by Thomas Locke
“Eh, what difference does it make, a turned ankle or a bruised shin, when the rogue has already injured what is most precious to me?”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate hearing this from your own lips.” A lantern appeared in the distance, and the guard beyond his door snapped to attention. “If he doesn’t, I certainly will.”
Trace followed the sheriff’s son and the massive retainer into the dungeon. Beside him walked a woman in a long, flowing robe. Trace demanded, “Where is he? Where is the hoodlum who stole my daughter’s honor?”
The squire grinned as he approached Hyam’s cell and pointed through the iron bars. “In there.”
“Where? Where? My eyes aren’t nearly as they once were. Give me light.”
“There is the matter of your promised payment, my lord.”
“Eh, oh. Yes. Of course. Of course.” The old man fumbled at his purse. “I for one live up to my oaths. Unlike the ruffian you have chained in there. Death is too good for that one, do you hear me?”
“I do indeed, my lord.” He pocketed the gold, then ordered the guard, “Draw the lantern closer.”
The old mage was dressed in fine robes that clearly were intended for a far larger man. The collar would have slipped off Trace’s scrawny shoulders had it not been for the gold chain of office that clasped the opening’s two sides. Trace’s beard trembled with what appeared to be genuine outrage as he pushed the woman ahead of him. “Look! Look at the ruin you have caused. My daughter! My house’s good name! I trusted you!”
Joelle was draped in a penitent’s cloak of grey burlap, but beneath she wore a frock as refined as the mage’s clothes. Her belly was huge, a great swelling that poked out the front of her dress and shoved aside the cloak’s borders. She cradled her middle with both hands as she moved toward the portal, then spoke for the first time. “May I approach him?”
“What did you just say?” the old man sputtered.
“I would like him to touch”—Joelle caressed her swollen middle—“what he has wrought.”
“My apologies, my lady. But I can’t permit you inside. Take comfort that he’ll never touch anyone again.” The squire grinned through the bars and announced happily, “We’ll start with his hands.”
Joelle lunged for the portal and thrust one hand through the bars. “Hyam!”
He was ready, and extended his body and arm and hand as far as the chain permitted.
The squire sneered, “This really is all very . . .”
His scorn faded into horror-stricken astonishment as a spark leapt from Joelle’s hand to Hyam’s. The crack lashed the air and filled the chamber with an acrid burning. The spark grew into a river of light so brilliant it branded Hyam’s gaze. But he did not turn away. He drew it in with the desperate need of a drowning man.
Trace moved forward, rested his hand on Joelle’s shoulder, and weaved his other hand in an intricate design. He cried, “Open!”
Every lock in the dungeon splintered apart.
Joelle withdrew her arm from the bars, the light still blazing from her fingers. She flung out an arc of fiery power, sending the squire and the two guards crashing against the wall. She held them there, her face filled with a wrath as powerful as the light coursing from her hand.
“That is enough, my dear,” Trace said. “We don’t want to kill them.”
“We don’t?” The force still streamed from her. The orb glowed fiercely, the violet light streaming through her dress and cloak both, turning her into a beacon. “Why ever not?”
“Joelle,” the wizard pressed. “Enough.”
Reluctantly she dropped her hand. The power dimmed, then vanished entirely. The guards and the sheriff’s son slumped to the floor. The chamber was silent save for the sputtering torches and the squeak of prison doors being pushed open.
Hyam felt the energy course through him, healing as it went.
Only then did he notice that his cell mate had stopped humming. Hyam knelt beside the man and realized the prisoner had breathed his last.
Hyam stepped through the cell doorway and into Joelle’s embrace. It was the first time he had held her. Her strength was an elixir to his soul. Despite the orb pressing into his belly, he did not want to let go. But she released him and asked, “They hurt you?”
“I’m fine, thanks to you two.”
“We must be off. The palace is swarming with armed men,” Trace said.
