The Kingless Land

by Ed Greenwood

  “You want us to help you flee this place?” Craer asked, discovering that his fingertips had gone numb on his dagger hilt. He let go of it and wriggled them to bring them back to usefulness.

  The sorceress swallowed, lifted her head a little, and replied, “I offer you a choice. Break the last few bindings as I bid you and then flee with me, with all haste, accepting me as your equal and as a companion in your adventurings … or refuse me and be turned over to my father’s justice.”

  “Cruel deaths, after spells worm at our minds,” Craer almost whispered. “Lady, that’s no choice at all.”

  She spread her hands and said bitterly, “I’m in no position to offer you anything more, Sir Procurer, and if we tarry tongue-wagging overlong, your choice—and my chance at freedom—will be swept away together. All it takes is one wizard to notice the bindings gone or even to idly decide to spy on the charms of a sleeping maid—as they often do, not bothering to hide their floating eyes if I awaken—and …” She made a snatching gesture, let her hand fall, and stared at them both.

  The challenge was back in that dark gaze. “Gentle sirs,” she said flatly, “I am desperate.”

  Craer watched the dying motes of the golden flames her words had made drift into oblivion and then looked at Hawkril. They both had good cause to hate magic. Bitter battlefield memories rose, flashed and flared. The faces of dying comrades, blasted by spells, hung like ghosts between their grim gazes as the two comrades regarded each other.

  After a little silence, the armaragor rumbled, “A sorcerer of any accomplishment is a rare and precious thing.” He spread his own hands in a shrug, and added, “And who in all Darsar would not want their freedom?”

  Craer frowned at Hawkril, and slowly looked back at the Lady of Jewels. Soft curves sheathed in silk were far from the cruel, hard-riding battle mages he’d known, but …

  “How dare we trust you?” he murmured, shaking his head in disbelief and despair.

  Embra Silvertree rose in a soft whispering of silks and walked to him slowly, keeping her hands down by her sides. Kneeling in front of the procurer, she drew the dagger he’d gripped so tightly moments ago out of its scabbard, put it into his hand, and then guided its point to her throat.

  Kneeling in front of him, she looked along its keen length and whispered, “The same way I dare trust you.”

  “Claws of the Dark One!” Hawkril swore disbelievingly.

  Craer snatched an excited, almost desperate look at his friend and then stared down into the dark eyes so close to his, his dagger trembling in his hand. He could feel the warmth of her breath, and the flesh of her throat against his blade. Her face was calm as she lifted that beautiful chin to let him better see the throat his point was pricking.

  Glancing down at his war steel and then slowly up into dark eyes that held pleading and hope, but no fear, the procurer swallowed and said tightly, “Lady, it seems we have agreement.”

  The Lady of Jewels closed her eyes and let out a deep breath, freeing Craer from her gaze as if she’d snapped away shackles. Against the point of his blade, the procurer could feel her start to tremble, almost shivering. “Then,” she said unsteadily, “take away your blade and let me rise.”

  Craer did so with speed and care. Hawkril dared to offer her his hand; with the first trace of a real smile she took it, saying crisply, “Leave my gowns lie. Yonder lies one of the laundry sacks; empty it and bring it into the next room. Procurer, have you any blades you can spare?”

  “All of them, Lady, if the price is my life,” Craer told her rather grimly. As they strode into the next room together, his hands were busy at wrist and thigh and collar. They held six fangs ready when she stopped, swept a hand across an opening to part another sighing spell, as if it were a cobweb, and said, “Hawkril—fill your sack from that little chest at the back. Touch nothing else, if you’d live longer.”

  She turned, pointed at a sideboard and at a wardrobe, and asked, “Craer, do you think the two of you can move those to stand under the two hanging lamps—and climb them, when I bid you?”

  The procurer nodded. Shifting the wardrobe might take all their strength, but if they were otherwise to die …

  “My hands must take no part in this, or all will fail,” Embra Silvertree explained. “Fetch those two bowls. Put one on the floor, here …” She touched the smooth marble pave with one bare foot, and then pointed again. Her hand, Craer saw, trembled with excitement. “ … and set the other down here.”

