A Symphony of Storms (Demon Crown Book 3)

by Vardeman, Robert E.

  He headed north and west and found the fresh trail left by Lokenna and Pandasso. Within an hour he had overtaken them. Within two they had left the battleground far behind.

  But Birtle Santon kept looking over his shoulder, sure that someone watched their flight.

  CHAPTER XV

  Vered moaned as he rubbed his bruised ribs. He had rolled into the guardsman and used his rib cage as a battering ram — but it had been worth the minor injury. The guards had fallen and spent too much time stumbling over one another to catch him. He didn’t like leaving Santon and the others in the cell, but their main hope of rescue lay with him if he stayed free.

  He dashed to the door leading from the dungeon and found it open — but nonetheless closed to him. An entire squad of guardsmen rattled and clanked down the stairs in front of him.

  Vered spun and looked for somewhere to hide. He shuddered when he saw a torture cabinet door propped open. He ducked into the coffin-like device and pulled the lid shut. He almost screamed in horror when it locked into place.

  The click of the lid shutting echoed and drowned out the pounding of the soldiers just a few feet away.

  Vered struggled violently and found himself falling backward. He banged his head against a low stone ceiling. For a few seconds he simply lay stunned, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Then a slow smile crossed his lips. The torture cabinet had a false back — he had blundered into a secret passageway.

  He got to his hands and knees and peered at the dirt under him. Someone had been here recently if he judged the footprints properly. Vered turned his attention back to the torture cabinet. Spy holes gave a good view of the dungeon; his heart leaped to his throat when he saw the guards pushing Santon and the others back into their cell. Even worse, the squad did not depart. They stayed on duty, posted in such a way that he couldn’t hope to overcome one without two others seeing.

  Vered decided to explore the secret passage rather than waiting for the guards to become lax and trying to pry open the coffin lid. He felt naked without a decent weapon to hold — and his clothing hung in tatters. He wondered if a bath and a new tunic and breeches might not be available before he tackled the job of rescuing Santon.

  He crawled along the dirty passage, bumping his head often on the low ceiling. Whoever had passed this way had been much smaller — Vered wondered if it hadn’t been Baron Theoll. The small noble had tried spying on him and Santon from a similar secret passage. They had nearly poked out the baron’s eye.

  The first exit was blocked. Vered moved on, following the spoor left by the previous traveller in these secret ways. When he emerged from the wall, Vered found himself in a familiar section of the castle. He smiled and turned toward his and Santon’s old quarters.

  Vered pressed his ear against the door and listened hard. The room had been occupied the last time they had checked. No interesting sounds came from within; Vered entered.

  “Ah, a wardrobe still fit for the likes of a master thief.” He threw open the wardrobe door and selected carefully. The clothing he had abandoned so many weeks ago still hung neatly in the cabinet. Vered decided a bath was out of the question, even if it did mean putting on decent clothing over a filthy skin. He preened in front of a full-length polished sheet of metal, then began searching the room in earnest for a weapon.

  He found nothing. Cursing, he slipped from the room and made his way up the stairs at the end of the corridor to a small armoury where he found his glass sword, Santon’s glass shield, and enough other weaponry to hold off a small army. Vered gathered what he could and returned to his former quarters.

  He dumped his treasure trove onto the floor and began sorting through it. He slipped four daggers into the folds of his clothing. Being caught unarmed did not appeal to him. He hefted the glass sword Alarice had given him and admired the way it fit his hand.

  “Such a fine weapon. She forged well in glass.” Vered started to thrust it through his belt when he heard the rattle of soldiers’ gear in the hallway. He dropped the sword onto Santon’s shield and shoved them under a pile of blankets just as the door burst open.

  Vered used both hands to brush back his brown hair. In his most commanding voice, he demanded, “What is this? Do you always break into a lord’s quarters in this scurvy manner?”

  “Lord?” The soldier backed off. “Pardon. We search for a prisoner who has escaped from the dungeons.”