“One moment.” He gripped Joelle’s hand, then turned and extended his other arm, flattening each of the dungeon’s dire instruments in turn. He wrenched each of the cell doors off their hinges so they could not be locked again, all but the one where he had been held. As fearful faces appeared in the central hold, Hyam called, “Wait until we have departed! Then you all are free to go!”
Hyam turned his attention back to the sheriff’s son. The squire watched Hyam’s approach with very real dread.
“You notice I never asked your name,” Hyam said. “It’s because I don’t care.”
“I . . . You . . . The realm will know of this!”
“They probably will. But that’s not your concern, is it.”
“I knew you used magic—no one could have shot that arrow without it!”
“And yet you still hunted me. Does that seem the least bit sensible to you now?”
“We must be off,” Trace insisted.
Hyam drew in sufficient power to lift the sheriff’s son and slam him into the cell holding the silent body. He then sealed the portal in place, welding it to the stone.
A desperate hand reached through the bars. “You can’t leave me in here!”
Hyam ignored the panic-stricken shrieks and said to the hulking man-at-arms, “Tell me you want to live.”
“I want to live, sire.” For once the man sounded genuinely sincere.
Hyam turned to the cowering guard. “Get into one of the unoccupied cells. Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.”
The man vanished.
Hyam said to the squire’s aide, “Now you lead us out of here.” But as they crossed the central space toward the winding stone stairs, Hyam said, “No, wait.”
“The hounds will soon be loosed,” Trace urged.
Hyam lifted his hand, halting both the mage’s protest and the flow of bedraggled prisoners. He asked the brute, “How does the earl communicate with the king?” When the soldier hesitated, Hyam went on, “Someone at the palace sent the earl my description and the order to seize me. When the earl sent word that I was captured, a response came saying someone was coming to question me. All within a matter of hours, perhaps less. This is no mere exchange of carrier pigeons.”
“I am forbidden to speak of it, sire.”
Hyam started to threaten when the wizard replied, “I can answer that. The healing arts are not the only magic that still exists within the realm. There is another. All senior nobles are granted a mirror and a password. It is handed down from generation to generation and fiercely guarded.”
Joelle asked, “Shouldn’t we—”
“Soon.” Hyam reached out and touched the globe through her dress. He shut his eyes and drew on the power, extending his awareness, searching, searching, until he found it. “A small frame of gold, no broader than three hands, in a tower chamber without windows. The door is always guarded.” He opened his eyes. “Is that the one?”
The soldier’s astonished expression was all the reply Hyam needed. He shut his eyes again, reached out, and shattered the mirror.
The stone vault shook from the blast. Beyond the stairs and the dungeon portal, shouts and pandemonium filled the air.
Hyam opened his eyes. “Now we can leave.”
The keep’s forecourt was a chaotic din. Hyam could have walked through leading the earl’s own steed and no one would have noticed. The castle’s highest tower was reduced to a stubby pile of smoldering rubble. A score of fires blazed about the inner keep. To Hyam’s hasty eye it seemed as though the fallen stones themselves were alight. Men swarmed and yelled and po
inted and ran.
They passed through the main portcullis, and before Hyam could release the man-at-arms, the brute said, “Allow me to offer you my fealty, sire.”
Hyam had no idea what to say. The mage responded for him. “You wish to shift your loyalties? Why?”
“I have witnessed a change to the realm.” The hulking soldier showed genuine pain. “The wrong people lead us now, and for the wrong reasons.”
Trace was not convinced. “How can we trust you to remain true to your new oath?”
He glanced back at the keep. “Evil is about, sire. Unnatural forces rule because the rulers let them.”
“You are right,” the mage confirmed. “And we oppose these forces.”
Though it was the mage who spoke, the brute continued to address Hyam. “Let us oppose them with you, sire.”
“You speak for others?” Trace asked.
“I am not alone in wishing for a leader who will show us the proper path.”
Hyam nodded to the mage, who said, “Gather only those you would trust with your life and ours. Meet us at the river port. Hurry.”
