“And where’ve you been, missy?” Todder asked. He hurriedly sat down despite the protests of a distinguished noblewoman trailing him. The woman’s hair was tightly fastened in a bun, powder as white as snow was applied on her face, and she wore a velvety lime-colored dress with a crinoline to detract from her too thin frame. Or at least, Gerdy thought it was too thin.
“Oh, Alby,” she said, “just one more dance.” She gave Gerdy a cavalier look.
“Not tonight, Rebekkah,” Todder said. “My bunions are givin’ me fits.”
The woman sighed and skulked off. “Tomorrow then,” she said over her shoulder. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”
“I know she won’t,” Todder grimaced. He rested a foot on his other knee and started rubbing his calf. “So, where have ya been?”
“Under the weather,” Gerdy lied. “Why? Did you miss me?”
“We did—” Todder looked around the table. It was empty. Across the hall, Sir Wallack was stabbing his knife in a slab of beef and watching the goings-on on the dance floor. “—or I did. Been stuck here by myself mostly.”
“It didn’t look like you were by yourself.” Gerdy nodded toward Rebekkah who had pouted to the edge of the dance floor.
“Oh, her,” Todder grumbled. “Well, she’s a nice lady and all. But I’d rather have your company.” Todder might have meant that, but she wasn’t sure. He was looking distractedly around the room.
“Well, at least someone does.”
Across the room, Myra laughed prettily, dancing with knight after knight. Even Epik was dancing, but Gerdy noticed his eyes were elsewhere, gazing at the place where most of the servants waited.
“Ah, but that’s not true,” he said. “Before we met with the Grand Sovereign the other day, Myra wouldn’t stop asking where you were. Then that yellow-eyed servant girl of hers got real upset cause Myra ordered her off to find you. That girl acted like she wasn’t supposed to take orders from Myra. And things got weird. Myra got weird. Not sure what happened, but now Myra’s like a whole new girl. She does what her granddaddy and that servant say.”
Gerdy was pretty sure she knew exactly what had happened.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, remembering the tournament the next day. “I need to rest.”
Todder watched Gerdy leave. Then his eyes did a double take when they found the object of his desire across the dance floor. He crossed the dance floor, the music swirling through his ears.
She was leaning against a wall. Not more than twenty, with brown hair to her elbows, straight and tidy, she wore a red dress as simple and as stunning as the setting sun. Her nose was slight and buttony, her lips were full and soft, but there were two coin-sized blemishes on her face.
“I’ve been looking for you every night,” Todder said triumphantly.
Her expression was a mixture of surprise and skepticism.
“For me?” she said snidely. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“No, I don’t,” Todder said, matter-of-factly. “Ashah. I’ll remember you to the day I die.”
“Listen, I don’t know who you think I am, but—”
“Well, you look a mite different, I’ll give ya that. I think I liked the other you better. But my gran taught me to recognize someone, not by sight but by spirit.”
Ashah sighed and shook her beautiful young head. “Your gran sounds like an interesting woman. It would have been nice if she’d taught you some tact.”
“Believe she was saving that one for a rainy day.”
“And it never rained out in the country?”
“Oh it rained, but granny left the world a tad earlier than she thought she would.”
“How old was she?”
“A hundred and twenty-two.”
Ashah laughed. “So young,” she said. “Speaking of youth, it might look odd, us talking like this. Care to walk me out?”
“I’m not sure if—”
“You aren’t a prisoner or a slave. You can walk out of the castle.”
“Well, then, sure,” Todder said.
They strolled past guards who gave Todder sideways looks. One smiled at him behind Ashah’s back, another rubbed his thumb against his fingers assuming Todder must be paying a high price to be with this woman. Ashah took it all in stride, not just literally walking past it, but winking brazenly at the guards. Todder’s face went red.
“You haven’t asked who I am,” she said. “You know my name, and that’s all. I know you’re curious. Maybe you did learn a bit of tact from that grandmother of yours.”
