Transcendent (Ascendant Book 2)

by Craig Alanson

  Kyre and Jaques looked at each other. They both knew it was a very difficult place to defend, even if the Royal Army had been there in force. Jaques spoke first. “What is your plan, General?”

  “With only the force I have here? To harass the enemy as they land along the Little Fasse, and then to conduct a fighting retreat, to delay them up through the mountain passes.” She looked up from the map to Jaques, who nodded agreement. He could not see another possibility, without the involvement of the Royal Army. Armistead shifted her attention to Kyre. “What are your orders, Your Grace?”

  “My father the Duke has ordered me to support you, and Duchess Rochambeau. Without the loss of the battalion,” Kyre added, repeating his father’s last instructions. His father had stressed the need to preserve the fighting power of the battalion, for it would surely be needed later.

  “And not to place yourself at unreasonable risk, Sire,” Captain Jaques reminded Kyre. That order had been given directly from Duke Falco to Jaques. If Kyre were in danger, Jaques had authority to overrule Kyre’s orders and assure the Falco heir’s safety.

  “I understand,” Armistead said simply. Regin Falco had sent the battalion into Demarche as a show of support for his political ally Duchess Rochambeau. “I do not intend to fight to the death here,” she waved her hand over the relatively flat farmland in Demarche between the River Fasse and the foothills of the Turmalanes. “The real fighting will begin at the mountain passes. There are only two gaps in these mountains which can allow passage of a significant force.”

  “I can’t believe Ariana is abandoning a third of Demarche, just to spite your Duchess,” Kyre said with bitterness in his voice.

  General Armistead was careful in her reply. She owed loyalty to her cousin the Duchess Rochambeau, but to speak openly against the Regent could be considered treason. Especially because this Regent would become queen. “With the Royal Army, we might be able to prevent the enemy from successfully landing along the Little Fasse. Or not. Regardless of our new Regent’s intentions, the mountain passes are a better defensive line,” she admitted. “Even if doing that surrenders the best farmland in Demarche to the enemy.”

  Two days later, and according to Barlen, two days’ ride from the border, they were riding through woods under a cloudy sky. Koren had been in a foul mood all that day; barely speaking during breakfast, and offering only short, grumpy responses when someone asked him a question while riding. It did not help his mood that the clouds were heavy, gray and low, threatening rain. The dark woods pressed in on the road from both sides, it felt oppressive to Koren. The woods, Koren told himself, had never been logged or cleared for farmland. The trees were broad and tall, their canopies spread out to form a dense cover, blocking out the sunlight. Between the thick tree trunks, the undergrowth was thin, not having enough sunlight to feed growth. Ahead of him and Bjorn, two of the dwarves were singing a song they apparently were making up the words to; it was endless. Koren could only stand it because he wasn’t listening. Bjorn was not so fortunate. “If those two sign another verse of that damned song, I’m going to knock them on the heads with the flat of my sword. How could any-”

  “Shhh.” Koren held up a hand. “I hear something.”

  “Should I ask our dwarf friends to kindly stop singing?” Bjorn whispered.

  “No, that would tell the bandits that we know about them,” Koren whispered back. “I see them now. At least two on the right, at least three on the left.”

  Bjorn kept his eyes facing forward. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I do. They’re not doing anything; they’re just standing there.”

  “Likely, they’ve trying to decide whether six well-armed travelers on horseback are worth the risk.” Bjorn advised his younger companion. Whether the bandits attacked depended on how many of them there were, and how desperate they were. “They will leave us be, I think.”

  “I’m not leaving them be,” Koren hissed.

  “Kedrun, don’t you go looking for trouble,” Bjorn warned.

  “And let these bandits attack the next group that comes along?”

  “We are not the Duke’s army here, let them chase these bandits,” Bjorn pleased.

  “Stay here if you want,” Koren said as he reached back for an arrow and urged Thunderbolt forward. Unlike Lekerk’s band, these bandits had not chosen their ambush spot wisely. The thin underbrush made it easy for Thunderbolt to dash off the road into the forest. At Koren’s direction, they went to the left where there were more bandits.

