D&D - Birthright 01

by The Iron Throne # Simon Hawke

  “Aedan, are you there?” Michael called out. “I see you have the horses saddled. Well, I am ready to go!”

  So was Laera. She was squirming underneath him, wrapping her legs around him to prevent his escape.

  “Laera, please, I beg of you!” he whispered frantically into her ear.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered back, a wild look in her eyes. “Make love to me right now or else I’ll scream!”

  “No!” he whispered harshly. “Laera, this is insane ” She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to scream. He hastily covered her mouth with his own and she chuckled deep down in her throat.

  “Aedan! Aedan, I’m going! I’m not waiting any longer!” Michael called out.

  Neither was Laera. She was breathing heavily, moaning as she moved beneath him. Aedan did not see how Michael could possibly fail to hear.

  Panicstricken, he covered her mouth with his hand, looking over his shoulder and expecting Michael to open the stall door at any second. In his anxiety, he failed to notice that he had covered not only Laera’s mouth, but her nose, as well.

  Unable to breathe, she struggled to remove his hand, but he held her down with determination, pinning one arm with his free hand and the other with his knee as he watched to see where Michael was. Laera bucked and thrashed beneath him, but Aedan cursed her silently as he looked over his shoulder and gritted his teeth, watching the stall partition.

  He heard footsteps, then the clip-clopping of hooves as Michael took his horse out of its stall.

  Pressing down on Laera in an attempt to keep her still, he continued to watch the stall door, holding his breath and listening. He heard Michael’s horse snort and wicker just outside the stable doors. Then came the soft creak of the stirrups as the boy mounted up and hoofbeats as he trotted off.

  Aedan closed his eyes and let out a long sigh of relief. However, he wasn’t safe yet. The grooms could return at any moment. He had to get Laera dressed and out of here. “Laera-” She had stopped her struggles and lay still beneath him, her eyes closed.

  “Laera?”

  With a shock, he suddenly noticed that he had been covering both her mouth and nose. He jerked his hand away.

  “Laera!”

  She gasped for air, reflexively, and Aedan almost sobbed with relief.

  For a dreadful moment, he had thought he might have killed her. Her eyes fluttered open, and she coughed, gasping for air.

  “Laera! Laera, forgive me! I didn’t realize-” His head jerked as she slapped him hard across the face. “You bastard! I couldn’t breathe!”

  ‘Laera, I’m sorry, I-“

  “You might have killed me, you miserable wretch!”

  she said, shoving him away and getting to her feet unsteadily. He tried to help her, but she pushed him back again and he fell onto the straw.

  She stood over him, naked, her eyes blazing with fury. “How dare you! I ought to have you whipped!”

  “Laera, lower your voice, for mercy’s sake!” he said, pulling up his breeches and brushing off the straw. “The grooms-“

  “The grooms! The grooms! It would serve you right to have the grooms come in here and find us like this! What do you suppose they’d think?”

  He got to his feet. “And just what would you have them think?” he asked with an edge to his voice.

  Even as he spoke, he realized that suddenly everything had changed.

  “I could tell them that you’d lured me to the stables and then choked me so you could remove my clothes and have your way with me!” she said spitefully. “And then what would you do? What do you think Lord Arwyn would do when he found out?”

  “He might find out considerably more than you intended,” Aedan countered angrily.

  “Oh, and do you really think that he would take your word over mine?”

  she asked contemptuously.

  “No, I rather doubt he would,” said Aedan. -But he might take the word of the house guards, who saw you leave your room each night for the past few weeks and come to mine.”

  “They never saw where I was going!” she said, but a look of uncertainty came into her eyes. For the first time, she seemed to realize she was no longer completely in control.

  “Didn’t they?” Aedan said. He shrugged. “Well, perhaps not. Perhaps one of them didn’t follow you to see where you went each night.

  Perhaps he never saw you go into my room. Perhaps there is some other reason why they all wink at me and smile each time I pass them in the corridors.”