  “Do I look like any such prisoner? Begone!” Vered heaved a sigh when the soldier backed out and closed the door, still muttering apologies. The proper arrogance often carried the day.

  He opened the door a crack and peered into the corridor. Satisfied, he slipped out — and froze.

  A half-dozen swords pressed into his body.

  “This is the one,” came a cold voice. “Take him back to the dungeon and keep him separate from the others. Ruvary will interrogate him personally in the morning.”

  Vered struggled and held his arms high as he allowed them to prod him back down the steep flight of stone steps to the dungeon. His escape hadn’t been as successful as he had hoped, but they had forgotten to search him.

  The metal door to the cell clanged shut — and Vered still carried four daggers hidden on him. He would have to put them to good use. How, he couldn’t say, but he would find a way. He always did.

  *

  “This solves one thorny problem, brother,” said Dews Gaemock. “We no longer have to worry about Dalziel Sef.”

  Efran Gaemock stared down the river at the small boat working its way upstream against the heavy current and ice floes. He did not share his brother’s confidence that Sef was soundly defeated.

  “He’s lost most of the army — our army,” said Efran. “Does that make him impotent?”

  “Hardly,” said Dews. “But he no longer poses a threat to my command. Those who still rally against Lorens have only one banner to follow — mine.”

  Efran remained unconvinced. “Let’s hear what he has to say. I cannot believe he was foolish enough to attack the castle.”

  “The scout reported it.”

  “We lack Lorens’ information-gathering ability,” said Efran. “I mistrust our source this time.”

  Dalziel Sef climbed from the boat and limped toward them. “Lords!” he greeted loudly. “Thank you for your hospitality!”

  “Damn him,” muttered Efran. “He begs sanctuary and we dare not betray the old customs, not when we need every man possible to replace the army he’s lost.”

  “You worry too much about details, Efran.” Dews Gaemock strode forward and extended his hand to Sef. “You’ve caused quite a stir with your attack,” he greeted the rebel.

  .”My attack?” Sef shook his head and settled down into a proffered camp chair. He warmed his hands in front of the small fire and helped himself to some of the porridge gently boiling in a pot. He made a wry face as he burned his tongue on the hot food. Only then did he say, “Lorens attacked me. His troops came gushing out of the castle like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. We had scant warning he’d try such a bold move.”

  “He sees your every soldier. He listens in on your counsel. He can use the crown at every instant of the day. Why shouldn’t he know his attack would succeed?” asked Efran.

  “Your brother wasn’t there, Dews. He cannot know of the storm.”

  “Speak directly to me or to no one!” raged Efran. He whipped out a slender knife and held it under Sef’s nose.

  The rebel leader looked at his reflection in the blade and said to Dews, “The storm was not natural. A wizard of great power conjured it. I think it was Lorens. He used it to shield his movement from my scouts.”

  Efran drew the blade back swiftly; a lock of Sef’s hair fell, got caught in a gust of wind, and drifted away. Sef appeared not to have noticed. He turned back to his porridge, blowing on it until it cooled enough to eat.

  “Good food,” he said, wolfing it down. “We’ve been on the damned river for four days. Mostly eating raw fish.
Hate fish. This is very good.”

  “You don’t deny he caught your men sleeping?” asked Efran.

  “Your brother’s opinion of my talents as a commander are small. I tell you, Lorens sent the storm to hide his movement. We had no idea that an attack was planned. When he was alive, Duke Freow had been content to let us lay siege to the castle for months and months. Who’d think Lorens would attack us?”

  ‘“Lorens is mad,” said Dews. “But in his madness he has outwitted you.”

  “A minor setback, nothing more,” insisted Dalziel Sef as he helped himself to more porridge.

  “How many of your men survived?” asked Efran. “We’ve heard conflicting numbers.” For the first time, Sef stared directly at Efran, his eyes bleak.

  “Few. Less than a hundred at a guess.”

  “What?” Neither Dews nor Efran believed this. “But you had over a thousand!”