  The bandits were caught completely by surprise, having decided to let the six riders go by unmolested. When a large black horse suddenly charged at them, they were totally unprepared, and the three Koren had seen panicked. Two of them raised their bows defensively, taking shaky aim. One of them shot an arrow that missed Bjorn, before Koren’s arrow took that bandit in the chest and he fell. The other bandit archer decided to surrender before he could draw back his bowstring, throwing his bow on the ground and holding up his hands.

  Koren had seen three bandits on the left side of the road; there were actually five, and one of them was now lying dead on the ground. The four left alive stood stock still, hands in the air, encircled by Koren, Bjorn and two dwarves. The bandits were herded into the road, where Barlen and Dekma had brought the two bandits who had been hiding on the right side of the road,

  “Well, well, well, what have we here?” Barlen asked, with a seriously annoyed look toward Koren.

  “Those are a fine set of boots you have there,” Bjorn said admiringly. “It’s my guess they don’t belong to you. Did you kill their previous owner?”

  “I bought these myself,” the bandit protested.

  “And I call you a liar. You bought them with someone else’s blood. Those boots look like they might fit me. Take them off.” When the bandit hesitated, Bjorn snorted disgustedly. “Kedrun, these scum need a lesson. Put an arrow in this one’s gullet.”

  “No! No! You want my boots, you can have them,” the bandit said as he struggled to take the boots off. He tossed them to Bjorn, who inspected them and tried them on.

  “Ah, these are fine boots,” Bjorn said approvingly. “They fit perfectly. I’ll keep them.”

  “Give me your old boots?” The bandit asked hopefully.

  “No,” Barlen spoke. “All of you, take off your boots. Take off everything, strip down to your britches.”

  When the bandits protested, Barlen growled and split one of Bjorn’s old boots with his axe, slicing the leather cleanly in two pieces. “We’ll leave you with your britches, and your lives. I reckon that is a better bargain than you gave to any of the travelers you preyed on.” Seeing the battleaxe got the bandits moving. “Dekma, while these idiots are cooling down from the heat of the day,” Barlen smiled wickedly, “break their bows and arrows, and collect their other weapons. And their bowstrings, so they can’t fashion new bows. In fact, collect everything.”

  As their ponies and horses trotted up the road, loaded down with the clothes and weapons of the bandits, Barlen turned in the saddle. “There is a pond up the road, a mile, maybe two. We’ll toss this filth in there. We can use their swords to weigh down the clothes,” Barlen added in disgust at the poor care the bandits had taken of their weapons. The swords were battered and tarnished and the blades had notches than sharp edges. “Those blades aren’t good for anything else. Wouldn’t even be worth melting down for the metal.”

  “Good,” Koren wrinkled his nose. “Whichever one of them wore these clothes, he hadn’t bathed in a month. I’m afraid these clothes will give my horse fleas.”

  They all laughed at that. Bjorn took Koren’s laugh as a good sign.

  “What,” Koren stopped, for he was laughed too hard to talk. “What do you think those bandits are going to do? Wait for wagons to come along, and stand half naked in the road, hoping for a ride?”

  The dwarves got a good chuckle about that. “They’ll need a ride, I can tell you that. Up here near the border, it
’s a long walk either way to a village.”

  “Aye,” Barlen chuckled, and slapped Koren on the back. “And they’d better hope they don’t run into another gang of bandits. They’d die of embarrassment.”

  “That was all good fun, but,” Barlen wagged a finger at Koren, “don’t you do that again. You pull another stunt like that, you’ll find yourself facing a gang of bandits by yourself. There’s no reward for that gang.” The dwarf leader pulled out the leather pouch filled with coins and odd bits of jewelry he had collected from the pirates. “Here,” he tossed it through the air to Koren, “there’s your reward.”

  “We should split it,” Koren protested.

  Barlen shook his head. “It’s little enough, compared to the reward money the rest of us got for Lekerk. Keep it, Kedrun. When you get to my homeland, you won’t have any friends. Coins will go a long way toward getting you wherever you want to go.”

