by Ty Johnston
“Swing your legs over and sit up,” the chaired soldier said to Adara.
The woman did as she was told and watched the other man place the tray on the bed next to her. She stared at the meal, porridge and water, then held her tied wrists up. “I can’t eat like this.”
“You’re going to have to,” the standing guard said before exiting the room.
Adara stared at the porridge again, this time taking note of the steam rising off the bowl’s contents. She glanced at the sitting guard; he was watching, but relaxed.
Adara turned to one side and reached for the bowl. She found the wooden vessel hot to the touch as she lifted it.
“Do you want some?” She held the bowl out for her warden.
“Already ate,” he said. “You go right ahead and —”
The steaming gruel slapped him in the eyes. He screamed, his hands reaching to his face. Adara pushed off the bed onto her knees next to him. He tried to stand, but the woman slammed a doubled fist into his groin. He shrieked, then fell back in the seat with a cry.
Adara yanked his dagger from its sheath. Her fingers flipped the blade around, the apex now in her direction, and sawed at the leather thongs binding her hands.
“What in Ashal?” a new voice said.
Adara looked up to see another of Belgad’s goons in the doorway.
The bindings around her wrists fell away.
The new guard barreled in.
Her feet still tied, Adara vaulted up and dropped back on the bed, kicking out to connect with the charging man’s chin. He went sprawling backward next to his moaning partner.
Adara sat up, slicing at the straps on her ankles.
Rough hands grabbed her by the hair and yanked.
Her head forced back, her eyes locked on the angered face of the man she had burnt.
He swung a fist around, hammering Adara’s chin and sending her rolling back on the bed.
She found her mind fighting the jumble of pain and disorientation that throbbed throughout her skull, but she forced herself to sit up, holding the dagger out in front.
Another punch sent her down again.
This time, Adara did not come up.
***
Breakfast was served in a garden open to the skies.
Despite the bleakness of the granite walls in the center of the castle, Belgad admired the surrounding greenery and the flowering plants that reminded him of his own gardens in his mansion in Bond. He walked along a maroon gravel path between the plants, sometimes pausing to stare at a particular flower he found fascinating or reaching out to feel the smooth texture of leaves.
Following the Dartague were Fortisquo and Karitha.
The three were led by a bald servant in a blue gown and two soldiers in black to the center of the garden, a large circle made up of more gravel. In the middle of the area was an oval iron table surrounded by four chairs with pillows on the seats. In the center of the table sat a silver tray covered with various sliced fruits, four glass goblets filled with what looked to be a red wine or juice and a small bronze platter stacked with sliced dark bread.
“A simple meal,” Fortisquo commented before taking one of the seats.
“Lord Verkain?” Belgad asked of the servant.
“He will be along shortly, sir.” The man in the gown waved a hand over the chairs. “If you will be seated, my lord will arrive soon.”
Belgad did not appear happy to wait, but he and Karitha sat.
“Please enjoy your breakfast,” the servant said, then left with the two Kobalan guards marching behind him.
Fortisquo watched them go. “He leaves no guards to watch us.” He reached for a slice of apple.
“What need would he have?” Karitha said. “It’s not as if we could easily escape.”
“Escape isn’t our goal,” Belgad said. “We are here to come to an agreement.”
Fortisquo chewed on his apple, then swallowed. “It seems to me we have little with which to bargain.” His fingers found another piece of fruit.
Belgad’s steady gaze fell on the swordsman. “It is not as if I am without power within West Ursia. Think of this as a meeting between entrepreneurs. We could open many doors for Kobalos in Bond.”
“That’s if we aren’t killed first,” Karitha said.
Before Belgad could berate the woman, the group’s attention was drawn to a tall figure approaching along the gravel path.
Belgad moved as if to stand, but Lord Verkain cut him short. “Please, keep your seat.”