  “He gave no quarter. Any who were not killed outright were captured and slaughtered like sheep. I managed to escape through a quirk of fate. Some fool came riding through camp bellowing that we were under attack. My aides got me to the river and a boat.”

  “You left your army and fled like a craven.” Efran Gaemock’s anger mounted. Not only had Dalziel Sef usurped much of the rebel forces, he had turned tail and run at the instant his leadership was needed most.

  “Would it have served any purpose for me to have died there, too?”

  “Efran,” warned Dews. “Do not harm him. We have need of every sword now — even his.”

  “Especially mine,” corrected Sef. “I have survived Lorens’ attack. Only I know his style of command in the field.”

  “He personally led his men?” Efran hardly believed this revelation.

  “He ordered his archers to fire when I had barely begun rowing across the river. I’d know him anywhere — him and the glowing Demon Crown.”

  “This is worse than I thought,” said Dews, scratching his chin. “As long as Lorens let his field commander lead the army, the royalists held back. Seeing their monarch in front of his troops might rally the peasants who were undecided.”

  “We might have difficulty getting supplies,” summed up Efran. He stared at Dalziel Sef, with his cracked and yellowed teeth and wondered what went through the man’s mind. He had almost single-handedly lost the war for them. A thousand men dead! He and Dews together led fewer than five hundred.

  “We can bring together enough of an army to give him second thoughts on sallying forth into the countryside,” said Sef. “A few bands of men along the roads will keep Lorens from travelling freely.”

  “We need to regroup. This is a major setback.” Dews paced as he thought of a dozen different courses to pursue. Efran stared at Sef, trying to decipher the man’s nonchalance.

  It seemed as if this major defeat meant nothing to Sef. Efran saw the rebel cause dying, unless they were clever and bold. Lorens had not only destroyed most of their fighting force, he had swayed the populace to his side. When the royalists were penned in Castle Porotane, the peasants gave freely to the rebels without fear of reprisal.

  That ended with Sef’s crushing defeat. Lorens’ troops could collect punitive taxes and burn out any farmer thought to be aiding the rebels. If Lorens had ordered the deaths of all rebels who surrendered, he had established the rules for the rest of the conflict.

  No quarter asked or given.

  Efran Gaemock shuddered. He had played at being court jester for two years trying to avoid such a war. Those following Lorens were not necessarily evil. Fear of the Demon Crown forced many to follow when they would otherwise resist. Now pardon for them was out of the question. Efran cursed again under his breath.

  “We return to the oxbow above the castle,” he heard Sef say. “We establish a camp and from there we spread out slowly. We need to establish our presence once more.”

  “A good plan,” said Dews. “If we force the soldiers back into the castle and prevent them from establishing permanent bases in the countryside, we can triumph yet!”

  Efran knew that his brother worked himself up into a frenzy before presenting this plan to the troops. He needed to be completely sure of himself and success or it would communicate to those listening — and doubt would cause even more the remaining five hundred to slip off into the night. With five hundred, they stood a chance, small but possible. With less, the rebellion against the royalists died on the spot.

  “We must move downriver quickly,” decided Dews. “The longer we allow Lorens to roam unopposed, even near the castle, the more difficult it will be to win.”

  Efran tacitly agreed. He sat, arms crossed and eyes fixed on Dalziel Sef. The other rebel leader had plans of his own. But what? Efran could not decide, but he would watch carefully. The years spent amid Castle Porotane’s political manoeuvrings had not been wasted on him.

  *

  “Lorens should have interdicted travel on the river by now,” observed Dews. “We’ve been able to set up camp so that he cannot pry us loose from our position.”

  “Unless we try another attack on the castle,” said Efran. He stood on the rise peering down into the misty distance. Castle Porotane lay beyond the field of vision, obscured by distance and a feeble grey fog that had crept over the land.

  “We can’t attack. With luck we can accumulate and train enough men to lay siege to the castle again in the spring.”

