“Hear now!” Rumpar called a moment later.
“Don’t hurt yerself with it, boy,” another man said with a chuckle.
“Ye put it back!” Rumpar demanded, his tone far different from that of the other, amused man.
“I was just testing its balance,” Aydrian tried to explain.
“Bah, what’re ye knowing about such things?” Rumpar scolded, and he walked over and roughly pulled the sword from Aydrian, humiliating him.
Aydrian settled himself with a deep breath. “I know how to fight,” he assured Rumpar and all the others.
A couple of men exploded in laughter at that seemingly absurd proclamation.
“A bare-knuckled brawler!” one howled.
“Surely made for the Allhearts,” said another, and then even Rumpar began to laugh.
“I have done battle with finer weapons than that!” Aydrian lashed back. The room went perfectly silent in the blink of an eye, and the look that Aydrian noticed coming from Rumpar told him without doubt that he might have just put himself upon an irreversible course.
“Ye should be watching yer words more carefully, little one,” Rumpar said quietly, threateningly.
Aydrian thought that perhaps he should back off, but the boredom of the uneventful weeks and the casual dismissal of his work with the beaver dam had him itching for some action.
“But my words are the truth,” he replied evenly, not blinking. “Far better weapons. And I know how to use them, Rumpar, beyond that which you can imagine. In this town, out here on the frontier of the wild, it seems folly that such a weapon as that sword hangs unused above your mantel, when others, when I could put it to better use.”
“Could ye, now?” Rumpar asked doubtfully.
“I could,” Aydrian replied without the slightest hesitation. “Chasing bandits or orcs, or slaying dangerous animals.”
The laughter in the room began anew, with Rumpar again joining in.
“I will fight you for the sword,” Aydrian said before he could begin to consider the ramifications.
Again came that disturbing silence.
“He’d as soon part with his daughter,” one of the others said with a laugh; but that chuckle was not echoed by others, certainly not by Rumpar.
“Then I will fight you for the chance to borrow your sword,” Aydrian clarified. “If I best you, then you let me carry it and use it as necessary, and if you best me, then I will offer you my services, cutting wood, cleaning your house, whatever tasks you choose, for one month, every morning early before I go to my other duties.”
Rumpar stared at him long and hard, and Aydrian recognized that the man was going to dismiss him and his ridiculous challenge out of hand. Then the other men in the room chimed in their opinions, every one of them telling Rumpar to teach the boy a lesson.
Rumpar looked at them, at first betraying his doubts. But then, spurred by their applause, the corners of his mouth turned up in a wry smile. “One month?” the man scoffed, turning back at Aydrian. “Make it five months!”
“A year then,” Aydrian agreed. “Or five years. It matters not at all.”
The man held up his large fist. “Ye’re thinkin’ ye can match this?” he asked incredulously.
“Not the fist,” said Aydrian. “The sword. You use the sword, and I will use …” He glanced all around, his gaze at last settling on a broom leaning in the corner. “I will use this,” he announced, walking over and taking it up.
“If ye’re fighting to first blood, ye’ll have a heap of whacking to do with that!” said another man, and that brought a general laugh.
“Go on yer way, boy, afore I teach ye a lesson,” said Rumpar, waving his blade in Aydrian’s direction.
“Before you lose your reputation, you mean, warrior,” Aydrian replied, digging in his heels, embracing his decision wholeheartedly, for he realized that he was ready to change his relationship with the folk of Festertool. The impatient human side was speaking to him now, and clearly. “Take up your precious sword, and learn.”
A dramatic low “oooo” rolled through the room from Rumpar’s friends, all thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.
“Kick him good, Rumpar,” said one.
“Young upstart,” another added.
Rumpar took his sword up reverently, turning it over in one hand. He closed his eyes, and Aydrian could see that he was replaying old days of battle. Aydrian envied him those memories, the opportunity he had known, and had apparently wasted, to add his name to the list of the immortals.
He looked back at Aydrian, who stood holding the broomstick, and his gaze had altered, taking on a more serious and grim feature. “Ye’re going to get yerself hurt, boy,” he said quietly.
In response, Aydrian leaped forward and quickly swept the broom so that it slapped Rumpar across the backside, an attack designed to insult and infuriate more than anything else.
And its effect was immediate and stunning. Rumpar let loose a great bellow and leaped forward, his sword going in a roundabout slash, an obviously clumsy maneuver to the young man trained in the ways of bi’nelle dasada, then streaking in for Aydrian’s head.