Todder shrugged. “No, I just hadn’t gotten there yet.”
“You’re honest to a fault. Don’t let that be your downfall.”
“I’ll try not to—”
“Don’t let it.” The way she said it, like a command, sent a shiver down his spine.
“My gran,” he said, “she used to say funny things like that…”
“Did she, now?”
Todder nodded. “Yeah, her face would get all funny, and her voice scratchier than her usual scratch. She’d say things like ‘you won’t die by the sword’ and ‘arrows won’t penetrate yer flesh.’ Odd things.”
“Clever gal.” Ashah took the whole of his hand into both of hers. “Here, you said you liked me best like this.”
Her body, her face, everything changed, morphing around her beauty marks—and to Todder they were beauty marks. Though he vowed to himself never to tell her so again.
“Beautiful,” Todder said, meaning it.
“You’re also kind to a fault. But I’m not going to mess with that one.”
“So,” Todder slowed to allow her to catch up with, “Will you tell me who you are?”
They were still near the castle but in a section of town that he had never seen before, and of course, he had no clue where they were headed.
She squeezed his hand. “That’s the right way to ask it. But no, I can’t tell you—not now. Not exactly. They call me the Lady, the people here that recognize who... or what I am. I don’t take the same form often. I’m making this exception for you as I’ve done for others recently.”
Todder said, “That doesn’t exactly answer my question.”
“I know.” She smiled and led him forward. The houses here were grand, like small fortresses, little castles. “There are many friends among your foes. You’ll find not everyone here is loyal to the Grand Sovereign.”
“And are you a friend or…”
“I hope you already know the answer to that.”
Todder rather thought he did.
Ashah stopped suddenly in front of him. She took his other hand. This was goodbye; he could see it in her eyes.
“Will I ever see you again?” he asked.
Then Ashah did what people do when they have answers that others don’t want to hear. She didn’t answer him at all, but she didn’t answer in the best way possible.
She kissed him.
32
Catching Fire
The ground was trampled, mostly of mounds of dirt and kicked up patches of gray sod. Only a few sparse strips of green grass remained, a stark contrast from the opening of the tournament. The audience paid it no mind. From what Gerdy could tell, they only wanted one thing. The joust.
The commoners could go without food, without drink, or so it seemed. They were fine as long as they had the magic of the spectacle. Not to mention a few wagers behind each bout. And if their bracket was doing well, so too were they.
“Boo,” a crowd of children chorused at her. They dangled their feet inside the tunnel. They weren’t the only ones. The Indomitable Knight was a crowd favorite.
“Gold Knight,” a shabby-looking man with as few teeth as brain cells yelled from just outside the tunnel mouth. “I’ll take a chunk o’ that armor! I will! Lost me a week’s wages, you did. Made my bracket sh—”
“It ain’t that knight’s fault yer as boneheaded as a cave troll,” a woman beside him scolded. The two were immedi
ately at odds, shouting and cursing each other’s names. They were probably married.
Gerdy sorted through the hecklers, divided into two camps: one that wanted to see her hang then set her afire, and one that wanted to see the Indomitable Knight disembowel her and then set her afire. The fire was the critical point. Most everyone, she knew, had the Indomitable Knight winning the tournament, and she had upset several brackets with her unexpected wins.
Today would be the nail in her proverbial coffin. She had to win. There was no other choice. She had to save Myra.
A mince pie bounced off her chest plate and onto the ground then several rotten vegetables and peanut shells. Her horse didn’t seem to mind this; he found bits to nibble on as they both waited anxiously for the match to begin. He was a stout destrier horse white with spotted gray and feathering that covered each hoof. His name was Sambit.
Sir Dom’s horse, a sleek black mare, trotted up alongside them in the tunnel. The knight had to pick up the reins and discourage her from joining Sambit’s buffet.
“Good afternoon,” Dom said, nodding and smiling jovially. A squire handed him a green helmet which he lowered over his head, the visor still open. His smile widening, he said, “Hmm. Not much of a talker are you?”
