Dragon's Trail
Page 22
She extended her hand and he took it. “Arise, rider.”
He rose, staring into those incredible eyes, and bent to her hand, “And as for my sword, fair princess,” he smelled lavender as he kissed the braided ring on her middle finger, “it is forever yours.”
Albar’s voice was sour and broad with disdain, and it grew to insult Jarrod before all as he announced loudly, “Enough, sir! There’ll be no groveling at my table!” This brought a laugh from the entire room.
Carter gave Jarrod a sly wink, implying that all of Gateskeep knew Albar was an asshole.
Jarrod was still grumbling into his tea about feeding Albar his teeth when Javal stood, as did his table; knights of the Stallion, all.
Across the room another knight of the Stallion stood, urging his table up.
Every knight and rider of the Stallion stood, a dozen men and four women, all in warrior blacks tonight and several with silver and gold officer’s braids prominent. Javal pointed to the stage, at Jarrod, and Jarrod looked around, then stood.
“The hell?” asked Carter.
Jarrod shrugged. “I dunno. But when in Rome.”
Every knight of the Stallion, one by one, pointed to Jarrod.
“Aw, shit,” Jarrod griped. “What’d I do now?”
“I have no idea,” said Carter.
Daorah whispered in Carter’s ear.
“Oh,” said Carter.
Chavis, Lord High Chancellor of Falconsrealm, walked onto the dais. Sir Javal joined him.
Princess Adielle stood and walked down the ambassadors’ end of the great table. She put her hand on Jarrod’s shoulder as she passed him. “Come with me, rider.” He did exactly so, following her around to the front of the dais where all the knights of the Stallion were still pointing at him as he moved.
He couldn’t help but notice that Albar, still sitting, was glaring.
Javal and Chavis were walking toward Jarrod. Chavis had Jarrod’s swordbelt.
“Sire?” asked Jarrod. Javal said nothing.
The room went completely silent.
Adielle drew Jarrod’s arming sword, and the blade exploded in the light from the torches and chandelier. Brighter, though, was the appreciation on her face and the catch in her breath as she saw the weapon.
Javal spoke. Loudly.
“King’s Rider Jarrod Torrealday, Son-Lord of Knightsbridge!”
“Present, sire,” Jarrod answered.
“Kneel,” said Adielle.
Jarrod knelt.
Javal addressed the room.
“This young rider,” Javal began, “came to us one moon ago. He is his homeland’s armed combat champion, and for that he became a King’s Rider.”
This received a fair amount of applause. Javal waited for it to die down before raising his voice again.
“Yesterday, he and I found ourselves in a fight with five men, just the two of us. I slew one.
“This young rider, however, slew one as well. He then granted mercy to another. He disarmed and spared a third, whom he could easily have killed. And then he healed the last after defeating him.”
This brought low murmurs from the room.
“When I asked him about his actions, he said, and I quote:
“‘Killing is not always the answer.’”
More murmurs, louder. Then a smattering of applause that slowly turned into a roar.
Jarrod looked up to find the princess holding the sword by handle and blade in her open hands and looking down at him with a gentle smile; a best-friend-in-the-world smile, not a regal stage smile.
“Do you,” she said, “Jarrod, Son-Lord of Knightsbridge, swear fealty to, and do homage the Crown of Gateskeep?”
Jarrod’s eyes burned holes through her. “I do,” he said.
“Do you hold that knighthood is a sacred trust? That the obligations of your service to the King of Gateskeep and to the Order of the Stallion will demand your efforts every moment of your life?”
“Unquestioningly.”
The room quieted, and she handed him his sword. He accepted it in both hands.
“I pronounce you a knight in the service of the Order of the Stallion of Gateskeep,” she said. “Go forth, Sir Jarrod, The Merciful, and continue to be a light and a warmth in the dark and cold corners of the world.”
Javal announced, in a parade voice, “Arise! Sir Jarrod, The Merciful! Knight Lieutenant in the King’s Order of the Stallion!”
The room went nuts.
Jarrod bent to kiss Adielle’s hand again, then saluted Javal, who shook his hand and embraced him. Chavis took Jarrod’s sword and returned it to its scabbard, then buckled the swordbelt around his waist. Jarrod, being left-handed, had to help him with it a bit.
A page presented two steel spurs on a velvet pillow along with a silver officer’s braid and a knight’s mark—a gold horsehead pin about the size of a silver dollar, nearly twice the size of his rider pin. Javal removed Jarrod’s rider pin and slipped the braid through his arm, pinning it in place with the knight’s mark. Jarrod put the spurs in his pocket and saluted the crowd on Javal’s quiet command.
Jarrod shot a look over at Carter, who was beaming and holding Daorah’s hand.
The only one in the room who wasn’t smiling right then was Albar.
Jarrod stalked quietly down the fourth-floor hallway, returning from a distant water closet which Javal had assured him would be unoccupied. Dangerous as it was to be this far removed from the bustle, after eight cups of coffee he had no desire to wait in line.
And besides, he needed a moment away from the bustle without everyone congratulating him to death.
That was it, pal. The sword, the princess, the whole thing.
But . . . “The Merciful?”
