Usurper

by David Waine

  The moment held, the column stood. Then the spell broke as instantly as it had been spun. With an ear-splitting, grinding boom, the column collapsed in on itself, taking the remaining Draal warships with it to disintegrate in a tangle of spars and rigging, dotted by the occasional survivor clinging to a piece of driftwood. Flenn was not among them.

  Seeing the unbelievable disaster unfold before their eyes, the surviving Draal transports and their support vessels hauled down their colours. Immediately Killian gave orders for his swiftest remaining ships to repair to Dragotar with the news that their little kingdom was safe.

  From his vantage point on the topmost tower of Graan’s citadel, Keriak watched the destruction of the enemy fleet dispassionately. He turned to an aide at his side. “Prepare a fitting welcome for Admiral Killian and his men if and when we have repelled this attack.”

  He doubted whether he would survive to see that moment. Draal soldiers were now pouring over the battlements in their hundreds. A massive battering ram was pounding the main gate. His own troops were being forced back on all fronts. The battle at sea had been won, but that would avail them nothing if Graan fell, and fall it must.

  “Hold them at the battlements until the gate gives,” he hissed to his lieutenant, then pull all the infantry back within the citadel.” The lieutenant saluted and left. “Horse Master!” cried Keriak. Another officer saluted. “Ready the cavalry for a sortie.”

  Minutes later he sat at the head of his mounted column behind the gate, registering each grinding splinter as the massive wooden barrier gradually succumbed to the pounding.

  “Sir Keriak! To the wall!” A voice screamed above him. Soldiers were gesticulating madly and pointing to the west.

  Spurring his horse, he turned to his lieutenant. “If I have not returned by the time the gate gives, lead them out and drive a wedge through their lines. I will join you when I can.”

  He rode full tilt up the ramp to the wall, coming to rest beside the soldier who had called to him.

  “There, sir! Beyond the enemy!”

  The gathering dawn now bathed the plain with light and there, behind Grelk’s forces stood another army, a mounted army. Silver clarions blared from a hundred throats and their banners flashed in the sun. They were Kingdom banners.

  “It’s the Border Force!” yelled Keriak, “Simian!”

  At the same moment the skies lit up above the Draal army. Corulak, augmented by the Dragotar squadron, had fired on them. Great flaming bolts landed among packed legions of men, smashing ranks and scattering formations.

  With a roar, the Border Force attacked, smashing into Grelk’s rearguard, which broke and ran in all directions. Simultaneously the Graan cavalry, again with Keriak at its head, poured through the gate, flinging corpses to right and left in its furious wake.

  Appalled at the sudden reversal, Grelk wheeled his horse in near panic. All around him his ranks were breaking up in disorder. Instead of overrunning a crippled city, as had been his intent, he now faced two armies and a navy. The ships had smashed his troops’ discipline and the armies had cavalry, whereas most of his had been wiped out the previous day. If he was to snatch anything from this day, he had to do it quickly.

  Casting around, he spotted the Graan banner fluttering through the milling throng. Spurring his horse, he made for it, his own retinue and banner in his train.

  Keriak saw him coming and changed course to meet him. The two met with a clang that rang upon the air. They turned and closed again, Keriak in cold fury at the butchery that this man had meted out to his master and friend; Grelk desperate to salvage victory by any means available.

  He parried the first blow, and the second, but the third finished him. A look of utter astonishment fixed on his face as Keriak’s sword swept clean through his neck.

  A wail of despair spread through the remaining Draal ranks while a song of exultant victory burst from Kingdom throats. Banners rode on the air in the gathering sun as the Border Force smashed into the straggling Draal ranks and flung them to right and left. They were Kingdom banners glowing in the rising sun. Those of Draal lay trampled in the mud as the remaining invading troops threw down their weapons and surrendered where they stood. Those few who did not were quickly surrounded and despatched by Keriak's and Simian's joint forces.