  “Barlen,” Dekma spoke. “The reward. The other one. They deserve a cut.”

  “What other reward?” Bjorn inquired suspiciously.

  Barlen was not pleased with Dekma. “The reward my big-mouthed friend here should have kept quiet about,” Barlen growled. “Your Duke Bargann, and Duke Romero, offered a reward because Lekerk terrorized the roads in Farlane and Winterthur for years. My people lost wagons also, and there’s a reward waiting for us when we get to the first keep across the border.”

  “Aye,” Dekma added, “that’s why we insisted on getting a signed statement from the Farlane army garrison commander, proving that Lekerk is dead. Barlen got them to send a telegraph message ahead of us, so we can collect the reward. And,” Dekma hung his head sheepishly, “that’s more than I should have said.”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Bjorn said with a broad grin. He had not anticipated that following ‘Kedrun’ across the north woods would fill his pockets.

  “Why does the right thing always take coins from my pockets?” Barlen grumbled.

  “Two, three, four,” Barlen counted out the coins as he dropped them into Koren’s purse.

  “Thank you,” Koren jingled the purse, feeling its weight. He had never handled so much money in his life. The reward money from the dwarves, the coins he had from the group of bandits they had ironically robbed, and his pay from the Lady Hildegard. Plus the coins he had received from Kyre Falco; he had stil not touched most of that money. He grinned, holding up the heavy purse. “I feel like a baron!”

  “You may have more money than some barons I have known,” Barlen observed. Being royalty did not mean all barons were rich; many were rich in land but poor in coins. If the land of their barony did not generate a substantial income, barons had to farm and hunt for their food like commoners, or engage in commerce. “Kedrun, I have kept my part of our bargain; I brought you across our border. Even filled your purse with coins,” he glared at Dekma. “Now it is your turn. What business do you have with dwarves?”

  Koren hesitated. He had turned stories over in his mind, but none of them were what he wanted to say.

  “Kedrun?” Bjorn prompted. “I pledged to follow you. I would appreciate knowing where we are going, and why.”

  “All right,” Koren’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I need to speak with a wizard. A dwarf wizard.”

  “A wizard?” Barlen was genuinely surprised. “Which one?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t have a particular wizard in mind,” Koren admitted. He should have put more thought into the whole idea of what he was seeking in Westernholm. “There is more than one wizard among your people?” He had only ever heard Paedris mention the name ‘Dirmell’ as a wizard among the dwarves.

  “There is more than one wizard among us, yes,” Barlen shared a laugh with Dekma. “What do you need a wizard for?”

  “I need a wizard to, do, something,” Koren stumbled over his words, “for me.”

  Barlen’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “That is my business,” Koren insisted. “I don’t mean any harm. It’s, personal, is all.”

  “Suit yourself, then,” Barlen said with a shrug. “It’s a good thing you have money, then. You’ll need it.”

  “Money?” Koren was confused. “Why?”

  It was Dekma’s turn to laugh first. “You expect wizards to do favors for you, for free?”

  “Yes?” Koren answered weakly. Paedris had never asked for, or accepted money in exchange for his healing people.

  Bjorn joined in the laughter. “What do you know of wizards, Kedrun?”

  Koren, despite living with a powerful wizard, apparently knew little about them. “Not much.” Now that he thought about it, Paedris received a generous stipend from Tarador, as the royal court wizard. He did not need to take money for his services. But, how did other wizards pay for their expenses? Not all wizards were given impressive towers to live in. “How much do wizards charge?” He hoped he had enough coins in his purse. Now he felt foolish for turning down Duke Bargann’s reward.

  “That depends on what you want from them,” Barlen advised. “I’ll make another deal with you, Kedrun. A wizard lives in our village,” he pointed his thumb at Dekma. “For a silver coin, we’ll guide you up there.”

  “A silver?” Bjorn feigned incredulousness. “Ha! You two are bandits, there should be a reward for capturing you. Two copper coins,” he counteroffered.