All eyes were upon the Lord of Kobalos, and all were impressed with what they saw. Verkain was pale and with nearly the bulk of Belgad, though he stood a foot taller than the big Dartague. His eyes were a piercing blue so sharp they seemed to glow, and it felt as if they bored into the soul when one looked into them. Verkain’s dark gray hair was long and tied with a leather cord in a tail behind his head; streaks of white flowed from his temples to mix with the rest of his straight tresses. He wore long black robes with a high collar that kept his chin supported. A broad ring of gold bearing the mark of Verkain’s royalty, a black fist with points on the knuckles, boldly encircled a finger on his left hand.
Belgad realized the master of this gray land appeared almost exactly as he would have predicted. All that was missing were accompanying demons or gargoyles.
Verkain pulled one of the iron chairs from the table and sat with ease, his eyes flashing from one newcomer to another. “Why are you here?”
Karitha gave Fortisquo and Belgad a nervous glance.
The large, bald northerner looked unsettled. “I would have thought that was obvious. We are open to trade relations with Kobalos.”
“Trade?” Verkain asked. “You came her seeking coin?”
“We came here seeking a mutual alliance,” Belgad said. “After our recent relations with your lordship, I would have thought there would be good will between us, allowing an opening for trade, if nothing else.”
“You represent your government?” Verkain asked.
Belgad shook his head. “I am here on private enterprise.”
“Trade with Kobalos is illegal without permission of your Ruling Council.”
Belgad grinned. “I have ways of dealing with the Ruling Council.”
Verkain’s face remained stoic. “I have no need of your money, nor your goods.”
“Trade with the West could open opportunities beyond economic,” Belgad said. “I can also offer a political link.”
“I have no need of your talkative, democratic bureaucrats,” Verkain said. “True power lies not in politics, nor in commerce. True power relies upon inner will.”
Belgad’s eyebrows furrowed.
“You do not understand,” Verkain said. “ That is to be expected. You are a barbarian, though not without promising tenacity. True power lies within oneself, and what one can accomplish through the will of others.”
Karitha snickered.
“I find nothing comical.” Verkain turned his eyes upon the woman.
Karitha lowered her gaze. “My apologies, my lord. Your precept is similar to my own minor studies of the laws of glamour.”
“I also did not give you permission to speak,” Verkain said. “I only suffer Lord Belgad’s vocal intrusions because he is nobility, and because I asked of him a question.”
“Allow me to apologize for my servant,” Belgad offered.
Verkain’s eyes returned to the Dartague, but now his gaze was harder, harsher. “It would seem a display of my veracity is in order.”
“We do not question you,” Belgad said.
Verkain’s gaze shifted again to Karitha. “Die.”
The woman’s head shot up, her eyes wide with fear.
“Karitha?” from the Dartague.
The woman slumped in her seat, her eyes closing and her chest no longer rising.
A grin slid across Fortisquo’s lips.
“What have you done?” Belgad asked Verkain, his voice tight.
“A demons
tration,” the king said. “It is time you learned with whom you are dealing, Belgad Thunderclan. I do not need your money nor your politics. I am in need of nothing from you. I am so near the fruition of my own goals, I can taste them as your man there tastes the apple upon his tongue. In a matter of days I will begin works I have been planning for centuries.”
“We came here in good faith,” Belgad said. “We brought you a gift, the woman Adara Corvus. I thought you could use her to capture your son.”
“Kerwin has already been apprehended,” Verkain said. “I have no need of your prisoner. However, I will take her, and I will have her crucified in front of the entrance to my city, so all can see the futility in waging rebellion against me.”
Fortisquo’s grin died, leaving behind a look of shock and regret.
“What of us, then?” Belgad asked, nodding at Fortisquo. “Are we to be slain, too?”
“You are a mighty warrior, and a leader of men,” Verkain said. “I can use you in my armies. Your fancy companion also has skill, and he may join you.”
“This is not why we came here,” Belgad dared to voice.
