by Ulff Lehmann
I love you, remember this
Your wife in heart and soul, forever
Stunned he looked at the braid, her hair.
He didn’t believe in fate. He never had and never would believe in anything again, but why did he stumble upon her note and her hair now? Shaky hands thrust everything into the pouch and tied the opening shut.
“The past is past,” he reminded himself.
But now it had caught up with him again, as if it had followed him all the way from Dunthiochagh. Stunned, he gazed at the backpack. It had followed him indeed! Unlike his sword, her hair seemed something more than a reminder, something worse. The meeting with Kerral had only been the beginning.
“No, I don’t want to remember.”
I love you, remember this.
“I love you, too, Hesmera,” Drangar said softly. “Forgive me.”
Without noticing anything in the common room, he ate and left the inn. Quietly he saddled Hiljarr and then, not looking back, headed south, toward Dunthiochagh.
CHAPTER 11
The sound that reached Jesgar’s ears was unlike the door hinges to the dungeon’s guard chamber. It sounded almost as if stone was grating very gently on stone. Then a light shone into the corridor. From the opposite end. He hadn’t seen much of the place when the warriors threw him into his cell, but he was certain that there was no other entrance on the far side. Yet the light came from that direction. The bars didn’t allow inmates to poke out their heads, so all Jesgar could do was wait. Lord Kildanor had made clear he was in danger, but unarmed in this bare cell there was nothing else he could do.
Footsteps echoed ever so slightly toward him, but as far as the Hand could tell they belonged to one person. Yet, one person was enough to kill him.
Jesgar retreated into the corner where the light would reach last. It was a flawed hiding spot, considering the confines of the cell, but he decided to live as long as he could. This wouldn’t be all that long, if the intruder actually wanted to kill him. Closer the footsteps came.
The light wedged its way into his cell. Now he heard an unmistakable clatter of metal against leather and in addition to that, the slap of a sheathed sword against a cloth-covered thigh. In an instant the stench of rotting straw was forgotten. Whoever was walking down the corridor was coming for him.
“So, this is how it ends,” Jesgar muttered grimly.
Then, deciding he’d rather meet his murderer head on, he stepped into the middle of his cell and waited.
As the steps closed in, his eyes slowly adjusted to the light’s glare, and he discerned the intruder to be the Chosen. Lord Kildanor’s eyes lit up as he approached with a covered basket in his left hand and an additional sword in the other hand next to the small lantern.
“Good day,” the warrior said.
“How did you get in here?” Jesgar blurted out.
“Secret passage,” the Chosen replied. “The Baron uses it to spend time with specific prisoners. He likes to question them himself. Usually involves hot pokers and needles. Hungry?”
He hadn’t eaten since being captured, and before he could give a verbal reply his stomach grumbled, louder than it had all day long. “Aye,” he said. A spark of defiance born of boredom urged him to continue. “What took you so long? What’s with the sword? Your old one broken? And what’s in that?” He pointed at the container.
How long he had been in the dungeon, he did not know. Time had no meaning in this place of no light and smells that he rarely encountered. Lord Kildanor had locked him into the cell just after dawn. He had slept little, the pallet’s straw as moldy as that on the floor of the slum’s most disreputable tavern. After the not so restful sleep, with gods know what crawling across his skin, Jesgar the Hand had merely sat in the dark fearing the worst.
“Business. The blade is for emergencies. No. Food.” Kildanor unlocked the door. “Can you handle it?” The extra sword rattled in its scabbard as the Chosen shook it.
“No,” he replied, and wondered if the scheme he had agreed to would entail more than just setting up a possible traitor. “Am I in danger?”
“Jathain wants you dead.”
Something crawled across his back, and Jesgar scratched vigorously. “Excuse me?” he asked, feeling faint.
“You definitely rattled his cage,” Kildanor said, his face hardening into a steely mask as he put the sword against the wall adjacent to the cell door. Then Lesganagh’s warrior sat and opened the basket.
“I didn’t even take a thing!” the Hand protested.