His front leg toward Rumpar, his other leg back, his body evenly balanced over his front knee, Aydrian had no trouble skittering back three short steps out of range. Rumpar continued forward, overbalancing. Aydrian, his broomstick held across his chest in both hands, punched out with his left hand, bringing his weapon over the advancing blade. Then he drove it, and Rumpar’s sword, down. He brought the broom right back, the bristles sliding across Rumpar’s grizzly face, then Aydrian reversed his grip and released his left hand in order to complete the broomstick’s rotation down and under. The broom’s momentum brought its end firmly into his left armpit, and he quickly transferred the weapon to his left hand. Using his torso as the fulcrum, Aydrian drove his left hand out to the side, the broom smacking hard against Rumpar’s sword hand, hitting with enough force to dislodge the sword and send it skidding across the floor.
A quick turn and release had the broom in both his hands again, now held more like a club, and Aydrian struck Rumpar hard across the chest, sending him staggering backward. Then he reversed his grip again, now holding the broom in his right hand like a sword, and thrust ahead with a movement characteristic of bi’nelle dasada, jabbing the man hard in the ribs.
Rumpar staggered backward, his expression incredulous, and then he landed in a sitting position on the floor.
In the room, there was only stunned silence.
Aydrian wondered if he should have allowed the fight to last a bit longer, to save the man’s reputation and pride. No, he decided, better to show them from the beginning the truth of this young man who had come into their midst, the truth of the boy who would become their protector, the ranger of Festertool.
“A lucky blow!” one man protested, shattering the silence.
“Bah, but an ungrateful little cur ye are!” another scolded as Aydrian stooped and retrieved the sword, holding it before him for just a second.
“I expect no cheers,” he said to them, his voice calm and composed. “You will soon enough be glad that I have arrived, for I am Aydrian, ranger of Festertool, who will haunt the forest about your little town, silently protecting you though you hardly seem to deserve it.”
“Don’t seem so silent to me!” one man growled, though it was obvious to Aydrian that he had them all stunned and confused, overwhelmed by his display.
Rumpar managed to climb to his feet and started demanding that Aydrian return the sword, but Aydrian fixed him with a glare so cold that it froze the words in his throat.
“Go on now, boy,” one man said. “Be gone with ye!”
“Boy?” Aydrian echoed. “A boy who could defeat any two of you, any three of you, in battle. A boy you will come to appreciate if danger ever finds Festertool.”
Perfectly satisfied with the outcome and with his performance, Aydrian left the room, gathered his few belongings, and walked out of Festertool, the night
still dark about him.
As the days passed and the weight of his impulsive decision began to tell upon him, Aydrian began to rethink his course and his place in the world. He wasn’t lonely out in the forest, and he often met the huntsmen of the village, often even giving them some information about where they might find game on any given day.
What Aydrian came to realize during those first days out of the village was that Festertool certainly was not, and never would be, his home. It wasn’t that he believed he had caused lasting damage to his relationship with the townsfolk by besting Rumpar—in fact, some of the hunters had made remarks to him that it was long overdue for the braggart to get shown for what he was—but rather that Aydrian recognized the limitations of Festertool—of any village this far out of the mainstream of human society. That understanding certainly frustrated the impatient, human—and youthful—impulses of Aydrian, but, schooled in the wisdom of the Touel’alfar, he found his patience and recognized Festertool not as his home but rather as a stepping-stone along the journey to his destiny.
In accordance with that, Aydrian thought long and hard about the title he would now bestow upon himself, an appropriate name to go along with his claim to be the ranger of Festertool. He considered his name, Aydrian, and his actual surname that he dared not use. The villagers thought him overconfident, he knew, but only because, despite his performance against Rumpar, they did not understand the truth of his abilities, his superiority.
That perception led Aydrian to his new name, the one he would tell openly, one reflective of his father, Elbryan, but one that subtly elevated him above his father’s heroic status. Elbryan was Tai’marawee, the Nightbird.
“And I am Tai’maqwilloq!” Aydrian called into the forest one night. “Aydrian, the Nighthawk!”
Chapter 13
M’Lady Jilseponie
“THEY WILL NOT ACCEPT ME,” ROGER LOCKLESS PROTESTED AFTER JILSEPONIE ANNOUNCED to him and Dainsey that he would become the acting baron of Palmaris when she left for Ursal.
“They will love you as I do,” Jilseponie argued.
“It is too great a—”
“Enough from you, Roger Lockless,” Jilseponie scolded. “You will not be alone in this endeavor, with Dainsey beside you. And the staff of Chasewind Manor understands your duties well enough and will guide you, as will Abbot Braumin, now that he has returned to head St. Precious.”
“Why did ye take the position o’ bishop, knowing that ye were soon to head south?” Dainsey asked, though she didn’t seem upset by any of this. Dainsey had seen the very edge of death’s door, after all, and since that day when she had entered the covenant of Avelyn in the faraway Barbacan it seemed that little could shake her.
“It is a position that will be continued, I believe,” Jilseponie explained. “I expect that Abbot Braumin will be accepted by King Danube as leader of the city in Church and State.”