  The catastrophic roar of battle diminished as suddenly as it had arisen the day before. Isolated cries still punctuated the gathering silence as the quailing citizens of Graan crept from their homes to survey a blazing plain, littered with twisted corpses and tattered flags, abandoned in the bloody ground at drunken angles and overridden by triumphant victors. More flags rode on high, but they were their own, proudly flapping. The defeated Draals, crouched in their thousands, their hands held high in supplication.

  In the midst of the carnage, two firm friends faced each other and embraced like brothers.

  “I give you joy of your victory,” smiled Simian.

  “There would have been no victory without you,” returned Keriak.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Avalind’s eyes flickered open. For a moment she knew nothing save the blinding ache in her head. Gradually, however, her senses returned and she became aware that she was lying on her back. Her vision still swam, but the slowly swirling mass of shades gradually formed itself into an image. She was looking at rough stone, bathed in the soft light of dawn.

  Painfully, she hauled herself into a sitting position. New spasms of pain shot through her head, blotting out everything else for an instant. She groaned, hand to brow, rocking back and forth slowly.

  “Welcome back, Princess. I was beginning to think you would never wake up. Mussa must have hit you harder than she intended.”

  The voice was masculine and well spoken. Unlike the last time she had heard it, it sounded quite relaxed, cheerful even.

  “Where am I?” she moaned.

  She felt a rough wooden bowl pressed into her hands. A warm, thick liquid slopped around within. “Drink this,” the voice was kind. “It’s soup, it will help you pull yourself together.”

  She sipped the steaming concoction, feeling its heat spread throughout her vitals. Almost immediately the throb in her head began to diminish and her vision cleared. She was sitting up in a cave with a dry, sandy floor. A fire crackled at the entrance. She could smell meat being roasted on a makeshift wooden spit. A small, steaming pot — the origin of the soup — stood beside the fire. The man in black knelt next to her, steadying the bowl. Despite his alarming, masked appearance, she felt no sense of danger in his presence.

  “We are in a cave. There are many leagues between the Draal army and ourselves, but we must rest here so that my horse can recover his strength. He has to work much harder carrying two.”

  She looked at him. The face was still masked. “The others?”

  He shook his head. “I cannot say. My overriding concern was to get you to safety. They understood that. The coach and wagon would be useless over rough ground, but they had the horses. Some of them may have escaped.”

  Her lip trembled. “I abandoned them.”

  “No, My Lady,” he shook his head firmly. “You did not abandon them. You refused to leave them. Had Mussa not smashed a bottle over your head, I might have had to do the job myself.”

  She blinked. “Mussa knocked me out?”

  The masked head nodded. “She is a brave soul. That is her cloak you have gathered about you. She said it would keep you warm.”

  Avalind became aware for the first time of the rough woollen garment wrapped about her. Pulling it tighter around her shoulders, she noticed her hand. “My ring! My ring has gone!”

  “I know. I did not realise that until I carried you into this cave and laid you down. Mussa must have taken it when she took your cloak.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  The man did not answer at first. Instead he turned his back on her to pick something up. When he turned back, he had a tiny, wriggling bundle in his hands. “She said yo
u would look after him.” He passed her little Callin Vorst. “I managed to find some goat’s milk at an abandoned farm, so he is quite full.”

  Avalind cradled the little child in the crook of her arm, her eyes unspeakably tender. It was only then that the realisation dawned on her. “She intends to impersonate me. She will allow herself to be taken!”

  “So that you can reach safety,” he finished the sentence for her.

  “Do you know what they will do to her?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “Better than you do, I hope,” he replied flatly, “but they will have to catch her first.”

  Avalind’s face dropped, tears ran down her cheeks and dripped from her chin. “She would do that for me?”

  “There are many in the Kingdom who would do that for you.”

  Openly crying now, Avalind hugged the child to her breast and rocked back and forth, keening in her grief. “How can I be worthy of that?” she croaked. “I am running away, leaving them to their fate.”

  “She knew what she was doing,” he reassured her. A long silence developed between them. Finally her rocking ceased and she sat still.

