Jace screamed out in agony as the thorns tore and bit at him. He tried to twist away, but the vines held him fast, and fighting against them only drove the thorns deeper. Finally, he stopped trying to escape and hung there in his spiked torment, panting for breath. Hatred burned in his eyes. Blood trickled from between the vines.
His friends recovered from their shock at last and tried to intervene, but Sera held up a hand at them and a wall of flames erupted from a nearby campfire, blocking them. They too screamed, raising their hands to their faces, trying to ward off the blaze’s intense heat. There would be no interruptions. She needed a private talk with her brother.
Casually, Sera reached down to retrieve her brother’s fallen dagger. She held it in both hands, turning it over, watching the sharp blade reflect the firelight.
“I can kill you with a thought, you know. I could push the thorns deeper. Or I could twist them around and slice you into ribbons. Or I could squeeze them ever tighter until you can’t breathe, until your bones shatter. Of course, if I just hold you here long enough you’ll bleed out, Jace. There’s a good amount of your blood soaked into the earth here already. Or perhaps, brother, I will simply slit your throat with your own dagger. Letting your vile life end might bring a measure of honor back to our house. Today, I slaughtered several hundred Golden to protect my people. After what you’ve done, trying to murder Dain by ambush, killing you would not bring my conscience much strife.”
She constricted the vines ever so slightly tighter. Jace let out a whimper.
“But you are going to live, Jace. I am going to allow you to. You will carry the scars of this encounter with you always, though, so you will remember what happens when you bring dishonor on our house by trying to harm those I love. Remember as well that the next time you raise a hand against me and mine, I will kill you, brother or no.”
She let the vines fall and Jace crumpled to the ground, groaning. She sheathed the dagger in her belt, let the flames die out, and looked back to her father’s tent. Dain, Jin, and her father stood there together. Two of her father’s guards restrained Dain, one holding each arm. At her approach he stopped struggling and they released him. He started to speak, but she held up a hand.
“I forgive you for lying to me, because I understand why you did it. Never do so again. I am with you now; where you go, Jin and I will follow, but only if we are truthful with each other.”
Instead of saying whatever it was he’d wished to say, Dain simply nodded. She took his hand in hers then led him back inside.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Princess Koren, escorted by a dozen royal bodyguards, rode through the outer pickets of the golden elf army. Night had fallen, and she both desired and dreaded to see her father. She was tired and arriving much later than she had expected. The journey would have been quicker, hours quicker, if her party hadn’t needed to circle a wide pile of loose rocks back along the road.
With the army so deep in wood elf territory, Koren had been sure that her small group would pass through unmolested and she had been right, as usual.
Dismounting before the command tent’s guards, she strode between them, hesitating to steel herself before entering. Her father’s emotions were unpredictable at best and, after disobeying him by coming here, she feared his reaction.
It was his own fault she had disobeyed. He should not have ordered her to remain in Mirr, should not have left that oaf Gashan to watch her.
What had he been thinking?
Still, the coppery taste of fear would not leave her mouth. She was grateful that she had worn the dark, bloodstained leathers normally reserved for the special diversions in her chambers. Before leaving Mirr she had ordered them enchanted by a handful of mages, increasing their protection to match that of full chainmail, but without the metal armor’s restricting weight or limited movement. The snug leather’s familiar grip and even its smells were comforting. She felt confident, calm, in control. She would need that to face the king.
Koren took a deep breath and lifted the tent flap.
All eyes turned to her instantly, but she looked only at her father, who stood. His eyes widened in surprise then narrowed again. Color rushed to his face.
“Koren? What are you doing here? I ordered you to stay behind and manage the kingdom until my return!” Elam bellowed.
“The city is in good hands Father. I left Gashan with strict orders to protect the throne. I am here to avenge Haldrin, my brother,” she said. Desperate, she clung to the sense of calm like a drowning man. Getting upset would not help her now.