  “Even so,” she said, “they are the Royal House Guard, and their first loyalty will be to me, the princess, and not the lowly chamberlain’s son!” She tried to say this with conviction, but a note of doubt crept through.

  “The lowly chamberlain,” said Aedan, echoing her words with heavy sarcasm, “is the man who has always seen to it that they were paid on time and well, and who has made certain their families were properly provided for, and given comfortable quarters and the care of court physicians whenever they were ill. It is just possible that they might also feel some loyalty toward him, and not wish to see his son falsely branded as a rapist when the truth is that the princess is a wanton slut.”

  She stared at him with shock, then struck him across the face with all her might. He saw it coming, but he took the blow, not even trying to avoid it. “You insolent pig!” she said, spitting out the words.

  “You’ll pay for that! And to think I gave myself to you!”

  “Indeed,” said Aedan, wryly. “It was a gift I never asked for and was a fool to have accepted in the first place, considering its questionable worth.”

  With a cry of rage, she launched herself at him, arms raised, fingers hooked like talons, ready to claw his eyes out. He caught her by the wrists and pivoted, using her own momentum to throw her down. She fell, sprawling, into the straw.

  “Enough!” he said. “By all the gods, enough!

  Whether in anger or in lust, you have laid hands on me for the last time! Now get up and put your clothes back on! You are still a princess of the royal house, so try to act like one! And henceforth, I shall try to act as befits my proper place and station, which I had forgotten, like a fool. As for the rest of it-your threats, your wounded pride-do what you wish.

  Whatever it may cost me, I am past caring one way or the other.”

  Aedan turned and left the stall, leaving her lying there with an incredulous look on her face. He crosse the aisle and took his horse out of its stall.

  Michael already had a good head start, and he had to catch up to him.

  It was not safe for the prince to be out riding alone, and it was past time he started thinking once again about his duties and responsibilities-for however long they would remain his duties and responsibilities. Perhaps only until this afternoon. It would not surprise him if he were seized by Arwyn’s men-at-arms the moment he returned. He didn’t care. He felt, at least for the moment, marvelously free.

  Laera’s words had been like a bucketful of cold water dashed into his face. Whatever spell he had been under was finally broken, and he saw her for the selfish, spiteful, spoiled girl she really was …

  and himself for an utter fool. One way or another, however things turned out, at least it was finally over and he could try to regain, if at all possible, some vague semblance of his self-respect.

  He truly didn’t care about what would happen to him now, except for how it would affect his parents.

  His disgrace would become theirs, as well, and for their sake, he hoped Laera had enough wits about her to leave well enough alone. Perhaps he had convinced her she would not come away unscathed if she made any accusations against him, that if she chose to reveal their affair or claim he had forced himself upon her, it would be her disgrace, as well.

  Perhaps it would not be very chivalrous of him to reveal a lady’s indiscretions, even in self-defense, but neither was it very ladylike for a woman to salvage her own questionable virtue by accusing her chosen lover of rape. Either
way, he knew Laera would not forget or forgive. He had made an enemy for life. And it was his own fault for becoming involved with her in the first place.

  However things turned out, Aedan was past feeling guilty. Now, he felt only anger, not so much at Laera as at himself. Once again, he had received a painful lesson in the foibles of human nature-in this case, his own. Belatedly, he understood the true meaning of self-discipline.

  Laera had excited him, and he had wanted her. He would not take refuge in choosing to think she had seduced him, for even though she had initiated their affair, he had been a more than willing participant right from the start.

  He had known full well what he was doing, as he had known the consequences, and yet he did it anyway. He could blame no one but himself, and whatever punishment would come his way now, he would certainly deserve it. If only, somehow, his parents could be spared the disgrace of their son’s folly.