  “What now?” she asked flatly.

  “I will take you to safety,” he replied.

  “To Nassinor?”

  He shook his head. “No. Nassinor may be haven enough for those of no title or position, but it is not safe for you. Not now. The mere word of your arrival would bring the Draal hordes swarming like flies. My Lady, I will not lie to you. The Draal army is vast beyond counting. It is probably supported by others coming from different directions. Brond will be overrun, Yelkin will fall and Nassinor will then face the full weight of the invasion.

  Horror rose raw in her face. “My father and brother?”

  For the first time he lowered his head. “I am a military man, Your Highness. I can see no escape for either of them.” He saw her collapse inwardly. “That is why I have taken you. I have made it my quest to ensure that one Vandamm, at least, survives.”

  She nodded bitter acceptance. “Where will you take me?”

  “High in the mountains, on the shoulder of Ferullas. I have a cabin there. Strictly speaking, it lies within Draal, but they have no knowledge of it. You and the child will be safe there until we can judge that the moment is ripe.”

  Her look was solemn. “Would they follow a woman who abandoned them at their moment of crisis?”

  “You didn’t abandon them,” he replied. “I kidnapped you.”

  She scowled.

  “Think of what Kubelik would have done to you if I hadn’t,” he affirmed, “and put it from your mind.”

  For the first time a small smile flickered across her face. “May I behold the face of my kidnapper?”

  He paused for a moment, considering, then loosened the thongs that held his mask. “At the coach I told you that I would save you because you would do the same for me. What I did not mention was that you already have.” He let the mask fall to the ground and looked her full in the face.

  “I thought it was you,” she said.

  *

  The reddish glow against the sky had remained stationary for an age, but they were on the move now. Callin scanned the horizon ritually as the eastern sky darkened day after day. Sometimes Rhomic joined him, sometimes Treasor, sometimes both. Gallen never came to the walls, being engaged in supervising the digging of defensive pits. A perimeter ditch lined the outskirts of the town, while smaller ones were dug in streets and covered over with collapsible frames and rushes. Those pits had stakes driven into them.

  “They come at last, Sir Callin,” said a soft voice at his shoulder.

  Callin turned. To his surprise, he found that his new companion was neither the king nor Master Treasor. It was Master Ferian.

  “General Ferian,” he said respectfully.

  The aged general smiled gently. “Chivalry is my peacetime role. At war I am the nation’s quartermaster, surgeon general and master at arms. I am probably the only member of either army whose prime concern is preserving life.”

  “Do the Draals have no quartermaster or master at arms?” asked Callin

  Ferian shook his head. “Not as such. Each man carries his own weapons and they rely on foraging for much of their supply demands. That could be their undoing this time.”

  Callin gazed again at the reddening sky. “How so?”

  “By acceding to the King’s request to delay the visit by a couple of months, they allowed us to gather in the harvest, now safe in our granaries. Sulinan has landed a huge army within our borders but, unless he has organised an equally huge supply chain to feed them, they will find little sustenance out there.”

  A captain approached and saluted. “Sir Callin, General Ferian. The king commands your presence in the council chamber.”

  Despite the warmth, Callin felt a chill in the atmosphere when he entered the room. King Rhomic, flanked by Generals Treasor and Gallen, sat at the head of the table. The king and Treasor both looked outraged. Gallen looked uncomfortable. The reason stood at the other end, under guard. Lissian Dumarrick.

  “See, gentlemen, we have an unexpected guest,” went on the king, nodding at Lissian. “Mistress Dumarrick was about to explain to us why she is not on her way to Nassinor with Avalind and her ladies.”

  Lissian stood proud, her eyes meeting his. “I have committed no disobedience, sire. I received no command to remove to Nassinor.”

  “Only because you hid in that serving girl’s cottage,” put in Treasor. “If we had not moved a couple of families of refugees in, you would be there yet.”

  Lissian’s reply was calm. “I do not deny that, General. I am a Dumarrick. I will fight to defend the Kingdom.”