  The procurer put his daggers down on the floor in a glittering heap and hastened to obey. As he bent to position the second bowl, he heard her hiss, “Hawkril, not done yet? Just dump the chest into the sack—we’ve no time for marveling and peering!”

  Craer looked up. Hawkril’s face was pale with wonder. The sack in his hand bulged, and his other hand rather unsteadily held out a glistening mountain of gems—bezrim, amblaers, starglisters, and peldoons enough to buy many a barony, more than either of them had ever seen before. The procurer nodded hastily, and Hawkril shook himself, as if coming awake, and spilled the glassy rain of great fortune into the sack. “That was the last,” the armaragor said, awe plain in his voice. “I’m done.”

  “Then drop the sack and help shift the wardrobe,” the sorceress said impatiently. “We don’t want to see the six guards who put it there in here now, do we?”

  Hawkril hastened. The wardrobe was heavy—by the Three, it was heavy!—but by hurling their shoulders against it in unison and running as if charging a ram through a door, the procurer and the armaragor managed to scrape it across the floor to stand under one of the lamps. Craer frowned at it, swung its doors wide, pulled an interior drawer out enough to serve as a foothold, and nodded in satisfaction. “And now?”

  “Get another sack,” Embra told him, and followed her words with a sudden grin, like a child delighting in a prank going well. “And water—there’s a spigot behind that third door down, and a bucket—enough to fill that bowl.”

  Craer and Hawkril hastened. In short order the sack held a dozen fat and impressive-looking books from a bed-foot chest, covered over with high boots, breeches, and a dark tunic the Lady Silvertree had pointed out, and the bowl was full. She stepped into it, directed Craer to set one of his daggers on the floor beside it, and then ordered, “Take a dagger each, and climb the furniture.”

  Hawkril lifted an eyebrow and one restraining hand in unison. “It was my remembrance,” he said in level tones that held only a faint rumble of warning, “that we agreed to take on a companion—not an officer in full authority over us.”

  The Lady Silvertree met his eyes and said, “Granted, friend Hawkril—but in this I know how to proceed, and mistakes will get us all slain. Trust me in this, please.”

  The armaragor held her eyes for a long moment after she let silence fall.

  Then, slowly, he nodded, took up a dagger, and vaulted up onto the sideboard. It groaned under his boots, swayed as he shifted his feet—and held. Craer was already atop the wardrobe, dagger in hand.

  The sorceress looked at them both, drew in a deep breath, and then said, “I’ll ask you to strike in unison. At the metal bosses, where the lamp chains reach the ceiling; be sure to cut across some part of the runes there. Strike hard and—by the Three!—miss not, and then close your eyes and let go your blades without delay. There will be … an impressive reaction. In what follows, each of you must pluck up a sack: fix in your minds now just where they are. It may be dark, and we’ll need to move very swiftly. Strike only when I give the word.”

  The two friends exchanged glances and then nodded to her. Embra knelt to take up the dagger, tore something on a fine chain from around one ankle and set it in the dry bowl, then stood, turned to look at them, and deliberately drew Craer’s knife down the outside of her arm.

  The blood welled out dark and fast. The Lady Silvertree held out her arm so that it would run from her fingertips into the dry bowl, watched it race for a moment, and then snapped, “Strike now!”
At that last word, the first dark drops fell toward the bowl.

  Daggers struck sparks from rune-graven metal—and in the wake of where they touched, lightnings burst forth into the night.

  White and furious, these, leaping lances hot against the very air.

  Craer swore and snatched his hand away. His dagger exploded into droplets of metal, smoking spatters that headed past his cheek into the night. A howling was rising from all around, and something surged through the very air around him, rolling as ponderously as a wave smashing into a small boat of grimly clinging warriors off the rocky Ieiremboran shores.

  Another surge of force moaned through the room, awakening many small radiances in its wake, and in their fading flashes Craer saw the sideboard toppling, and Hawkril leaping away.