38
Hyam’s troops had seized three riverboats and ordered them ready for immediate departure. They had also promised their captain full payment. But the man insisted upon hearing it straight from Hyam. When they crossed the gangplank, they heard the skipper shout, “Gold! I’ll take you to the gates of doom for gold! But you try and steal from me and I’ll ram the banks and set my vessels alight. You see if I don’t!”
The man was short and stumpy and bearded, and he smelled. Hyam liked him on sight. “I have gold. But I need to know the price is fair and the vessels seaworthy.”
“River worthy, you mean. Take this sow into the open waves, and you’ll die screaming about the fool the ocean has shown you to be.” He planted small fists on his hips and demanded, “You lead this band of pirates?”
“I direct this honorable company, yes.”
“Wastrels, the lot of them. They spill uninvited onto my vessels and tell me I’m headed for Port Sutton. Why should I, I ask this one. And how does he respond but offer to show me the edge of his blade.”
“We are under pressure, you see. But I assure you the good man meant nothing by it. Adler, apologize to the captain.”
The officer’s response was decidedly something else. Even so, the skipper grinned his approval. “I suppose you’re the lot who tweaked the dragon’s nose and burned the earl out of house and home.”
“We did.”
The captain turned and eyed the smoldering castle with evident approval. “Never did like the man. All right. Show me your gold and let’s bid this burning city a swift farewell.”
The captain’s name was Gimmit and he had nothing good to say about anyone or anything. He saved his harshest comments for his five sons, all of whom could have lifted their father one-handed and flung him far across the river’s silken waters. The youngest did not yet shave and already towered a full head above Hyam. They shared the same ready smile filled with teeth the size of paving stones, which had to have been a gift from their mother, for Gimmit’s teeth were ground down to yellow nubs.
The only man taller than the largest of Gimmit’s sons was Gault, the Havering soldier. The squire’s former man-at-arms arrived just as the second boat was pushing off. Gault led twenty-seven other troopers, a full company minus two who were too sick to travel. Adler did not want them, but the desperation in their voices swayed even him.
The three vessels were each eighty paces long and broad at the beam and stable enough to keep calm the dozen horses Hyam’s troops had brought along. They were also very slow. The boats were equipped with lateen sails that the captain refused to raise at night. The riverbank drifted by at a walking pace, and Hyam knew they had to move faster. But the skipper was adamant. “If your goal is to plant your sorry hide on the shoals and gut my ladies, then yes, I’ll raise my sails. But only after you hand me their weight in gold.”
Hyam knew he had no choice but to show his hand. “What would you require to speed up and remain in total safety?”
The skipper had a vicious laugh. “To see the sun rise in the west!”
“I’m serious.”
“As am I!” He pointed downriver. “Ten leagues and three bends from now, rocks rise like jagged teeth. They are black and they are hungry. In the daylight you’ll see the wreckage of vessels skippered by fools who dared ride a rushing spring flood like this, thinking it would keep them safe.”
“There is no rush to our pace,” Hyam protested.
“Wait until you must travel against the stream, and you’ll understand how slow a river journey can be.” The skipper spat over the gunnel. “The worst of the river’s teeth are hidden just below the surface. They’ll gnaw at our belly and gut my ladies. If I let them. Which I won’t.”
“My question still stands. What would you need—”
“A thousand torches, which we don’t have. And a wind blowing straight from our stern, one that twists and turns in line with the river.” The skipper settled one hand on the tiller, testing the river’s currents through his fingers. “Go to sleep, lad. The river has its own . . .”
He stopped talking as Hyam took the sack off Trace’s shoulder, the one where Joelle had slipped the orb. Hyam clambered atop the central hold. And he searched.
Reconnecting with the orb carried an exultant joy so fierce he reveled a moment before extending his awareness outward. What he had sensed upon setting off became clearer still. Far beneath the earth’s surface, a current of power ran in line with the river’s course.