The Merciful.
Christ.
Doesn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of evildoers.
“Sir Jarrod the Merciful.”
Ming the Merciless.
Erik the Red.
Krum the Horrible.
Germanicus.
Maximin the Thracian.
Magnus ver Magnussen.
Captain Blood. There’s a name.
Darth Vader. Darth Sidius. Darth Maul. Darth Anything, really.
Darth Jarrod.
“The Merciful.”
There is just no way to make that sound badass.
“Sir Jarrod, the Inestimably Motherfuckin’ Badass.”
This length of the hall was candleless.
A glutton for punishment, he reminded himself of the moonlit night he’d spent alone in the most haunted castle in all of Scotland.
Sir Jarrod the Brave.
He remembered, too, that on the way home he’d packed five pounds of artisanal landjaeger sausage in his checked luggage, causing a bomb-sniffing dog to lose its mind. Watching from handcuffs as his luggage was taken to the end of an abandoned runway in Heathrow and detonated.
Sir Jarrod the Injudicious.
Carter’s babe, the Knight Commander with the long name that Jarrod couldn’t immediately remember, met him halfway upon his return. She moved quickly through the candlelight, shooting glances behind her at short intervals.
Jarrod stopped, took one step back, and eyed her cautiously, as she had a good-sized knife in her hand.
Circumstances being what they were, Jarrod let his pulse elevate a bit. He trusted no one, even as benevolent as she had seemed.
As she approached, she made no threat with the knife, and a good thing, that. Her shoulders were as strong and corded as his own and she was a knight officer, besides. From her scars alone he figured she could plant him, no contest.
“I found him,” she whispered.
Jarrod pulled the XD from the small of his back and racked the slide, holding her center mass just over the sights. He indexed his finger along the trigger guard; the Springfield had a grip safety. “Don’t move.”
She spoke before he cou
ld. Her words were a hiss. “What is that?”
“It’ll kill you.”
“I believe you.”
“Good.”
“You’re a dead man. Tell me everything you know.”
“You tell me what you know.”
“I know you’re not going to get out of here alive tonight.” Her voice hardly carried past her lips, but the Gateskeep sibilance cracked hard off the ornate wall.
“Let’s try this again.” He backed it up with a step forward, and she sighed in impatience.
“Fool,” she shot another glance behind her. Jarrod squinted over her shoulder, and double-taked as Carter appeared.
“Hey, man,” Carter waved. “Whoa, whoa! You brought a gun?”
“You didn’t?”
“No.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “Shit.” He reached into his pants and pulled out a knife.
“Is that a knife in your pants, or are you—”
“There’s gonna be trouble in a minute. But I’m guessing you knew that.”
“What do you know?” Daorah asked. “Why are they after you?”
“How much time have we got?”
“Until they find you,” said Daorah.
Jarrod looked around quickly, then beckoned them into a shadowy corner where he could see behind them. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “That sheth you killed,” he nodded to Carter. “We ran into four more, twenty days later, in the same armor. That armor is from Gavria. No doubt.”
“Yeah. We got the message.”
“So you know about Sir Dahl.”
“No.”
“That started when we brought back a suit of the armor. Sir Dahl, and then two of his guys, tried to kill me and take the armor before we could show the War Council.”
Daorah swore quietly. “Where is Sir Dahl now?”
“Convalescing.”
Daorah shook her head. “Wow.”
“So who else is trying to kill me?” asked Jarrod.
“House Fletcher,” Daorah said, exasperated. “There are five of them right down this hallway, looking for you.”
“That actually makes sense,” Jarrod grumbled. “Okay, quickly: I don’t have any proof just yet, but what I know is that a wizard gated Commander Gar of House Fletcher into Edwin’s Keep about the time that two of our order disappeared from there. Gar was there the night those guys disappeared, by my understanding. Edwin’s Keep is completely staffed with House Fletcher, now.”
“House Fletcher staffs castles all over Falconsrealm,” said Daorah. “That’s not unusual.”
“Fine. In the trunk that belonged to one of our missing knights, we found a stack of letters bearing the seal of the Chancellor of Ulorak.”
“Did you read them?” asked Daorah.
“We didn’t open them. We were going to save that for the Gateskeep High Inquisitor. But, we figure the knights who vanished had a lead on who’s arming the gbatu. We think it involves either Edwin, or Albar, or both.”
“Why would they arm the gbatu?” Carter asked. “That’s what we can’t figure.”
“Force multiplier,” said Jarrod. “Tie up our guys while they move a main force body down the highways.”
“Jesus,” said Carter. “If you’re right, we’re ass in the air and waiting.”
“And not in that good way,” said Daorah, shoving Carter playfully. He winked at her.
“You’re telling me,” agreed Jarrod. “We don’t have the manpower. We’re gonna get our asses kicked.”
Carter ticked off on his fingers. “Okay, so we’ve got sheth in Gavrian armor. We’ve got letters from Ulo’s Chancellor going to the brother of the guy who could take this country over with Gavrian help.”
“Plus, the Hillwhites would make a shit-pile of money arming us all up to fight the sheth even if we avert this thing. We’ll need heavier weapons, heavier armor, armor for the horses.”