“Your initial intentions are of little interest to me,” Verkain said. “I have waited long enough for Kerwin to return home, and now he is here. The world is in motion about me, and I have a new use for you. Do you question it?”
For a moment Fortisquo’s lips parted as if he were about to comment, but a slight shake of Belgad’s head told the swordsman to remain silent.
“Good,” Verkain said, “then your first commission will be to hunt down the wizard Markwood and this Kron Darkbow person.
“This meeting is ended.”
Chapter Eight
The men dug. The trench was long and deep and full of rocks, and the sun above was hot. To make their labor all the more difficult, the men’s tools were short military picks taken from their packs and wooden shovels they had carved themselves then hardened in flame.
“Dig!” Sergeant Dilk straddled the pit, waving the whip over the heads of the soldiers. But he did not snap the bull-hide thong. There was little need. These men were trained, hardened veterans of campaigns against the northern Dartague barbarians. These men knew their duty. It would be an insult to any and all of them to lash their flesh.
A shadow fell over the sergeant. “Labor is good for the soul.”
Beneath an eye squinting away the morning bright, Dilk stared up to see who had spoken. “That it is, your highness.”
The armored figure of Duke Roward glinted beneath the day’s new light, silvered stars spreading forth from his breast plate while dark chain hung about his arms and legs. The leader of the East Ursian Second Army sat astride a mighty steed of coal, steel barding stroking the beast and twinkling like its master. An iron-tipped lance rode in a cup not far from the general’s right fist, while the hilt of a lengthy sword hinted over his shoulder.
A trio of lesser officers, Ursian nobles all and wearing plate of slightly less flash, huddled atop their riding beasts behind their leader. One of these men now rode forward and coughed. “Sergeant Dilk, what manner of hole is this?”
The sergeant pushed a booted foot off the far side of the trench and landed both feet on the side nearest the officers. He glanced from the duke to the younger man who had spoken. “No offense, sir, but I am not sure yet.”
The youthful officer spurred his horse nearer, forcing Dilk to step aside or be brushed back into the pit. None of the soldiers digging bothered to break their stride, their shovels and picks continuing to wail away, though a few snickered at their sergeant’s near misfortune.
“Are you telling me this hole serves no purpose?” the young armored figure spat at the man on the ground. “Are these men digging just to be digging?”
“As the general said, sir, ‘Labor is good for the soul.’ ”
For a moment, Sergeant Dilk thought he would end the day beneath the ditch. The young officer’s eyes blazed black then red.
Then the duke steered his horse closer.
“Digging keeps the men busy, captain,” Roward said, “and it builds their strength.”
The young officer glared at the sergeant once more, then turned his steed away, sauntering the animal back toward his two companions and the encampment beyond.
“Pay him little mind, sergeant,” the duke said to the man below. “He is a decent enough tent officer, but has little sense for the men.”
“Mayhap, your highness,” Dilk said, “but if you’ll beg my pardon, I’m not one to speak ill of my betters, especially those ennobled by the Church itself.”
Duke Roward chuckled as he slipped off the back of his steed. “I don’t blame you, sergeant.” He wrapped the ends of his animal’s harness around a gauntleted fist. “Tell me, as now you’ve driven my curiosity, do you indeed have plans for this pit?”
Sergeant Dilk grinned and nodded back to the toiling men behind him. “Might make a decent latrine, your highness, though I was thinking it would serve better for burial of the dead.”
“The dead of our enemy, you mean?”
“Aye, your highness.”
Roward stared into the dark of the growing hole, his eyes seeming to stare into a blacker pit, a pit beyond the reckoning of mere mortal men. For a moment, he appeared as if he might slip away into a silent insanity, but then he turned in his calm fashion and faced the camp behind him.
The tents of dark blue stretched for miles along the rolling, grassy hills. Soldiers marched and officers rode, some seemingly on errands of import while others merely passed the time. The rising smoke of cook fires dotted the sky above, and the scents of breakfast meals wafted across the slight wind.