“No, but I did, after you were locked away.” He retrieved half a loaf of bread, cut a slice, and handed it to Jesgar. “It had to look real.”
“You didn’t tell me about that part!” Jesgar hissed, his hand clenched into a fist around the bread.
“The traitor needs to be gone, boy, and you are the bait.” The Chosen handed him some smoked ham. “What do you think the sword is for? I got you into this and I’ll make damn sure I get you out of it.”
Jesgar’s anger and fear ebbed away. There was no doubting the warrior’s sincerity. He tore into the bread. After a few bites he asked, “What about the guards?”
Lord Kildanor produced a water skin and handed it over. Jesgar took a sip, and the Chosen said, “You got in too easily, boy. I fear a whole bunch of guards are in league with Jathain.”
“So, you’re here to make sure I don’t get offed by them?” he mumbled as he bit into the ham.
A brief nod was all he got as a reply.
First bait, now potential victim. He realized he didn’t have much choice in the matter. After all, he had agreed to the ploy. There wasn’t much point in blaming anyone except himself, and he’d been in the quandary before he even knew of it. “What’re we going to do?”
“First, we eat, then…” Kildanor trailed off and looked into the distance. His eyes widened with surprise.
“Something wrong?”
“Aye,” the Chosen replied. Then he stood, handed him weapon and basket, and pulled the door shut without locking it again. “I will be back,” he muttered. “If someone tries to poke you, poke him back.” The warrior patted his sword’s pommel and hurried off, taking the lamp with him.
Jesgar frowned, then cleared the floor of some rotten straw to make room for the basket, and then, with the weapon lying next to him, settled on the pallet and resumed his meal.
Jesgar had finished the apples by the time The Chosen returned. Lord Kildanor was restless, the light from his lantern bouncing back and forth as he hurried down the corridor. Jesgar stood and bowed when the warrior stood before his cell.
“I see no one’s poked you, eh?” the Chosen remarked. “And stop that bowing nonsense. Done eating? Good.”
“What was this all about?” Jesgar asked.
A stern mask replaced the warrior’s anxiety so quickly that the Hand wasn’t quite sure if it had been there in the first place. A quick shake of his head seemed to dismiss the thoughts Kildanor must have been occupied with. “Chanastardh’s army has captured Harail.”
Taken aback, Jesgar thought for a moment then frowned. “Impossible! I heard it said that her walls are as impressive as ours.”
“Quick, don’t you think?” Kildanor opened the door and rummaged in the basket. He retrieved a stoneware bottle, took a long pull and then began to investigate the basket’s other contents.
“Aye.”
“Don’t you wonder how this was possible?”
Jesgar hadn’t really bothered with the news of the war. Why should he? Until a day ago he had been a burglar by night and a smith by day, if he didn’t sleep too long. “Well, I don’t know. Never really thought much about wars and how they concern me. Chanastardh is far away and even if they succeed at first, I was sure they’d be stopped when they reached Harail.”
“Which didn’t happen.”
Before Jesgar could reply, Lord Kildanor said, “Why do you think Harail fell without even the beginning of a siege?”
“I
don’t know.”
The Chosen drank some more and looked at him. “Thus begins our first lesson. It’s called how do I stop being so damn ignorant about the state of my own country.”
Jesgar groaned. This was the sort of lecture he had always received from his brother. He had never cared for politics, intrigues, and the like. Then he stood straight, alert. “I thought I was out of here when this ends!”
Lord Kildanor looked at him, a chicken leg almost touching his lips. “A spy needs not know about politics.” He took a bite off the leg and rinsed it down with some ale.
“Spy?” the Hand echoed dumbly.
“Aye, should we get through this mess, you’ll be taught.”
“Taught?” What the Scales was going on? He was a thrill seeker, not a secret seeker.
“Aye.” The chicken leg finished, he tossed the bone aside. “Sit down, son.”
He did as he was told, still staring at the Chosen.