Gerdy kept her visor lowered so as not to reveal who she was, turned toward the arena. She wasn’t going to let him get into her head. This must be a tactic of his, to catch his opponents off guard.
“Well, good luck,” Dom said. He rode out to the roar of the crowd as the announcer shouted his name.
The fans—they were all his fans—sang a song as his horse galloped out.
He’s green.
He’s green.
The greenest knight we’ve seen.
He’s bold.
So bold.
He’ll make your blood run cold.
He’s Dom.
Our Dom.
The Indomitable Knight’s the bomb.
It’s he who needs luck, Gerdy thought, but the anthem that reverberated around the arena put doubt in her heart.
Gerdy hated horses, though Sambit was okay, considering. She hated the crowd—and this kingdom. She hated the lemon-eyed servant, Catarina. But most of all, Gerdy hated the Grand Sovereign. She hated Epiman who had sent her on this delegation. She rode out to more heckling, more food bouncing off her armor.
Now that she had control of it herself, she had to find the magic. She wasn’t sure where it had come from, but it was a recent development. It manifested with a tickle in the throat. And she found that when she worked her anger alongside it, it burned like a wildfire.
Sambit readied, snorting and punching the dirt with his hooves. The flags waved.
The first lance, she barely noticed the lightning Sir Dom produced. Letting her feelings go, she felt the strength in her arm double then triple. She found the middle of Dom’s chest with the lance, connecting solidly with her target. The knight rocked back on his horse, shaken but unharmed.
As they circled to the start once more, he nodded to her. It seemed to indicate something Gerdy didn’t understand. She shook it off, concentrating on her own joust.
Again, they collided with such force that even the echoes of the CRACK would blister ears of any too near it. Both lances found marks at the center of a breastplate.
But Gerdy had lost focus, wondering what the knight had meant by his nod. Then she watched his lance turn green with fire. She cringed, pushing through it, expecting the burning, expecting pain.
The fire engulfed her entire body. She looked at her hands, green with flame, her legs, too. Waving a hand only made the fire ripple in the wind. There was no pain. What is this? What kind of magic is this?
The crowd booed when Gerdy had maintained her seat atop the horse. This, too, had unnerved the Indomitable Knight. With an angry jerk, he took another lance from his squire. Then he kicked his horse back to the start of the tilt.
Gerdy motioned for another lance from her assigned squire. He threw it up to rather than go near to the flames.
It doesn’t hurt, she wanted to tell him. But her voice was girlish. She didn’t want to give herself away, not now, when she was so close to winning Myra back.
“Four points to three…” the announcer said stupidly, sounding like he didn’t understand what was going on. “Can the Golden Knight recover that point? We’ll have to see, I guess. What a matchup, right folks? And that fire, well, it’s still ablaze.”
What is he talking about? How did I lose a point? How did Sir Dom get two when his fire did nothing to me? That’s not fair!
This time, the emotion was back—the anger, full force. The heat rose up inside her, real heat, real fire, not the fake green flames that still enveloped her body. Her lance glowed hot, bright with an orange cast. An explosion of fire erupted from the tip, knocking Sir Dom off his horse and to the ground with black smoke swirling around him like a cloud.
Gerdy—the Golden Knight—won.
33
Snuff
A goblin on Sprite Island was one thing, but surely King Epiman was joking with this one.
Brendan eyed the dilapidated shop warily. And it was dilapidated, little more than a shack nestled in an inlet cove about a mile away from the port. Technically part of the Forge, one of Dune All-En’s five boroughs, the harbor had become the main, that is, the only means to get in and out of the city.
The Forge was known as a haven for dwarves and sailors, neither of which appealed to Brendan at the moment. But what waited was far worse than he ever could have imagined.
“A dwarf sailor?” Brendan said aloud.
“Nar,” the dwarf grunted. “I’s a sailor dwarf.”