  Torn between anger at himself and agonized concern over his family, Aedan rode quickly down the trail leading from the castle, reining in at a bend on a promontory that gave a commanding view of the 80 town of Seasedge and the spreading fields of the coastal plain. As his gaze swept across the wide expanse of gently rolling, grassy fields, he searched for a lone rider. Finally, he spotted him, galloping across a meadow to the east, not far from the edge of the forest. He had flown his hawk, and the bird had already stooped to make a kill.

  Aedan urged his horse into a canter down the serpentine trail, and when he reached the more gradual incline of the lower slope, he kicked his horse into a gallop. Michael would be angry with him, and to make things worse, he had not brought his hawk. He tried to think of what he would tell the prince, what excuse he could make for his tardiness.

  He felt a brief pang of guilt at the thought of lying to him, but if Laera talked, Michael would learn the truth soon enough. If not, it was just as well. He was too young to understand about such things, and there was nothing to be served in causing him undue distress.

  Aedan had neglected his duties long enough in thinking only of himself.

  Now he would have to think about the prince, which he knew he should have been doing all along.

  He lost sight of Michael when he reached the plain, and he used the ends of his reins to whip up his mount as he galloped in the direction he’d last seen him. He should have brought a guard escort with him, as he usually did, but it was too late to worry about that now. As he topped a small rise, without slacking pace, he scanned the fields ahead of him.

  No sign of the prince. Perhaps his hawk had stooped upon its prey in a slight depression and Michael had dismounted out of sight.

  He continued riding in the same direction, heading east, toward the edge of the pine forest.

  He didn’t like the idea of Michael’s being out alone, and he liked even less the idea of his being so close to the forest. The province of Boeruine was not Anuire. They were on the frontier, and there could be brigands in the forest, or bears, or some equally dangerous creature.

  Renegade elves were also a possibility, though Aedan didn’t think it likely they’d risk coming so close to Seaharrow. Still, Michael should have known better than to go riding off alone. And, he immediately thought, he should have known better than to be distracted from his duties.

  He topped another rise and reined in briefly to look around as his restive horse pawed the ground and snorted. Still no sign of Michael.

  Where could the boy have gone? Surely, he would not have been f foolish enough to ride into the forest? But then, Aedan reminded himself, this was the fearless Prince Michael Roele, conqueror of imaginary elves and goblins, slayer of monsters from his dreams.

  Michael simply didn’t know enough to be cautious.

  And if he had gone into the forest…. Aedan swallowed nervously. A grown man could easily get lost in there. He urged his mount into a gallop once again.

  As he rode, he scanned the sky, thinking he might spot Michael’s hawk, but there was no sign of the bird, either. He glanced back toward the castle. He was pretty sure he had reached roughly the same spot where he had seen Michael from the trail leading down from Seaharrow. The boy could not have ridden very far.

  “Michael!” he called out. “My lord!”

  He waited. There was no response. Aedan felt a knot of tension in his stomach. Suppose the prince had fallen from his horse and was lying injured somewhere nearby, unable to respond? Aedan called out again. No answer. He searched for tracks.

  After a while, he found them. They were leading toward the forest.

  Aedan swore softly to himself and followed the tracks of Michael’s horse. As he approached the tree line, he heard an unmistakable screech and looked up. It was Slayer, Michael’s hawk. He had helped Michael train the bird himself. He whistled loudly, calling the bird.

  With an answering cry, it came flying out the trees just ahead. He held his arm out, and the hawk came down to roost. Aedan winced as the sharp talons dug into his forearm. He had neglected to put on his hawking glove. He looked around.

  There was still no sign of Michael.

  “Where is he, girl?” he asked the bird. “Where did he go?”

  The hawk looked agitated. It swiveled its fierce little head sharply back and forth, fluttering its wings. Aedan gritted his teeth at the pain in his forearm as he felt blood moisten his sleeve. He had lost the trail. He turned his horse, looking down at the ground as he tried to find the tracks again. Suddenly, something came hissing through the air, and he felt what seemed like a sharp, strong blow to his shoulder.