  Its crash shook the room, and was echoed by a dozen smaller disasters in nearby chambers. In one of the bursts of lighting-touched fire—spells dying, these must be—the procurer saw the sorceress silhouetted, still standing in the bowl, tearing off the last of the skirts of her nightgown with a triumphant jerk and reaching to wrap the silk around her arm.

  The floor shuddered in an abrupt wave of its own—and the wardrobe began its own slow and mighty journey to a thunderous meeting with the floor.

  Craer sprang from tilting wood toward where his sack must be, winced as something falling from the ceiling smashed against his shoulder, and spun helplessly in the air to land hard and rolling, his bootheels crashing against the sack. Books and not gems, thank the Three … as he stood, the entire tower shuddered under and around him, sending him staggering. The bindings had been broken, all right—and the baron, his three mages, and half Coiling Vale could hardly help but notice!

  A firm hand took hold of his elbow in the darkness. “Hold to this,” Embra Silvertree said, guiding one of his hands to a fold of cloth on one of her slender hips. “And if your fingers begin to wander, I’ll give you back the three knives you left on the floor—one at a time, and point first.”

  Craer answered her with a sound that was more snort than chuckle, and moved with her through trembling, littered gloom, running up against her soft limbs only once, when Hawkril loomed out of the darkness with a low growl to identify himself. The Lady of Jewels never faltered, but gave him back a hum of reassurance and caught at his forearm to guide him. Together they traced a path around chairs and through beaded curtains that rattled and clacked like bones on an alchemist’s slab, to a narrow, steep unseen stair that Embra led them down, sighing more than once in relief—as she found spell barriers she’d feared would still rise before her gone, Craer guessed—ere she slid two somethings aside and thrust open a door that let in silver moonlight and laid open the gardens before them.

  The shoulder that shook itself free of the procurer’s hand was trembling with fear and excitement, but Lady Silvertree’s voice was calm and level as she turned to face them and said, “For all our fates, I hope you have a secure lair and some swift way to reach it.” Without waiting for a reply, she waved her hand in a haughty noblewoman’s flourish, bidding them lead the way.

  Craer looked at her, tried not to think of stone statues waiting to crush and maim, then turned and raced into the trees, shifting the sack on his shoulders to keep from falling in his rush. Hawkril broke into a lumbering run in his wake, and as the trees flashed past, the procurer was surprised to see the sorceress sprinting along barefooted at his shoulder, hair streaming behind her and bosom heaving as her gasps began.

  No wolves came at them out of the nighted woods, but all too soon there came the dull shuddering of the ground that marked the strides of the stone knight.

  “I thought you broke it apart,” Hawkril growled, hauling out his sword and glaring back at the guardian of the wall as if his anger could lay it low.

  “I did,” Craer gasped. “Do they heal, Lady?”

  “Unless someone breaks enchantments I dare not, lest I face my father’s mages here and now,” the sorceress told him in a level voice. “Nor have I governance over that one any longer. Ambelter’s weavings lie over and beneath my work, to guard against independence on my part.”

  “He trusts you so little?” the procurer muttered, stepping away from Embra to force the advancing knight to choose a target.

  “He trusts no one,” Embra said, in a voice that was little louder than a whisper but as bitter as a winter wind. “He is proud to entertain no such weaknesses.”

  “How do you suggest we fell this thing, then, Lady?” Hawkril called, hefting his blade and moving forward to draw the guardian to him. Anger rang clear in his voice.

  “Craer, you run at it, and then draw it off that way,” she said, rousing herself into briskness. “Hawkril, be ready to carry me clear if it comes at me—like a grain sack, just scoop me without speaking or slapping me or suchlike. We’ve one chance left.”

  The armaragor’s reply was an angry growl, but he fell back as Craer caught his eye, nodded—and rushed forward.

  The stone blade swept down, and the procurer sprang into the air, looking for all the world like an oversize spider, landed on all fours, and leaped away, rolling through bushes as the guardian turned to pursue, hacking with more speed than accuracy.

  Hawkril took a stand beside the sorceress, his eyes narrow with suspicion and his blade not far from her breast. He glanced quickly around in search of wolves, armsmen, or wizards, but the greatest foe just might be this beautiful statue of a lass right in front of his blade.

