the Highwayman from you. Ever,” Yeslnik warned.

  “You spoke of him first!”

  “Ever!” he repeated threateningly. Wailing, Olym curled into a fetal position.

  “Ever,” King Yeslnik said again, leaning over close. “Bannagran will kill him. Kill him!” he shouted suddenly, and the startled Lady Olym jerked and wailed. Yeslnik whirled away from the pitiful woman and plopped into the chair at his desk, dropping an elbow on the arm and chewing at his nails.

  Had he failed in fleeing the field before Ethelbert dos Entel? Should he have accepted the losses and pressed Ethelbert to the edge of the sea to be done with this foolishness quickly? But Ethelbert’s assassins would have killed him!

  He lurched to his feet and began pacing nervously. “Panlamaris will deal with those traitors at Chapel Abelle,” he said to himself. “Why is this so hard? Why won’t these fools just concede to the inevitable?”

  “You are king,” came an unexpectedly supportive voice. Yeslnik spun about to see his wife sitting up. He looked at her curiously, then more closely.

  “You are the King of Honce,” she said again. “Only the prideful laird of that miserable city in the south and the traitorous fools at Chapel Abelle refuse to see it. All the rest is yours.”

  Yeslnik continued to stare at her, but he felt compelled to move over to her. He fell to his knees, very close, and stared into her eyes, one swelling from his punch.

  “Gather the lairds who follow you,” Olym suggested. “The dozens who love you. Lend them warriors to extend their holdings to engulf all of those flattened by you in your glorious march and by Prince Milwellis. Take the Inner Coast and the Mantis Arm. Take all those communities along the Belt-and-Buckle. Take them all, and let Ethelbert in his city and the monks in their chapel watch from their walls as the world, as King Yeslnik’s Honce, goes along without them.”

  Yeslnik’s jaw hung open, for never had he heard such advice from this source. He was amazed that Lady Olym even knew about the march of Milwellis in the east or of the many communities he had run ac
ross and run over to Ethelbert dos Entel and back. He continued staring for just a few heartbeats. Slowly shaking his head with disbelief, he pulled her close and kissed her more passionately than he had in a long, long while.

  Lady Olym pushed him back after a few more heartbeats. “They cannot come out against you, or you will destroy them,” she said.

  “Delaval warships will blockade Ethelbert dos Entel,” King Yeslnik proclaimed.

  “Yes!” Olym squealed.

  “And Chapel Abelle!” said Yeslnik. “A prison of their own making!”

  “Yes! Oh, yes!”

  “And I will send Panlamaris by land and by sea into Vanguard, and Dame Gwydre will know her folly!”

  “Lead them yourself! You are the King of Honce!”

  Yeslnik tackled her, showering her with kisses all over her face.

  “Take me, my king!” she cried. “Ravish me!”

  Yeslnik nearly swooned, overwhelmed, for he had never seen his wife in such a state of passion aimed at him before. His confidence grew with every kiss and every caress.

  It was good to be the king.

  Panlamaris,” said the whispers across the wall as the lone rider stormed across the field toward St. Mere Abelle. “That is Laird Panlamaris himself!”

  Some calls went out for archers or for gemstone assaults as the large and imposing Laird of Palmaristown drew closer to the wall, but those were few and without conviction.

  That cloud of smoke rising in the west, that sign of Palmaristown burning, served as a white flag of temporary truce in the stunned sensibilities of all who glimpsed it. Although Palmaristown had come against St. Mere Abelle, even in the face of the executions of Fatuus and the other brothers, the image of certain horror occurring in the west allowed Panlamaris to make this ride unhindered, right to the base of St. Mere Abelle’s high wall.

  Behind him on the field a few other riders halfheartedly followed, but it was obvious that the laird’s seemingly reckless ride had caught his own soldiers by surprise.

  “To eternal flames with you, damned witch!” the man called when he came in sight of the Dame of Vanguard. “The blood of thousands, of mothers and children, stains your pretty hands. How will you wash it away?”

  Dame Gwydre rocked back on her heels.

  “She is here, as are those in support of her!” Father Premujon yelled down at Panlamaris. “Whatever ill has befallen your city-”

  “Powries!” the fiery old laird interrupted. “Powries by the score. Powries set loose by the witch of Vanguard. What horror have you set upon the folk of Honce, wicked Gwydre?”

  “I did no such thing,” Gwydre managed to reply.

  “As in the harbor with my ships!” Panlamaris yelled. “And now a cowardly assault on a sleeping city, to cut the throats of children and burn the buildings to ash! Eternal fires for you, I say! And, oh, but do not doubt that your precious Vanguard will feel the wrath of Palmaristown, of Panlamaris and Milwellis, of King Yeslnik and all the goodly folk of Honce! They will know you, powrie friend, and they will loathe you! I await the day when Dame Gwydre is dragged through the streets of Palmaristown that all may spit upon she who invited the powries back to Honce!”

  He whirled his mount around and thundered away, and not an arrow or bolt of gemstone lightning reached out after him.

  The siege of St. Mere Abelle ended within the hour, Laird Panlamaris and his army moving with all haste back to the west.

  Later that same day Prince Milwellis’s army appeared in the distant south, moving with great speed to the west, to home, to the ruins and the dead.

  THIRTY

  No!

  How had this happened? How was it possible that this man, so competent, so formidable, so seasoned, had been taken down? What manner of foe had come against Jameston to corner him and defeat such a warrior? Jameston had successfully battled trolls and powries and barbarians, even giants for decades. Who could possibly have brought him down?