Rubbing his eyes, the warrior drew in a deep breath and exhaled. “You’re loyal, that you have proven,” he began. “Considering what has transpired in Harail, loyalty is an even more valued trait now.” He looked Jesgar in the eye and went on, “We need a set of eyes and ears that are not attached to the Palace.”
“I know how to get into places unseen, what other teaching do I need?” the Hand interjected.
“You think being a spy only means you slip into the enemy’s stronghold, steal some papers, and be off again?”
“Um…” was all Jesgar could say, and he felt embarrassed.
“Does Jathain look like a spy to you?”
He shook his head, afraid to reply.
“Did the folks in that warehouse look like spies to you? Or smugglers?”
Again, he merely shook his head.
“Well, we can be reasonably sure that Jathain and those smugglers are spies and traitors.” Kildanor took another drought of ale, wiped his mouth, and looked at him. “Aye?”
He felt stupid, like a child who was lost in a much larger world. “Aye,” Jesgar finally managed to say.
“A spy needs not only to know how to slip into a building and steal papers. He also needs to know how to become a part of the world he is to steal from. And he needs to think!”
“But I do think!” Jesgar protested.
“Really?” Lord Kildanor asked, grinning slyly. “So, tell me, oh great thinker, how could the Chanastardhian army take our capital so swiftly?”
Jesgar thought for a moment. He had heard rumors, tavern talk really, about how the King was a decadent, weak willed man who preferred to strut around like a peacock letting others rule Danastaer. He said as much.
“So, the King let others rule?”
He nodded. Then he had an idea. “The ministers wanted Chanastardh to win.”
The Chosen looked him in the eye, and nodded. “So, you can think, young man. At least some of the ministers wanted Chanastardh’s army to win, but that hardly matters now.” He paused, retrieved another chicken leg, took a bite, and then continued with his mouth still half-full. “How can such a feat be accomplished?”
Jesgar thought for a moment, then replied, “Have people of importance that could prevent such a grasp for power assassinated. Place your own men in those positions and then wait. Is that what’s going on here, Lord Kildanor?”
The Chosen nodded. “You think indeed. But there’s more to the art of spying than having a bright mind and nimble fingers.” He stared at him, and Jesgar cringed under the Chosen’s gaze. “You need to learn how to tread the paths of nobility. Courtiers and the like.”
He was appalled. “I am no peacock!”
Lord Kildanor frowned. “I can’t remember saying thus. You are no fop, but you need to learn the patterns of guards and such when you want to break into a house, do you not?”
He understood where the Chosen was going with that line of thought, and although it pained him he nodded. “I guess so. But how can I fit in?”
“By learning, boy, by learning. This is why you will be tutored in etiquette and dance in addition to swordsmanship, once we get through the night.” He paused, frowned, and then got up. “Your lessons will begin when the city is safe.” The Chosen left the cell and sat on the floor, his back to the wall.
Jesgar groaned. He had not expected this sort of foolishness when he’d agreed to get captured. He should have known better; getting involved in politics usually turned anyone’s plans upside down.
CHAPTER 12
“What the bleeding Scales?” Kildanor hissed. The noise was barely audible, but he had been in so many battles he could identify the rhythmic ringing of blades slamming into each other any day of the week.
“What is it?”
Instead of answering, the Chosen pointed at the sword he had brought for exactly this occasion. “Take it.”
“What’s this for?” the young man asked.
“Protection,” he replied. The sounds of fighting seemed distant, as if the battleground was not inside the guard chamber. Were Jathain’s goons battling through the entire Palace to get to young Garinad? No, that seemed wrong. It was easier to get one’s own men assigned for guard duty in the dungeons. Something else was going on. “I need to find out,” he said, more to himself than to his charge.
“Find out what?” Garinad echoed. “Can it be that the Chanastardhians are already here?”
“It’s a one-week trip from here to Harail, and nothing is in Shadow Pass,” he replied. The thief had a point; this sounded more like a full-scale engagement. Someone was trying to—Jathain! “Damn him!” Cumaill was in danger! “Listen, you are coming with me, stay behind me, and follow my every order. Understood, boy?”