  “We can certainly burn the crops to prevent supplies from reaching the castle,” said Efran. He spoke of sieges and long-term plans but his mind turned over more immediate problems. Dalziel Sef had been too well behaved since the defeat. His words were conciliatory and his suggestions cautious. That did not match the personality of the man Efran had come to know.

  All that he knew for sure was that the defeat had not broken Sef’s will. The arrogance he had shown before when he had seized control of the forces in the Yorral Mountains remained.

  “Dews?”

  “What is it, brother?” Dews Gaemock pored over a map, drawing small arrows to show where raiding parties would best be used.

  “We must not allow Sef to continue in a position of command. Send him to the western provinces to recruit a new army. Get him north to Claymore Pass.”

  “That is a poor idea,” said Dews. “Remember the treaty he tried to sign with Ionia? If we hadn’t discovered his perfidy and sent our own ambassador, he and Ionia would have seized the pass and mountains for their personal domains.”

  “My point is not lost on you, then,” said Efran. “I do not trust him. Something more than obedience stirs in his wormy brain.”

  “He is courageous and skilled, in spite of the defeat he suffered.”

  “We suffered,” Efran corrected. “His loss put the entire rebellion into jeopardy.”

  “We need all the skilled warriors we can find.”

  Efran clasped his hands behind his back and started to pace, his mind racing. The clatter of hooves brought him out of his reverie. He stopped and watched as a company of cavalry rode down a draw and vanished into the cold fog.

  “Dews, where are they going?”

  “Who?”

  “An entire company is a horse. Where have you sent them? This is too large a group to commit. We’d agreed on that.”

  “I’ve sent no one anywhere. I ordered our sappers to fortify the roads leading to our camp and to do what they can to insure a good water supply. Perhaps you saw them leading a company of workers.”

  “These were armed cavalry.” Efran spun and stalked off down the hill, found a checkpoint deserted, and proceeded angrily to find the company commander.

  The bivouac was deserted. Campfires had been recently snuffed out. Only wispy columns of smoke rose to show that any soldiers had been here. Efran spun at a sound. Dews stood behind him, eyes wide.

  “Where did they go?” Dews asked.

  “We had regiment strength scattered about. Do any remain under our command?” asked Efran.

  They raced back up the hill t
o their command post, alerted aides, and mounted, riding hard to find-their field officers.

  Most had left. Those that remained knew nothing.

  Efran pointed and cried, “There! You! Stop!”

  A solitary soldier struggled with a pack and weapons. His left leg dragged slightly, making travel difficult.

  “Yes, Lord Efran?”

  “Where are your comrades? Where are you going?”

  “Why, as you ordered. We’re en route to the staging area.”

  “Staging area for what?” asked Dews, his voice cracking with strain.

  “For the attack on the castle. Lord Dalziel leads it at dawn.”

  Efran and Dews exchanged horrified looks. “May the demons take him for all eternity!” exclaimed Efran. “He’s doing the same thing again! The fool!”

  They spent the next hour taking inventory of their supplies and the number of troops left them. Of five hundred, only one hundred remained — the one hundred closest to their command post. Dalziel Sef had cleverly taken only those at a distance to prevent the Gaemocks from knowing the full perfidy of his plan.

  “Assemble the men immediately,” Efran ordered. “We march after Sef. With luck, we can stop him. Without it, we might be able to rescue a few survivors.”

  He and Dews worked frantically to rally their remaining men. Of the hundred left them by Sef, fewer than eighty followed. Efran did not blame the deserters. When leaders had a falling out, the troops suffered — and died.

  They marched hard all night and arrived behind Dalziel Sef’s scattered lines to see that Lorens and the Demon Crown had again stolen victory from the rebel.

  “He’s allowed his ranks to be split by cavalry.

  Less than two hundred on one side and…how many on the other, Efran? I cannot see well through the fog.”

  Efran checked with a scout. “Fewer than a hundred. The battle has only just begun and already he has lost more than a quarter of his total force.”