“The letters get intercepted, and the two guys who intercepted them go missing. You think they stole the letters from Gar?”
“That’s what I figure,” Jarrod said.
“And now Gar’s men are trying to kill you.”
“Apparently.”
“Because they assume you have the letters.”
“That’s about it, yeah.”
Daorah was looking back and forth between them. “You two are amazing.”
“Those letters would probably reveal the supply lines,” Carter offered. “They’re going to want them back. Do you have them?”
“No.”
“Do they know that?”
“No.”
“Ooh, that sucks,” said Carter in English.
“Yeah,” Jarrod agreed. “We need to read those letters,” he decided, speaking in the Falconsrealm dialect again. “We need to know what’s in them, and if you’re right—and I think you are—then we need to go after the supply lines. If we can eliminate the network before the gbatu are armed to the teeth, we can stop this whole war in its tracks.”
Daorah shook her head a couple of times. Her mouth was hanging open, and it took her two tries to make the words come out. “You two . . . would risk your lives . . . trying to stop a war in its infancy . . . rather than wait and risk your lives to win it?”
They both stared at her.
“Absolutely,” said Jarrod.
“In a heartbeat,” said Carter.
“Hell,” added Jarrod, “Why go to war and fuck up a perfectly good horse? I say we shut this thing down while we can. Then I can put my feet up. Spend the rest of my days surrounded by enough grateful and adoring maidens fair that I can try them on like hats.”
Carter fist-bumped him and added, “Go fishing. There are bass in Rogue’s River the size of my leg. Come up, we’ll get a couple of them on the line.”
“I’m in,” said Jarrod.
Daorah shook her head. “Boys.”
The thoughts that began to form were torn apart by the sound of running footsteps.
“Go!” whispered Jarrod.
Four gaily-clad men appeared out of the darkness at a run. Jarrod recognized none of them, though all four moved with the robotic, muscular sprint he recognized from a summer of running trails with knights. Very fit, very strong men.
They weren’t stopping. Two had daggers drawn. As he heard the words, “That’s him!” Jarrod broke and ran.
He ran like hell, down the corridor, around to his right for a hundred steps, boots ticking on the stone floor and then on the stairs, past the water closet, circling up and around, climbing to the next floor—to where, he didn’t know.
After three floors, the climb became noticeably steeper, the walls closer. He was in one of the corner towers of the keep.
Up and up and up until his legs were numb and his lungs ached, and there was the door.
Jarrod hit the door, slammed it open, and drew his sword, slamming it shut again.
The door exploded open and a lone man staggered onto the rooftop, wheezing. Jarrod pointed his sword at him.
“House Fletcher, I presume,” said Jarrod.
“Come with me,” the man gasped. “Right now.”
He was tall, and strong, with copper-red skin and a ponytail with the sides of his head shaved. His cheeks were tattooed with what Jarrod could only figure were mazes. The stairs, however, had clobbered him.
He spent too much time lifting heavy things and not enough time running.
“I don’t really see that happening,” Jarrod admitted. “Where are your buddies?”
“Listen to me,” the man said, still breathing hard. “We have your little friend, understand?”
Jarrod menaced him. “What’s that?”
“The little sorcerer,” he said. “Daelle.”
“Keep talking,” said Jarrod.
The man took a few deep breaths. “I don’t have to tell you a damned thing.”
“I beg to differ,” said Jarrod, nodding to his sword.
Jarrod let his guard down carefully. “If I go with you, you’ll let her go?”
“I can’t promise that.”
Jarrod put his sword up again and clicked his tongue. “That’s a shame.”
“Look, hero. The longer we dally, the longer they dally. You understand me? Do both of you a favor and spare her the pain.”
“You’re not going to give me your name?” Jarrod asked, as the tattooed man buckled Jarrod’s swordbelt around his waist. It took him a couple of tries.
“I’m left-handed,” Jarrod said, helpfully. “It goes the other way—no, like—yeah. And you’re lucky you guys have Daelle, because I could have killed you about six times by now.”
“You don’t get my name.”
“Seven times.”
They were outside the keep at the bottom of the stairwell that led out of the tower, and the man prodded him in the back to walk.
They crossed the plain where the fighters trained, heading for the four-story barracks at the far end. At the door to the barracks, they made a quick turn down a flight of stairs that led underground with a door at the bottom. A storeroom, Jarrod guessed.
Soundproof.
Secondary crime scene.
Really bad idea.
“Down there,” the man said.
“If they’ve laid a finger on her,” Jarrod threatened as he descended.
“What they do to her is up to you.”
Jarrod stopped in front of the door. It was really dark.
The tattooed man shoved Jarrod. “Open it.”
Jarrod opened the door. “Honey?” he called. “I’m home.”
It was a storeroom, smoky, lit by a fire in a wall and a couple of torches. Stone walls, sacks of things on wooden shelves, shovels hanging from hooks, a well in the center.
“I got him,” the tattooed man shoved Jarrod into the center of the room near the well. Daelle was in a corner, rumpled in a torn blue evening dress and either bound or cuffed. Her face was bloodied and her eye swollen shut. She sobbed Jarrod’s name.