Jesgar nodded, uncertainly.
“Good, get a good grip on that sword, we’re leaving.”
In the lantern’s light the pair hurried down the corridor to the hidden doorway, up the stairs, and into the Baron’s private office. They were barely inside when the door opened and two warriors, in Duasonh’s colors, entered with drawn swords. For a moment Kildanor was unsure which side they were on, but when they charged their allegiance became obvious.
A burst of speed brought the Chosen close. An instant before he reached his opponents he whipped out his sword, let one blow deflect to his left and parried the other warrior’s slash. A quick glance showed young Garinad with drawn steel in both hands, looking at the combatants with more fright than attentiveness. Kildanor had no time to spare; the warriors now attacked in unison. He caught one blow on his blade, let the enemy’s steel slide onto his weapon’s crossbar, and kicked the other one in the stomach.
With the second man winded, and he was free to deal with his partner. Unfortunately, the pair was well trained, and the warrior retreated a few steps to cover his gasping companion. The Chosen resorted to a risky trick, especially since Garinad seemed a threat to the foes now. The marble floor was polished to a dull sheen; he remembered the times he had caught young Cumaill and his cousin using the floor as a slide. Maybe he could use it in just the same way.
The first assailant went down in a bloody gasp; Kildanor continued his slide, rolled to the side, and came up on his feet, facing the reinvigorated second man. The Chosen’s blade flashed up to deflect the attacker’s overhead blow. From outside—it must have come from the Baron’s room—came a muffled yell, followed by a crash.
When the Chosen heard his friend’s battle roar, he knew Duasonh was still in the fight. The slayer he faced came in for another swing. Kildanor batted the sword aside and stepped into the man’s reach. Sword-arm wide, the would-be murderer tried to get away. Unfortunately, the man had dismissed young Garinad, and he did not live to rectify that mistake. The spy-in-training stepped forward and plunged his sword into the warrior’s side.
With a gurgling moan the assassin went down.
“Just don’t get yourself killed,” the Chosen ordered. “Follow me!”
The pair hurried out of the office and headed for Duasonh’s room. They met no
resistance, and reached the open door a few heartbeats later. As Kildanor charged into the room, the Baron drove his blade into the last man.
“Jathain is getting nervous, eh,” he said, as Jesgar stumbled in.
Duasonh shook his head, bent down to one of the masked men, and pulled off the hood. “I guess Jathain has been busy for quite a while,” he panted, nodding at the revealed face. “I have seen this man before, guarding my home!” he growled.
“We fought another pair of warriors who went for your office,” Kildanor said. He disliked Jathain, but to think him capable of murdering his cousin… Had they been so deceived?
“Who’s this?” Duasonh asked as he bent down and removed the second man’s hood.
“This is the man who got your cousin’s blood all up and running.” When Jesgar began to kneel, he put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “No time for courtly antics, boy. Guard the door.”
Jesgar obeyed.
“And another!” Cumaill growled and looked at him. “How many men did Jathain hire for the guard?”
Kildanor kneeled and pulled off the hood of a third. “Too many it seems.” Duasonh’s pained groan made him to look up.
The Baron held his side, blood welling from beneath his tunic. Immediately the Chosen jumped to his friend’s side.
“Let me look at that,” he ordered, pried bloodstained fingers from the side and began to tear the cloth. Duasonh sat down on his bed, trembling.
“You shouldn't put yourself into such danger, oaf!” He knelt next to the Baron and examined the wound.
“Is it bad?” Duasonh asked through clenched teeth.
“You’ll live. Too much fat in the way.” Kildanor shook his head. “I’ll fetch Braigh.”
He stood and grabbed Jesgar by the collar. “You will stay with him, understood?” The thief bobbed his head. Then he knelt briefly and prayed, “Lesganagh, I beseech thee, protect this man. I beg thee.” He remained thus until he felt the god’s power wash through him.