  There was only one answer. Jhesta Tu.

  Bransen knelt over Jameston for a long while, cradling the man’s head, trying to come to terms with his loss. The minutes continued to slide past and still Bransen sat, recalling his first meeting with Jameston in the wilds of southern Alpinador, when the scout had joined in a fight against a company of Ancient Badden’s trolls. He remembered the look on the face of Crazy Vaughna when she realized that it was Jameston Sequin, the Jameston Sequin, who had joined in their cause.

  Walking with Jameston these last weeks, Bransen had come to appreciate that awestruck expression of Vaughna’s all the more, for truly this man more than matched his impressive reputation.

  Now Jameston was gone.

  How alone Bransen felt at that terrible, terrible moment. Not just alone but confused, consumed by the unsettling notion that he had played a role in this, that he had allowed Affwin Wi to dismiss Jameston and send him away. All those thoughts swirled and coalesced, first reducing Bransen into a battered and defeated shell, weak in the knees and unable to hold back his tears.

  But the stretch of pity and self-pity and hopelessness lasted only a few heartbeats, replaced by a bubbling rage that turned Bransen’s churning gut into a pit of pure acid. He gently laid Jameston’s head back and jumped up to his feet, seeking focus, seeking an outlet.

  He considered the hole in the wooden wall, punched through with tremendous force. He turned Jameston’s body over a bit and noted that the same blunt force had hit him with enough power to skewer him. An image of Merwal Yahna and his exotic weapon flashed in Bransen’s mind.

  Jameston had been near the wall, his back to it when slain. Bransen turned to see what his friend might have witnessed at that moment and noted blood on the floor by the door. He went to it, following the clear trail of blood droplets to the back of the cottage, a short distance into the forest, where he found the remains of a makeshift pyre and the charred and shrunken remains of a person. He saw a black silk slipper and knew beyond any doubt. No simple soldier had taken down Jameston Sequin.

  “Jhesta Tu,” Bransen mouthed as he regarded that slipper, and knew from its size that it had been worn by the woman who had battled Jameston while Bransen had fought Merwal Yahna in their first meeting with Laird Ethelbert’s assassins. At least those two Jhesta Tu had hunted Jameston Sequin. They could not have done so without the permission, indeed the command, of Affwin Wi.

  Bransen felt his jaw go tight, the muscles in his arms and legs twitching in anticipation. It took him a long time to slow and steady his breathing, to find his center and his mind-body connection. He couldn’t hold that connection for long.

  Too overwhelmed was he, too betrayed and confused. And too angry. Only once in his young life had Bransen Garibond felt such rage: on that terrible day when Laird Prydae had abducted Cadayle for his sexual pleasure and given Callen to Bernivvigar to be murdered. That same terrible time when he had learned of the murder of his father, Garibond Womak. That rage had allowed him to sit within the branches of a bonfire and feel no heat. That moment had incensed him to kill.

  Bransen turned to the east, toward Ethelbert dos Entel. Toward Affwin Wi. Sprinting nearly the entire way, Bransen reached the wall of Ethelbert dos Entel before dawn. The sky over the Mirianic glowed in predawn light, but stars remained clear in the west. The city was only beginning to awaken. The Highwayman used that slumber to his advantage. He could have walked in through the gate; Affwin Wi had introduced him to the guards there, and she carried great weight in the city, but something deep within, his Highwayman instincts, told him that stealth was his ally here.

  He moved along the wall, listening carefully, until he came to an out-of-the-way corner where he could climb and keep the still-dark western sky at his back. There, he fell into the powers of the malachite and used his strength and training to easily scale the twelve-foot barrier. He peered over the wall, the cat’s-eye allowing him to see as clearly as if the sun was up in the east, with complete confidence that the guard he then viewed a dozen strides away c
ould not see him.

  The Highwayman went over silently, the dark sky behind him presenting no silhouette for the half-aware sentry to observe. He could have killed that sentry-it would have been an easier course than slipping across the wall top and down the other side-but he dismissed that notion out of hand. Still utilizing the powers of the malachite to lighten his step, Bransen crossed over quickly, allowing himself to drop to the ground in near silence because of heightened balance.

  Though he could see Castle Ethelbert, it took him a few moments to get his bearings and determine the best way to navigate the crowded city, time he didn’t have to spare as more sounds of the city awakening filled his ears and the sky brightened a bit more. He started at a trot, quickly a run, letting that low but imposing castle guide him. Affwin Wi and her group were in a wing of the castle. In short order he could see the balcony from which his spirit had answered Jameston’s dying call.

  He could just go back in the room. It was unlikely the others knew he had left or had learned their terrible secret. Prudence called him to that plan, but anger prevented it.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. This was no time for secrecy and plotting, for deception and caution. Or perhaps it was just such a time. Bransen, so consumed, didn’t care. “No.” He walked in the front door of the castle’s far western wing, the complex afforded Affwin Wi’s group.

  “When did you go out?” Pactset Va greeted him immediately. “How did you get out?” Va shook his head, his topknot dancing with the movement as he called across the way to his companion Moh Li, noting Bransen’s dark expression.

  Moh Li responded quickly to the call, stepping through a hanging curtain to look curiously from Pactset Va to Bransen.

  “You did not tell me that this one left,” Pactset Va reprimanded.

  “He did not,” Moh Li replied. “Not while I guarded.” Both men turned suspicious stares upon Bransen.

  “I left from my balcony.”