  Rhomic stared hard at her. “You will fight?”

  She stared back, equally hard. “Do not underestimate the resolve of women, My Liege. Any woman will fight tooth and claw to protect her children. I will do the same for my country.”

  “If I may, sire.” General Gallen was deferential, not his usual gruff self. “Mistress Dumarrick has been my pupil for months past. I have tutored her, in my spare time.”

  “Tutored her in what?”

  “Physical conditioning, weapons training and combat skills. See for yourselves the improvement in her fitness compared with how she was when she arrived.”

  There was no denying that.

  Rhomic scrutinised the young woman carefully. “You have trained her to fight?”

  “She has her own bow, sword and dagger,” said Gallen, “lighter than a man would use but effective enough. Her eye is exceptional. I know of no man who could better her accuracy.”

  Rhomic thought hard. Such a thing had been unthinkable until now. With an overwhelming force at his gate, however, he would need every pair of hands he could find.

  “And you offer yourself as a warrior?” he asked finally.

  She nodded. “I do, sire.”

  The king sat back, tapping his fingertips together under his chin in his traditional pose of consideration. “I trust all my senior officers completely and, if General Gallen says you have acquired these skills, then you have acquired them. Theoretical fighting on the training field, however, is not the same as brutal warfare, where you may have to kill.”

  “I realise that, sire.”

  “You are, I assume, aware of the risk you run by remaining here?”

  “I am aware that people die in battles, My Liege, and equally aware that I could be one of them. But, then, I might die anyway. No one is safe.”

  “Further to that,” Rhomic pressed his point, “should Sulinan’s troops breach our defences and find you here, are you aware of the probable consequences?”

  She swallowed. “That I will be carried to Prince Kubelik, who will rape me before killing me? Yes, I have heard. Each evening I have seen the glow of their fires against the sky and wondered how many of my fellow Kingdom women have already suffered that fate, none of them equipped as I am to resist capture.”

  Again it
was Rhomic who broke the silence that had fallen as all present contemplated the Beast Prince’s inhuman reputation. “Should that happen, and pray God it does not, we are likely to be too hard-pressed to come to your rescue.”

  Lissian knew this perfectly well. “I realise that, sire,” she replied with more humility in her voice. “Should that situation arise, I am prepared to use my dagger on myself, if necessary.”

  Rhomic nodded sagely. “War is an ugly thing,” he said. “You would face a man’s foes and run a woman’s risks? You will need more courage than any man.”

  “And a woman who does not go to war may need yet more,” pointed out Lissian. “It is she who frets for her loved ones on the field; it is she who grieves as only a woman can over their fallen bodies, and it is she who faces the cruellest end of all, should we fail. I do not share that courage, but would fight — and die — with you men.”

  Slowly, Rhomic spread his vast palms on the table and eased himself to his feet. He regarded the young woman solemnly for an age before announcing his judgement.

  “Very well, Mistress Dumarrick. I may face your father’s wrath when he hears of this. You will remain here and you will be free to fight. I cannot assign you to any unit because your presence among the men might affect their discipline, and that we cannot afford. You will keep yourself back from the front line, out of sight and use your bow to attack the enemy. Should the worst possible outcome develop, you know what you must do.”

  Head bowed, she bobbed a curtsey.

  “If we are successful, however,” he continued, “you may, if you wish, enrol as the academy’s first female student. Admitting women to the armed forces would be a quick way of increasing their number, would it not, gentlemen?”

  “I can foresee many difficulties with that, Your Majesty,” mentioned Treasor.

  “Oh, so can I,” returned Rhomic, “but let us see how she does before we hypothesise further, shall we? As for you, Mistress Dumarrick,” returning his attention to Lissian, “you may go back to your — to Mussa’s — cottage. I understand that you will have to share it with two peasant families. Well, if you would be a soldier, it is a soldier’s lot to be billeted wherever he — or she — is put. Good day to you.”