“I insist.”
“I suggest you settle the matter soon,” said Caradoc. “Or neither of you will make it to the keep alive.”
Soth looked at Valcic.
Valcic nodded.
Soth mounted the knight’s horse.
And was gone.
Darin Valcic turned west to face the oncoming knights.
There were ten knights abreast at the front of the pack maybe more. Judging by the plume of dust rising up behind them they might have been six or seven deep, perhaps more than fifty knights in all.
It would be a short battle, but Valcic was determined to put up a fight worthy of a true Knight of Solamnia.
He drew his sword, held it before him with both hands.
A moment later the knights were upon him.
He held his breath …
And suddenly, the knights parted, riding around him and leaving him alone on the plains to choke on their dust.
Now on a fresh horse, Soth led his knights in the final charge toward the keep.
He looked very little like the knight who had left Dargaard Keep little more than a week ago.
He had the appearance of a dirty and disheveled wild-man whose clothes were little more than rags. His muscular upper body was bruised and stained by the remains of rotten fruit, eggs and dirt that had been hurled at him in Palanthas. And his long black hair flowed back from his head like wildfire, putting an air of madness about him.
But despite it all, he still rode erect and proud on his mount, and his eyes …
His eyes were still as alive and piercing as ever.
Soon the knights clattered across the drawbridge and into the keep. Two of the horses who had made the trip from Palanthas stumbled their last few agonizing steps before falling in utter exhaustion.
A moment later the portcullis came crashing down and the drawbridge slowly began to rise up.
Outside, the pursuing knights brought their horses to a halt at the edge of the chasm surrounding the keep, then quickly retreated out of the range of any archers who might be waiting for them on the battlements.
“Are we going to lay siege to the keep?” asked Eiwon van Sickle, regarding the formidable structure before them.
Garrett Fenton looked to Dargaard Keep and then shook his head. “No, I’m afraid it would take far too long and require too many knights. And to what purpose?”
“So what are we going to do? Surely, High Justice Caladen isn’t going to allow Soth to get away with his crimes.”
“I’ve received instructions from the high justice. I assure you, he won’t be getting away with anything,” Fenton said.
“But how—”
“Think about it for a moment,” Fenton interrupted. “Soth has lived his life as a revered and respected knight. Now, news of his crimes will be all over Ansalon in a matter of weeks. Anywhere he goes he will be called a murderer and mocked as a fallen knight. For a Knight of Solamnia, especially one of Soth’s stature, such a fate is worse than death itself.”
“Yes,” said van Sickle. “I can see that.” His body seemed to shiver at the thought. Still, he persisted. “But we can’t just let him go.”
“No,” Fenton said. “There will be conditions that must be met.”
Hours later, he rode slowly toward the keep under the protection of a white standard. When Fenton reached the bridge, it did not come down.
He remained seated on his mount and laid forth his conditions.
“Loren Soth,” he said loudly enough for all those on the west side of the keep to hear. “You are hereby dishonorably dismissed from the Knights of Solamnia. Furthermore, if you should ever venture outside the boundaries of Knightlund it will be the duty of every Knight of Solamnia to hunt you down like a common criminal and carry out the execution order of the high justice.”
Fenton paused a few moments. “If you understand these terms you may indicate so in an appropriate manner.”
Several minutes passed before a column of pale white smoke rose up from the uppermost battlement of the keep.
Seeing the smoke, Fenton nodded. “Very well, then. It is done.”
The Solamnic Knights turned their horses around and headed back to Palanthas.
Book Three
Dead of Knight
Chapter 27
“Tell me it’s not true!” cried Isolde. “Tell me Korinne died during the birth and not by your hand!”
She had asked the question many times before, but never in as many words. Now, as he’d done so many times before, Soth remained silent, unwilling to face her.
“Tell me, please,” repeated Isolde, this time on the verge of tears. At least if he denied it, if he adamantly claimed that some grievous mistake had been made, there might still be a chance for redemption, a chance to clear his good name.
His name and hers.
But if it were indeed true, if he had in fact killed his former wife and child, people would know that she had been carrying his child while he was still married to Korinne. Then they would assume that because Isolde had been with child it had been that much easier for Soth to turn his back on Korinne. Nay, more than turn his back.
To …
She had trouble with the word.
To kill his wife and newborn child.
If that were true, she would be an accomplice to the murders. She would be as guilty of the killings as Soth himself.
If it were true.
If Soth was indeed guilty of the crime, he would never regain his status as one of the greatest Solamnic Knights of all time. Instead he would be a disgraced knight who would be killed on sight if he ever left the keep. And she would be similarly disgraced—a subject of ridicule should she ever venture beyond Dargaard Keep’s cold bloodstone walls.
After all, who could pardon such a heinous act? Even the Healing Hand, Mishakal, would be hard-pressed to forgive such an atrocity.
If it were true.
“Tell me they made a mistake,” she pleaded. “Tell me you did not kill Korinne and the child!”