  The Lady Silvertree stood with her eyes closed, swaying a little. A low murmuring, almost a drone, was coming from her slightly parted lips, and as Hawkril watched, she slowly put her head back until she was looking—had her eyes been open—right up at the starry sky.

  Then she shivered, suddenly huddling down like a woman scuttling down a storm-lashed street, and said roughly, “There. ’Tis done. Hawkril, put away your sword.”

  “That, Lady,” the armaragor growled, “is something I’ll decide. I have a mistrust of wizards telling me to do anything, and if half the things you’ve let slip about your father’s mages are true, so should you.”

  He stiffened as something thundered out of the night behind her other shoulder. It was another stone knight, marching swiftly off through the trees whence Craer and the other knight had gone. “Lady Embra,” Hawkril growled, “if you’ve played us false—”

  The sorceress turned a weary face up to his furious one and murmured, “Then kill me. Here and now. It might give you some small satisfaction before my father’s mages have you screaming. I think we both want—and, by the gods, need—trust between us. My control over the guardians of the wall, I fear, is now gone. I can compel only that one.”

  “And?” Hawkril barked, the point of his sword still drawn back to thrust up into her throat.

  “I’m sending it to battle the one chasing your—our—friend,” she told him, dark eyes very steady on his, and then added with a fierce anger to match his own, “Hawkril, trust me!”

  The ground shook then, and the armaragor whirled away from her with a growl, lifting his war sword to face what he knew must be coming. He glanced at two stone heads, crashing through the trees, and then back at the sorceress, clearly wondering if slaying the Lady of Jewels would bring both statues toppling into ruin.

  “Wait and watch,” Embra snapped, her voice wavering. “You’ll see.…”

  Branches crackled and Craer Delnbone whirled out of the night, tumbling between them and gasping, “Sorry I led them back. …”

  Hawkril stared at him and then back up at the stone titans looming over them. He lifted a sword that might as well have been a blade of grass, for all the good it would do against either of those huge stone swords—and then gasped.

  The guardian whose stony skin was covered with cracks swept its sword up to smite him—and the other knight struck it from behind and one side, swinging its blade around like a woodsman’s ax with all the ponderous force of its shoulders behind the blow. Its stone sword struck the raised sw
ord arm and crashed on through, in a crash of sundering stone that deafened the sorceress and the two men of the Griffon. Shards of stone and smaller rubble flew in all directions as the knight’s attack carried it into the disarmed guardian.

  Stone shrieked against stone, the ground seemed to groan, and the two titans toppled slowly, plunging together through a planting of white-bough trees with a crackling and booming that echoed back across the gardens from the unseen castle walls.

  Hawkril gaped at the sight, but the Lady Silvertree plucked at his arm, crying out something his ringing ears couldn’t hear. Craer was at her side, and she pointed as she pulled at him, urging him on.

  The armaragor shook her grip free and gave her a fierce, excited smile as he sheathed his blade and gestured for her to proceed, like a court dandy indicating a lady should proceed him onto a dance floor.

  Embra Silvertree rolled her eyes in the moonlight before breaking into a trot, Craer a half pace ahead of her. Grinning like an idiot, Hawkril followed, the thunder in his ears slowly fading until he could hear his own swift breathing again, and the rustle and whisper of their feet through the dark gardens.

  No more guardians or wolves came at them out of the nighted woods, but when the dark shield of the wall rose before them to bar their path, it seemed alive, the stone teeth of its crenellations rippling and shifting. Hawkril almost fell in his haste to come to a halt and drag out his sword—and a moment later, they were all staggering as the ground shook again—a rolling thunder that went on and on, this time, raging up and down before the three fleeing humans.

  All along the wall, knight after knight was bulging forward out of the stones, raising ponderous blades in slow menace.

  “There were hands, too,” Craer muttered, remembering the arms that had clutched at him. This was going to be less than pretty.…

  The Lady of Jewels lifted her hands and murmured something firm and careful. Her eyes seemed to flash for an instant, and then glow—a glow that seemed to roll out from her through the air like a wave scudding across sand.