  Barlen looked at Dekma, who nodded. “Three coppers,” Dekma said. “That’s as low as we’ll go, for the trouble of dragging you two long-legs up into the hill with us. If you don’t like our offer, good luck to you finding someone else to guide you.”

  “Three coppers is fine,” Koren said quickly. He had been hoping the two dwarves would tell him where to go, and now they were going to guide him. Three coppers was a cheap price.

  Barlen took the coins from Koren, and they shook hands on the deal. “Kedrun, you’ll need to leave your horse here,” Barlen warned.

  “No!” Koren exclaimed, horrified at the idea. Thunderbolt had traveled on his own through the wilderness to find his master. “I can’t leave him!”

  Barlen shook his head. “You can’t come with us, then. In the mountains,” he pointed toward the peaks that were tinged white with snow, “there are narrow paths along sheer cliffs, and bridges made of rope that span canyons deep enough you can barely see the bottom. Kedrun, no horse, no pony, not even a sure-footed mule could travel those paths.”

  “We will be leaving our ponies in the stables here,” Dekma told Koren as a way of assurance. “They will be well cared for,” he gestured toward one of several stables in the town around the keep.

  “Those are your ponies?” Koren snapped in anger. “Or are they only nameless beasts you hired for your journey to hunt Lekerk?’ The expression on Dekma’s face told Koren what he wanted to know. “Thunderbolt is not only my horse; he is my friend. On his own, he sought me out. He traveled-” That was revealing too much information, Koren realized. “I will not leave him.”

  “Kedrun,” Bjorn steered Koren away for a private conversation. “My horse has no name, but when I served the king, I owned several horses. They were good companions, trusted in battle. They all had names. That was a lifetime ago for me, but I understand the bond you have with your horse. Let us talk to the stable masters here, the two of us. If you don’t find someone you trust to care for Thunderbolt, I will remain here.”

  Koren considered Bjorn’s offer. Bjorn owed him nothing; Koren should not ask the man to follow him into the mountains. It might be that staying in the peaceful dwarf town was the best thing for Bjorn. “We can try,” Koren agreed reluctantly. “I don’t know what else to do.” He looked up to the forbidding mountains. “Anywhere I go up there will likely be no place for a horse. And I must go,” he added, speaking to himself. “How long a journey is it up to your village?”

  Barlen thought a moment. “For us, three days up, two down. You two, on your spindly legs, are not so sure footed on the mountain paths. Add two days for a round trip.”

/>   Koren looked at Bjorn sadly. Seven days. He would be leaving Thunderbolt for seven days. “Bjorn, let’s go look at stables.”

  In the afternoon three days later, Koren could not speak about Bjorn’s condition, but his own nerves were shot by the time they reached the end of the narrow ledge and set their feet on a flat surface wider than Koren was tall. At no time had Koren felt he was in any danger; his sense of balance was good and always had been. As they were making their way along the ledge at what felt like going inch by inch, he had recalled the time escaped from the room where he had been kept in Duke Yarron’s castle. Then, he had walked along a very narrow ledge, really a single course of bricks set sideways. He remembered his feet and toes cramping as he struggled to keep from slipping onto the hard stones of the courtyard below, and his fingers shaking from the strain on gripping cracks in the stones of the castle. When he had reached the roof there, he had been trapped. Only the wizard Lord Salva had saved him. In his mind’s eye, Koren pictured the court wizard of Tarador casually strolling along the frighteningly narrow ledge of the castle wall, and the wizard had been carrying a tray of pastries in one hand!

  “Oh,” Koren gasped, bent over with hands on his knees. “I do not want to ever do that again.”

  “Ah,” Barlen laughed as he slapped Koren’s back. “That is nothing, compared to some trails up farther in the mountains. Here, we had a rope to hold onto.”

  “In places!” Bjorn complained. “There was rope in some places, and not in others! Where there was no rope, that is where we needed it!”

  Barlen made an exaggerated shrug. “Things have been slipping ‘round here, that’s true. With the orcs raiding us constantly the past years, there’s not been time and attention paid to proper upkeep of things like safety ropes. Besides,” he gestured back toward the ledge, “we don’t get many visitors up this way.”