Soth drew in a long breath, looked Isolde in the eye and spoke to her directly. “Lady Korinne died as a result of the severely deformed child that she bore.”
Isolde listened intently to the words. They didn’t sound like much of a denial, but Soth’s voice was unwavering and it was edged with just a hint of conviction.
She desperately wanted to believe him. For a moment she thought to ask him again in order to cull more reassuring words from him, but decided against it. Those few words would be as much as she would get out of her husband. They would have to do.
Especially now.
He had changed so much these past few weeks. His face used to be bright and quick to smile. He had laughed every so often and had looked content. Now his face was masked by a shroud of darkness. His eyes, once alight with passion, now smoldered with loathing for everyone and everything around him. He constantly grumbled about everything and even shunned the company of his knights, the same brave men who had literally snatched him from the brink of death.
They’d saved his life, but they hadn’t been able to save his honor. That had been crushed and with it so too had the man.
If only there was a way to regain his honor, their honor, the honor of the Soth family name.
Isolde prayed to Mishakal for guidance.
The summer months passed and the keep grew cold and damp. It was as if the sun never shone on its walls, as if the fires in its hearths were more smoke than heat.
Soth tried to attend to his duties as he had before, but now there seemed to be very little for him to do. The people of Knightlund had turned west to Vingaard Keep for protection from marauders, and for advice in land and financial disputes.
Soth wasn’t surprised. Who would seek the advice of a murderer? Certainly no one of sound mind. It was something he never thought he would say, but he longed for the days when he sat in judgment, settling trivial land claims and disputes over money. At one time he would have done anything not
to have to listen to commoners’ petty arguments, but now he would give everything just to listen to them once more.
He sat in his throne chair in the middle of a large empty room. For some reason the chair was comfortable now and he could sit in it for hours without moving, his eyes closed as he relived the past.
“Why don’t you go out for a ride?” asked a voice from somewhere in the shadows.
Soth didn’t need to look up. He knew it was Isolde. He did not answer her.
“Loren?” she called, stepping into the hall.
“What is it?” snapped Soth, his eyes narrowed in anger.
“Why don’t you get out of the keep for a while?”
“And why don’t you tend to the child and leave me to my own affairs?”
Isolde was visibly hurt by the sharp words of her husband, but continued moving forward, undaunted.
“It pains me to see you lingering within the keep like a shadow. I look at you and I see a ghost from your former life.”
“Enough!” shouted Soth, rising from his throne.
But Isolde would not stop. “The knights seem lost, too. They’ve looked to you for direction for so long, and suddenly it’s not—”
“I said enough!”
“You are still a Knight of Solamnia,” she continued. “You all are. No matter what has happened, you must continue living your life in accordance with the Oath and the Measure. Anything else for a knight is the same as death—”
Soth had heard enough. He placed his large hands on Isolde’s tiny elven shoulders and pushed her roughly to the floor.
She hit the cold hard stones with a loud thump, but did not cry out.
Soth looked at her for the longest time, ashamed at what he’d done, and hating himself for what he had become.
Isolde slowly picked herself up off the floor.
Soth left the hall without saying a word.
Isolde stood up and brushed off her clothes. As she did, a single tear fell from the corner of her eye. The tear was not for what had happened, for clearly Soth was not himself these days. Gone was the brave and valiant warrior, the Soth she’d come to know and love. And in his place was this dark and brooding man who had forgotten everything for which he had once stood.
She left the hall and headed for the chapel.
She had been praying to Mishakal for guidance and in a way she had been guided. She was beginning to feel more certain that she knew what was required for the benefit of herself, her son Peradur, and for all those living inside the keep.
Soth needed to find a way in which to redeem himself.
She entered the chapel and knelt down in her familiar place, her legs covering the darker spots her knees had rubbed into the wood these past few weeks, and prayed.
She prayed to Mishakal to show her a way in which Soth might find redemption.
The room had been the healer’s chambers for years, but because Istvan did not return from Palanthas following Soth’s hearing, Isolde had decided the room could be converted to a nursery. Soth had wanted the room left abandoned, but Isolde had insisted. Further protests on Soth’s part would have required some sort of explanation, so in the end he reluctantly yielded to her request.
In spite of the memories he tried to bury, Soth found himself coming here more and more often to spend time with his son, Peradur. One reason was that he had the time to spend, another was that he felt if he spent time with the child now, he might be able to prevent his sins from being passed on as his father’s sins had been passed onto him.
He wasn’t sure how being with the child might prevent this, but because Soth’s father Aynkell had spent very little time with him as a child, Soth felt that doing the opposite might produce the opposite result—a young man whose soul was free of the black marks incurred by the previous generations.
Whatever the outcome, it was worth the effort given that Soth felt he couldn’t make things any worse for the boy if he tried.
“There’s a good boy,” he said, the soft tone of his voice sounding strange coming from such a big man. “A good boy who will one day grow to be a good knight.”