He lifted his hands over his head, drawing the power up and into the orb. Once this bond was forged, he fashioned the energy into three brilliant lights. One for each of the bows. The light transformed the surrounding fields and dressed the rocky shoreline in a violet glow. He turned to the astounded captain and said, “Raise your sails. I will give you your wind.”
39
Hyam remained on duty for another hour, until Trace insisted he could keep the winds and the vessels on course, and then showed himself capable of the task. Hyam used an extra sail to fashion a bed in the bow, out where he could rise and check both the lights and the wind. His sleep was punctuated every hour or so by an image of the crimson rider, who chased through clouds of ash, hunting, searching. Every time the sightless skull turned toward him, Hyam jerked awake and counted himself fortunate not to have been captured, not even in dreams. For he was certain he had learned the rider’s secret, and it filled him with terror.
Finally toward dawn he slipped into a deeper sleep and awoke somewhat refreshed. He breakfasted on plums and cheese and hardtack, and watched Joelle train as he ate. Meda had taken over the foredeck and worked her soldiers hard. The women could not match the men for brute strength, Meda repeated time and again. But they possessed the supple swiftness of an assassin’s blade and, with practice, could overcome the strongest man by unbalancing him and striking harder than he expected. Meda’s aide fought against Joelle, and the two women danced at death with such unbridled ferocity that it silenced the entire ship. Even Gimmit and his sons gaped at the two women as their sweat formed silver arcs in the sunlight and their blades whispered a lethal tune.
When they were done, Meda drew Joelle apart and spoke too softly for Hyam to overhear. The officer patted Joelle’s arm, spoke again, and turned away. Joelle’s smile competed with the sun for brilliance.
Joelle treated herself to a seaman’s bath, dunking herself in the river, then ladling fresh water from the rain cistern tied to the lee gunnel. Hyam observed how Joelle greeted every word cast her way with the same vestige of a smile. He could not stop looking, for in this brief instant of hard-earned joy, he saw a hope that they both might leave the unfair past behind.
Meda returned on deck with a bundle and called to Joelle, who unfolded the coverlet to reveal a set of fighting clothes like those worn by Meda’s troops. From his place in the bow, Trace said, “It is good to s
ee her rewarded as she deserves.”
“It’s more than that,” Hyam replied. He felt uneasy declaring that such was another person’s destiny, when he had little idea of his own. But when she returned on deck and stood glowing with pride over her fighting gear, Hyam wished for some way to not only confirm the moment but add to it himself.
But for the moment he could do nothing save walk over and declare, “It was thrilling to watch you train.”
“This lass has the makings of a fine warrior,” Meda declared. “And the speed of one who has trained for years.”
“I have,” Joelle replied. “But only against imaginary foes. The first time I fought with another was today.”
“The clothes suit you as well.” Hyam gazed into those remarkable grey-violet eyes and wished for a private hour. But the unknown awaited them around the next bend, and his planning could not wait. “I need to speak with Bryna.”
It was difficult to watch her joy fade and know his words were the cause. Joelle replied, “The Ashanta were frantic when they learned of your capture. Bryna wanted the Ashanta to reveal their armies. Trace urged her to wait.”
“I’m glad he did.” He pointed to the bow. “Trace needs to hear this as well.”
The mage was maintaining his wind spell with one-handed ease while chatting happily with Gimmit’s oldest boy, who frowned over what he heard. The lad saluted Hyam with a knuckle to his forehead and slipped away.
“Why does he run from me?” Hyam asked.
“He asked about our quest. I told him. There’s no secret, is there?”
“I suppose not.” He turned to Joelle. “Have you summoned her?”
“Bryna is coming.” A pause, then, “She is here.”
“Tell her I was wrong about why the army assaulted the Ashanta settlement.”
“She can hear you, Hyam. Speak to her directly. I will repeat her answers.”
He liked how his name fit so comfortably in Joelle’s mouth, but now was not the time for such simple pleasures. He related his dream, then waited.
“Bryna hears your concern but does not understand the cause.”