“Gashan? You left the fate of the throne, my throne, in the hands of a simple guardsman?” Elam’s hands clenched into fists and he scowled darkly. He took a menacing step forward. Koren struggled against the urge to take one back.
“Father, he is your commanding guardsman. You yourself appointed him to the position. If he can’t fulfill his duties protecting the throne you should have chosen another. Now, to more pressing matters. Where is the human?” He was far more upset than she had expected. Something else must have gone against his plans, probably some failure of Gallad’s.
“I promised you Haldin’s killer, and I will deliver. But you should not have come!” Elam bellowed. Drops of foamy spittle flew from his mouth and he trembled in rage.
“Really? Because it looks to me like you are fighting a war, not bringing me my brother’s assassin. What happened to Blythe’s spell trackers?” Koren said. She removed her riding gloves slowly and deliberately, placing them over a nearby chair back. Changing the subject, she hoped, might deflect his anger toward someone else.
“These damned wood elves shelter Haldrin’s murderer. They have found a way to block Blythe’s spells, but we know they are protecting him. We have to cut our way through them in order to reach the human,” Gallad said, speaking for the first time. His voice sounded tired—exhausted, even. The prince sat on a tiny stool at the tent’s center beneath a bright lantern. A young elven nurse stood over him with needle and thread, stitching closed a wicked cut across his face.
Unlike the wood elves, the Golden did not excel at healing. The arcane powers that fueled their talents did not lend themselves to repairing the body. The nurse would first draw his wound shut with her stitches, and then use the pitiful healing ability she possessed to minimize the scarring. The full process would take hours. A wood elf slave could do a better job in minutes but, for obvious reasons, none had been brought along. The vermin’s only advantage over her own people, Koren granted.
“It’s been days. I want the human now,” she said. “And what’s happened to you, Gallad?” Here might be the deflection she needed.
“Almost killed by that wood elf cow I kept on my farm,” he said. The prince winced as the nurse wove another stitch. “She brought the whole mountainside down on the supply convoy I was guarding.”
“It sounds like you failed to guard it very well then, big brother,” Koren said, letting the judgment ring clear in her tone. The thought of a former slave, a female slave at that, cutting her brother’s face greatly amused her. He was far too prideful for his own good.
“Who is truly running the city while we are away, Koren? Gashan can protect the throne, but he can hardly manage the kingdom,” Elam said. Both the question and its tone told her his anger had begun to wane. She let out a thin sigh of relief.
“The Council of Nobles,” she said.
“Council of fools you mean,” Gallad said, lowering his head and shaking it. The nurse waited patiently until he looked to the light again before resuming her stitching.
“You left Mirr to those spineless old men? Are you mad?” Elam said.
“Mad? Is that what you all think of me? That I’m insane? Poor, mad Koren?” she screamed, suddenly filled with ire. She instinctively put her hands on the daggers strapped to her narrow hips.
“Calm down, Koren. Draw an inch of steel, one single inch, and I will have you flogged,” Elam said, sounding almost bored. “You’ve left our k
ingdom in the hands of fools. If we fail to return soon, the council will be overrun by our enemies. Those senile old men do not have the backbone to fight off the orcs, deal with the miners in Galena, and keep the wood elves at bay.”
“What do you mean if we fail to return soon? You have the army at the edge of their city. We know their meager forces can’t defeat ours. What holds you back?” Koren asked, lifting her hands from her daggers. She didn’t mention that it was he who maintained the need for a council and not her.
“True, the army stands at the city gates and we know they lack enough troops to stop us. However, the ambush Gallad barely escaped cost us our supplies and we are down to the last of our field rations. In another week, our army will begin to starve. We cannot maintain a lengthy siege,” Elam said.
“What are our options, then?”
“We need a quick victory. If we get into the city soon enough we can live off captured foodstuffs,” Elam said.
“Father, we should just drive our army into theirs. We have the advantage in numbers and training. Our forces will shatter them,” Gallad added.