  The hawk took wing with a screeching cry as Aedan tumbled from his saddle.

  He fell hard on his side and cried out with pain.

  He rolled onto his back, clutching at the shaft protruding from the wound. A bolt from a crossbow.

  Bandits! He reached for his sword, and it was only then he realized that he had left it behind in the

  stables in his rush to get away from Laera and catch up with the prince.

  He cursed himself for an idiot and fumbled awkwardly with his left hand for the dagger in his right boot, realizing with a sinking feeling that even his sword would have been an inadequate defense against crossbows.

  The dagger would be nearly useless. Still, it was all he had. But even as his fingers closed around the hilt of the dagger in his boot, another crossbow bolt struck the dirt scarcely an inch away from his foot, and he froze. He heard a low, nasty sound that was halfway between a chuckle and an animal growl, and looked up to see four small figures emerge from the brush.

  They were no more than about four and a half feet tall, but they were very muscular and lean, armed with short swords, long knives, spears, and crossbows. Each of them wore chain mail, greaves, and peaked, open-faced, spike-topped casques. They carried small, round war shields strapped to their backs, and two of them held spears pointed down at Aedan, while the other two aimed crossbows at him.

  All four had sharp, swarthy features; feral, golden yellow eyes with snakelike pupils; dark, coppery skin; flat faces and sloped foreheads.

  Their arms were unusually long, and their teeth were sharp and pointed, the canines shaped like fangs. Haelyn help me, Aedan thought. Goblins!

  He had never seen a goblin before, but he had heard stories about them, and he knew their small stature did not make them any less dangerous.

  They were extremely strong and possessed preternaturally quick reactions, with excellent night vision. They were a seminomadic, warrior culture who used slave

  labor extensively, and it was said that they sometimes ate human flesh as a ritual to take the power of their enemies. There were goblin kingdoms spread throughout isolated regions of Ceriha, in the lands of Thurazor, Urga-Zai, Kal Kalathor, the Blood Skull Barony, Markazor, and the Five Peaks. However, Aedan had never dreamed that gob would dare to venture this far south, so dose to Seaharrow.

  They were probably part of a raiding party from Thurazor or the Five Peaks. He could not imagine only four of them wo
uld have risked such a journey, penetrating so deeply through elven lands to reach Boeruine.

  All this flashed through his mind in an instant as he desperately tried to push his fear aside and think clearly, for he knew his survival would depend on what happened in the next few moments.

  “Get up, human, if you wish to live,” one of them said, speaking Anuirean in a guttural, heavily accented voice.

  Aedan slowly struggled to his knees, wincing with pain, then rose unsteadily to his feet, clutching at the crossbow bolt protruding from his shoulder.

  He saw another goblin try to seize his horse, but the stallion reared up and neighed, then bolted from the creature. Run, Windreiver, Aedan thought. Run swiftly back, so they will know at the castle that something has gone amiss.

  One of the gob bent and snatched the dagger from Aedan’s boot, and then a spear point in his back prodded him into the trees. As he walked, Aedan tried to ignore the pain in his shoulder. His mind raced feverishly. Had they taken Michael?

  They approached the remainder of the party, waiting under the cover of the trees. There were about a

  dozen of them, in addition to the four who had captured Aedan. Two of them held Michael between them, gagged, with his hands tied behind his back.

  The rest were mounted on large, gray wolves that growled threateningly as Aedan approached. Wolfriders, he thought. That clinched it. A raiding party out of Thurazor.

  He realized that if they had meant to kill Michael and him, they would undoubtedly have done so already. What then? Take them as slaves?

  Hold them for ransom? The latter seemed a likely possibility. He and Michael were obviously not peasants, so the goblins must have naturally assumed they were nobility from Seaharrow. If the creatures planned to hold them for ransom, at least he and Michael had a chance of getting out of this alive. So long as they didn’t know who Michael was.