“But—”
“But dwarves can’t swim?” The dwarf swiped the back of a hairy wrist against a bulbous nose. “’Tis true. But we can hold our breath a while.”
He was skinny for a dwarf—thin legs, but girth in the arms, particularly the tattooed forearms. And the dwarf’s middle was as round as any dwarf’s middle Brendan had ever seen. The dwarf’s hair was the same muddled tan color as the sand on the shore, with a neckbeard and eyebrows to match. Those eyebrows not only met in the center but did some sort of jive. In place of the usual helmet was a black bandana, which clashed with the navy Capri trousers cinched high on the dwarf’s round waist.
“What brings ya here, watchman?”
“Oh, um,” Brendan wavered, still taking in the shop, the dwarf. “I’m here at the behest of the king. Are you Rusty?”
Inside the small shop were pieces of scrap wood and metal. Old canvas sails hung down from the rafters. A few dilapidated dinghies leaned in the corner of the open space. And one medium-sized watercraft took up most of the shop’s middle. At the rear, the shack was open to the elements. A doorway with no door led to a dock where still more small watercraft were tied.
“The king?” The dwarf grinned toothily. “You mean Epiman, I guess. He didn’t seem so kingly when he collected me rent on this dump—only last month.”
“Rusty,” Brendan said, “may I call you Rusty?”
“No one’s ever called me anythin’ else.” Rusty took a pinch of some fine leaf and spread it across a wrist, then took another swipe across the nose, sniffing it in.
“Right… Rusty,” Brendan scratched the back of his head. “See, the king told me to say he’s going to collect on the rest of his debt.”
“Him and what army?” Rusty picked up a saw from a heap of tools and brandished it like a sword.
“My guess would be, his army… or the Watch.”
“Oh… right.” The dwarf flung the saw into a round beam. “So what is it he wants? I don’t have any gold. But knowing Epiman, it ain’t gold he’s after.”
“Yeah…” Brendan dug into his pockets and found the drawing he had shown Anhog. “So, this is my design. It’s a ship.”
Rusty took one look and began to laugh, belly shaking.
“You call that a ship? What’s all this?” Rusty pointed to the
balloon and the rigging.
“Well… It’s an airship.”
“Oh, well, it’s an airship,” Rusty repeated, laughing again. “That’ll never fly. Here, you’ve done this part all wrong.” The dwarf took a broken pencil and began changing the hull, adding finned wings, and an unnecessary mermaid to the front.
“It’ll need to look more like that. Still, though, you’ll never get this bit to work.” Rusty pointed at the balloon. “Who you got werkin’ on that?”
“Anhog,” Brendan said.
“Her? Nar. She only does kids’ parties.”
“That was a she?” Brendan asked. “How can you tell? Anyway, she’s making it.”
“You tell the same well you can tell I’s a she!” Rusty said venomously.
“Of course…” Brendan said.
34
Epik’s Shadow
The night saw much commotion over the Golden Knight, though no one seemed to know much about him. He had yet to partake in a feast. Sir Dom wasn’t at the evening’s affair either.
Epik sat with Gerdy who had returned after her mysterious disappearance—one she wouldn’t talk about.
“I was just under the weather,” she said to him. “That’s all.”
At least things were returning to normal. Well, not normal really, but the gang was all there. Todder was distant at the table, staring across the room. Myra was prim and proper at the Grand Sovereign’s high table. Somehow she’d learned etiquette over the past days. Gerdy watched her longingly. Sir Wallack had even ventured over to sit with them once more, his loneliness at the table in the far corner of the room evident with each time he coughed instead of speaking ill when Gerdy used the wrong fork.
For Epik, the awkward dinner was a small but significant reprieve from the weight on his shoulders. It was only the fate of the entire kingdom resting on his slight frame. But hadn’t halflings proven time and again that their shoulders were figuratively like those of ants, with the ability to withstand pressure thousands of times greater than their own weight8?
Knowing is Halfling the Battle: An Arthurian Fantasy Romp (Epik Fantasy Book 2) Page 16