“I am not prepared to sacrifice so many men to destroy them. We will need a good many to besiege the city, and we must survive this with enough troops to keep both the humans and orcs at bay.”
“Losses on our part would only help our food situation,” Koren said. She was repulsed by the idea of agreeing with her older brother, but his idea had merit. “Fewer mouths to feed. What other choice is there? To return to Mirr empty-handed? To let Haldrin’s death go unavenged?”
The human will not escape, she vowed to herself once again. No matter what happened, no matter the cost, she would kill him.
“Teldrain has to defend the city. We have found a recently caved-in tunnel entrance, and if we start opening it up, he will be forced to engage us. Tomorrow, we begin digging. That will be your task, Gallad.”
“What can I do, father?” Koren asked. If it meant getting closer to Haldrin’s killer, she would eagerly help to kill the vermin wood elves who sheltered him.
Verdant shook his head in disgust.
After all the revelations, each pointing to the Golden, Galena’s leaders still refused to settle on a course of action. Drogan, Razel, and himself had each made impassioned pleas. They explained what had happened in the hospital, even going so far as to drag the rotting and bloated pair of golden elf corpses into the meeting.
To a man, the mine representatives acknowledged the likelihood that the Golden had stolen their precious shipment, and each granted that King Elam had manipulated them into agreeing to the transport terms. No one, however, could agree on what course to take.
Baylest, although a clear supporter himself, tried to explain their dilemma to Verdant.
“You must understand my friend. Many of these men don’t consider the losses theirs personally. Most are just here representing a faceless mining company. A mistake on their part could cost their company millions. That type of mistake would ruin even the best of them. They would be replaced and, with a disaster like that in their history, finding other work would be impossible,” Drogan reasoned. “They simply won’t risk it. A quarter to Elam is an understandable, quantifiable, and predictable expense. Risking everything for a war is none of those. If you want them to act, you need more solid proof, and you have to demonstrate that it’s in their interests.”
Verdant understood his argument. He knew what he was asking, but he didn’t care. The golden elves had killed his sister’s husband. It may not have fit the tenants of his faith to the Creator and his Light, but he wanted them punished.
“Two assassins tried to kill the survivor, myself, and one of your dwarves. What more proof do you need?”
“Me personally? None. Nothing. I believe you and Razel are correct. The Golden either took our shipment outright, or killed the orcs and then took it. They gave us back a fraction of it to convince us of their good intentions.”
“What of you and the other independent miners here?” Verdant asked.
“There are four other independents with investments the scale of mine. The other dozen or so are pretty small operations. Combined, we have less than two thousand men available, and what would we do with them? They’re miners, not warriors. I wouldn’t know where to start,” Drogan answered.
“What about the townspeople? Most of the early settlers have battle experience.”
“Most won’t fight and, orc-fighting experience aside, they are not soldiers. The Golden have real armor, real weapons, and real soldiers to use them.”
“Nothing changes, then. But what happens when the Golden stamp out the orcs? Do they continue to charge the mines a quarter, or will they raise their fees? Maybe they’ll just seize the entire valley then and we will all be their slaves like the wood elves.” Verdant stormed out before Baylest could get in another word. He knew his temper didn’t represent the priesthood well, but he couldn’t help himself anymore. What was going on simply wasn’t just. Those responsible for Maib’s death would go free, grow wealthy even, profiting from his murder.
Boiling from the wasted effort, he stomped up onto the hospital’s front porch, rattling its floorboards. Those mining fools wouldn’t do a damn thing. The Golden had killed their hired army, stolen their shipment, and then tricked them into paying to move any remaining gold out of Galena. Still the cowards refused to stand up to them. He swung the door open, entered, and slammed it shut behind, causing a painting to fall behind the reception desk. He heard a small, pained shriek when it crashed onto the floor.
He bent down to see what had been damaged.