For the first time, Sergeant Dilk’s gaze fell upon the silver braid hanging around his commander’s neck. The chain hung low on the chest and ended in an oval, a noose of golden thread.
The sergeant hesitated, but his curiosity got the best of him. “Your highness, if you don’t mind my asking, why are we here?”
The duke’s gaze remained on the flapping tents. “It is Ashal’s will, sergeant. Are you questioning?”
Dilk gulped. He had not meant to cause a stir. “No, your highness. I merely ask as I have been asked. Soldiers like to know what they’re about, your highness.”
Roward’s eyes drifted to the pit and the working men, then he laughed. “I suppose you are correct, sergeant,” he said, “but it is not time to divulge that information to the ranks just yet.
“However, I will say this ... watch for a rider from the northwest, a rider from Kobalos flying the banner of Bishop Althgar, and know that soon all will be revealed.”
Then the Duke climbed onto the back of his riding beast and yanked on the reins.
Sergeant Dilk watched his commander’s back for some little while, then shrugged when Roward and the other officers went about their way, trotting back to the camp. Not for the last time did the sergeant wonder why he and the thousands upon thousands of others, the entire army of northern East Ursia, were stationed upon the border with the Prisonlands. Whispers of trouble in the Lands had been brewing, but that was nothing new. Something new was in the works. Something important.
Dilk shrugged again and spun about, glaring over the laboring men at his feet.
“Keep your backs in it, you mutts!”
***
When Adara came to again, the light filtering through the windows was the shade of early evening with a hint of the sun holding on before the night became king. A pounding ache hammered at her head, reminding her of the beating she had taken.
She found herself in the same bed, same room and same condition as before, hands and feet bound.
So, still a prisoner, but alone.
Her eyes raced around the room, seeking a blade to cut her bindings or some other weapon she could use to subdue one of her captors. Nothing came to view.
She sat up, immediately wishing she had not as new pain stabbed at her forehead. She brought her hands to her skull and felt a fresh s
car, dried blood crusted around it.
Voices drifted to her through the open doorway to the left of the bed but they were low and she could not make out what was being said.
Adara dropped her feet over the side of the mattress and stood. Unable to walk, she could still move her feet slightly, and managed to edge inch by inch nearer the opening. She halted before going around the frame, so as not to be seen.
“What of Karitha?” Fortisquo was asking.
“We’ll have her buried,” Belgad said, “or whatever the Kobalans do for the dead.”
Adara shrank from the door. Belgad’s wizard was dead. Adara wasn’t glad to learn of this, but at least it meant she had one less adversary with whom to deal.
“What do we do?” Fortisquo asked.
Belgad grunted. “We do as he wants. We go after Markwood and Darkbow. It doesn’t interfere with any plans of our own. Besides, I still owe Darkbow for what he did to me in Bond.”
“What then? It doesn’t sound as if Verkain is going to allow us to simply leave.”
“We will wait and see,” Belgad said. “Whatever he has planned, it has something to do with his healer son, and it sounds important. Our situation could change.”
“What about the story Adara told you?” another voice asked, one of Belgad’s personal guards.
“That was mere conjecture on her part,” Belgad continued, “but it’s not impossible she guessed correctly. Whatever Verkain is doing, it is none of our business, except it could give us a potential for profit.”
“Or wind up dead like the wizard,” another man’s voice said.
“I don’t think so,” Belgad said. “Verkain might not need us, but we still can be of aid to him. Who in Kobalos knows Darkbow and Markwood better?”
Silence was the answer.
“What of Adara?” Fortisquo eventually asked.
“While I consider it a waste of her talent, and of a beautiful woman,” Belgad said, “I see no reason to fight Verkain on the issue.”
“It is a shame,” Fortisquo said. “When?”
The sound of wood scraping stone, likely a chair on the floor, rang in Adara’s ears. “We should finish with it now, tonight,” Belgad said.