The child smiled.
“A great knight.”
The child giggled.
Soth took a small wooden sword from a chest full of toys and noisemakers. The sword was made of soft fir wood and rounded at each on all sides in order to prevent the child from accidentally hurting himself. Soth placed the hilt of the sword in the child’s tiny hand and instinctively his fingers curled around it, holding the sword tightly.
Soth smiled approvingly, his quiet, hissing laughter sounding like steam from a cauldron. He let go of the sword, allowing Peradur to hold it by himself. For several seconds he held it aloft as proudly as any champion knight, but then the blade began to waver until it fell back against the child’s chest. Then, taking hold of it with both hands, Peradur brought the soft wooden sword to his mouth and began chewing on it.
Again Soth laughed, but his joy was short-lived.
He wanted nothing more than for his son to follow in his footsteps and become a Knight of Solamnia, keeping the Soth legacy alive for yet another generation. But now it seemed that dream would never be realized.
And he had no one to blame but himself.
First of all, the Knights of Solamnia had never accepted a half-elf into the knighthood. To the best of his knowledge, Soth couldn’t even remember a half-elf serving as a squire. Secondly, while at one time the Solamnic Knights might have accepted a half-elf whose name was Soth, those days were over. Because of his deeds and heinous violation of the Oath and the Measure, it was highly unlikely that any young man carrying the taint of the Soth name would ever be allowed to join the knighthood.
The boy was barely a few months old and he’d already been judged because of his father’s deed.
Because of the sins of his father.
Soth watched Peradur chew on the sword, his pink gums gnashing against the wood. As he did so, Soth wondered how could it be that something as innocent as a child, something that was supposed to bring him such joy, had only brought him more remorse, greater shame, and above all, such heartfelt pain.
No sword had ever hurt him like this.
And worst of all, it would be a pain that would never fade with the passage of time. For what might the child feel toward him when he finally came of age?
Anger?
Resentment?
Disgust?
Shame?
The thought of it made Soth shiver.
“Excuse me, milord,” said a soft voice.
Soth turned and saw the young maid, Jenfer Clinyc, who had been entrusted with Peradur’s care ever since the dismissal of Mirrel. She stood in the doorway in a way that suggested she knew she was intruding. Soth liked the girl; she was good with the child, unassuming and unpretentious around others, and most importantly, was absolutely devoted to both Isolde and Peradur.
“It’s time for the young knight’s bath,” she said with a smile.
Soth nodded, touched his son’s head gently, then rose to his feet. He took one last look at the child, then turned and left the room.
He walked down the hall and through the keep, heading toward the chapel. When he arrived, he eased the door open.
He was surprised to find Isolde there, but let none of it show. Instead he quietly stepped into the chapel and knelt down by her side.
Whispering under his breath, he began to pray to Paladine, patron of the Knights of the Rose and spiritual father of the Knights of Solamnia, to bring some light and hope into his life.
Chapter 28
The roar of the flames was deafening.
Every stick of wood in the keep seemed to be alight, crawling with orange flames that licked at the walls like the tongue of some great serpent.
And then, in the midst of the fire, a voice.
“Father!” came the cry.
The call of his son, Peradur.
Soth ran through the burning keep, his eyes stinging fr
om the smoke, his clothes clinging to his damp skin.
“Peradur!” he called into the midst of the flames.
“Father, over here!”
Soth moved forward.
Suddenly he felt an intense heat burning his back. He spun around and saw his cloak trailing behind him, burning as brightly as a tallow-soaked torch. He tore the clasp from his neck and threw the cloak to the ground where it was immediately engulfed in flames.
“Father! Where are you father?”
“I’m here!” he answered. “I’m coming!”
He drew his broadsword and used it to cut a swath through the flames and burning timbers that had fallen from the ceiling.
Finally he reached the nursery. It billowed with smoke as the flames chewed their way across the rafters supporting the room’s ceiling.
“Father, save me!”
Soth was in tears from the smoke and could barely see more than the few feet in front of him.
“Father, help me! Please!”
He moved forward, being drawn by the sound of his son’s voice.
Suddenly, there it was—the cradle. He had made it. He took a final few steps and looked inside the cradle.
The haglike face of the witch smiled up at him.
“Father, help me!” the witch cried out, the young boy’s voice suddenly sounding hideous coming from such an ugly, gap-toothed mouth. She laughed wickedly, the cackle cutting through the roar of the fire like a sword through the leg of an ogre.
Soth recoiled in horror and screamed from the utter depths of his soul.
“No!”
She was floating.
Light shone all around her, a soft glow warming her from the inside out. And a voice.
A beautiful voice was speaking to her.
Isolde heard it not with her ears, but with her mind.
It was telling her softly, so softly, what must be done.
And she understood.
And then there came a sound so loud and sharp that the dream shattered around her like glass. Isolde looked sleepily around the room, certain that the ground had shook and that the walls were about to topple.
Lord Soth Page 24