Although he had walked past the painting many times, for the first time he examined closely it for the first time. The artist had drawn a pleasant moonlit night overlooking a sleeping mountain town. Galena itself, he wondered. The peaks looked right, as did the town’s layout. Lights were on in several buildings, shining through the windows, and smoke curled up from chimneys.
Off to the side, something caught his eye. At the work’s edge, some distance from the town, barely visible at all, moonlight reflected off a series of tombstones.
The cemetery wasn’t the painting’s main focus, but after noticing it, Verdant couldn’t seem to pull his eyes away. An otherwise beautiful work, ruined by a dismal graveyard that seemed to have been painted in almost as a sloppy afterthought. For reasons Verdant himself couldn’t explain, the painting both captivated and repulsed him. Why would the painter draw such a thing? Estoor, the artist had signed. Perhaps Estoor had possessed some fascination with death.
He lifted the fallen artwork, meaning to have one of the priestesses give it away, when he found the shriek’s source. Lost in the painting, he had forgotten about the sound. A tiny field mouse had been crushed beneath the heavy frame. The poor thing had been caught up in circumstances beyond its control, Verdant thought to himself. He leaned the painting against the wall then placed the mouse in the waste bin next to the secretary’s desk.
“Priest Verdant? Is that you? Come quickly, the soldier is awake,” Shyla yelled down from the second story.
Relieved to have at least a scrap of good news, Verdant forgot the painting entirely and bounded up the stairs, taking them two steps at a time. He swung into his office, finding Shyla, Tessa, and Razel crowding in on the survivor. He smiled at the scene. What must the poor man think, seeing such a motley group hovering over him?
Tessa held a small cup to the wounded man’s lips, trying to get some watery, yellow broth down him.
“You’re weak and thirsty…here, drink this,” she said, pouring slowly.
Verdant took a spot near the foot of the bed, watching the man drink the warm liquid. The survivor gazed around at them, pausing for a moment on each. When he spotted Verdant he looked the priest up and down. His eyes lingered on the simple robes.
Gently, he pushed the broth away. His hoarse voice strained as he tried to speak. Verdant couldn’t make out the words.
“Stand aside a moment. L
et me get closer,” he said to the others. As the group stepped back a bit, he leaned down low and tilted his head, bringing his ear close to the wounded man’s mouth.
“Paladin. Bring Dain. Dax said to ask for him,” he said with a rasp.
“Dain isn’t here. We haven’t seen him for weeks now after he left with a wood elf. I do not know where he’s gone.”
“Golden ambushed us…Were winning…Against the orcs, when the elves showed up. Everyone slaughtered. They took everything. Dax and I hid…along the main trail,” he said.
“A caravan found you both on the trail and brought you in. You’re in Galena. Try not to talk anymore; save your strength. We have suspected the Golden for some time. They sent a pair of assassins, but you’re safe now. What is your name?”
The man coughed. “Halk.”
“Rest now, Halk. The town is deciding what to do about the elves now,” Verdant said. He thought for a moment then continued. “If I get a statement drawn up with what you just told me, will you sign it?”
“Yes, statement,” Halk nodded. He fell back into his pillow then and closed his eyes.
“Tessa, keep the broth ready in case he wakes again. He is very weak,” Verdant ordered.
“What about me?” Shyla asked.
“Watch over the other patients until I return. Razel, let’s go see Drogan again. He should still be at the Bloody Bucket eating one of those big, greasy breakfasts he likes.”
“What are you thinking, Priest?” Razel said.
“We will get Halk’s statement to the mine owners. Maybe we can finally convince them then. We’ll also send a copy to King Balen in Arctanon. He may want to know how he lost an army and an uncle. Drogan has good judgment generally, so we’ll see if he has any other ideas for the short term.” Verdant felt hopeful, buoyant even, now that Halk was awake and had been able to tell his side of the story. He and Razel rushed from the hospital, his robes flapping out behind in his haste.
Kingdom's Forge: Book 01 - Paladin's Redemption Page 27