“So I should not become too comfortable in Chasewind Manor,” Roger reasoned, betraying by his tone that he was thrilled at the prospect of becoming baron.
“I have already spoken with Abbot Braumin,” Jilseponie explained. “He will find great duties for you, my friend, and though you’ll not hold the formal title of baron should Braumin be accepted as bishop by King Danube, you will find your duties no less demanding or important.”
“The responsibility without the accolades,” Roger said with a great and dramatic sigh. “It has been that way since first I rescued Elbryan from the powries.”
That brought a smile to Jilseponie’s face, for of course, the rescue had happened the other way around.
They heard a call in the distance, in rather annoyed tones, for “Lady Jilseponie!”
“Duke Bretherford’s an impatient one!” Dainsey remarked.
“He wishes to catch the high water,” said Jilseponie, though she knew that Dainsey’s assessment of the man, especially concerning this particular duty, was right on target. Bretherford had come for her from Ursal as soon as the weather had allowed, and he hadn’t seemed pleased by the situation, addressing Jilseponie somewhat sourly on every occasion.
“Well, I must be going,” the woman said to her two friends. “King Danube awaits.”
Dainsey rushed up and hugged her tightly, but Roger hung back a moment, staring at her.
“Queen Jilseponie,” he said, and he shook his head and smiled. “I do not know that I can ever call you that.”
“Ah, but then I will have to take your head!” Jilseponie said dramatically, and then she and Roger both came forward at the same moment, bumping into each other.
“You will be there?” Jilseponie asked him.
“Front row,” Roger assured her. “And woe to any noble who tries to deny the Baron of Palmaris the opportunity to see his dearest friend ascend to the throne!”
That brought another warm smile to Jilseponie’s face, for she didn’t doubt Roger’s words for a moment. “You help Abbot Braumin,” she instructed. “Be his friend as you’ve been mine.”
“And you be one, as well,” Roger said in all seriousness. “Forget not your friends here in the north once you are settled comfortably on the throne in Ursal.”
Jilseponie kissed him on the cheek. Outside, Duke Bretherford’s man yelled again for her, even more insistently.
River Palace floated away from Palmaris’ dock soon after, Jilseponie at the taffrail, waving to Roger and Dainsey, and to Braumin, Viscenti, and Castinagis; waving farewell to Palmaris, the city that had meant so much to her for the majority of her adult life.
She stayed at the taffrail for a long time, reflecting on all that had gone before, knowing that she had to make peace with her past now, with her losses, if she was to be a good wife to Danube and a good queen of Honce-the-Bear. The skyline receded, lost in the haze that drifted off the water, as the years themselves seemed to drift away from Jilseponie now. She had to look forward, not back, to perhaps the most important duty she had ever known.
Besides, in looking back, the specter of Elbryan loomed; and viewing those memories brought Jilseponie only great doubts about her decision to marry King Danube, to marry anyone who was not Elbryan.
“Your evening meal will be served at sunset, m’lady,” came a voice, breaking her trance.
She turned to regard the young sailor, offering him a warm smile. Then she looked past him, to Duke Bretherford as he stood on the deck, staring sternly out to port—pointedly, she realized, not looking at her. Why had he sent the sailor to tell her, when he was but a few strides away? Perhaps it was a matter of protocol that she did not know, perhaps a measure of respect for her and her privacy. Or perhaps, Jilseponie mused—and this seemed most likely of all—Duke Bretherford was intentionally sending her less-than-friendly signals. He had been somewhat cold to her since he had arrived in Palmaris the week before, informing her that the weather had held calm and the time had come for her to journey to Ursal, as per her arrangement with King Danube. Indeed, it had seemed to Jilseponie that old Bretherford was quite a reluctant messenger and cartman.
He turned from her now and started walking away, apparently having no intention of causing any direct confrontations. But Jilseponie didn’t play by the same rules of “tact.” She would not go into this union with the King blindly, nor would she let unspoken resentments remain so.
“Duke Bretherford,” she said quietly but certainly loud enough for him to hear, and she started toward him.
He pretended not to hear.
“Duke Bretherford!” she said more insistently; and now he did stop, though he did not turn to face her. “I would speak with you, please.”
Bretherford turned slowly to face her as she approached. “M’lady,” he said with a slight bow, one that seemed awkward given the short man’s barrel-like build. Bretherford didn’t seem able to bend in any particular way, seemed more like a solid mass atop those skinny, bent legs.
“In private?” Jilseponie asked more than stated, for she was perfectly willing to have this out on the op
en deck, if Bretherford so desired.
The Duke paused and considered the question for a moment, then said, “As you wish,” and led Jilseponie to his cabin beneath the flying bridge.
“Tell me,” Jilseponie demanded as soon as they were alone and Bretherford closed the door.
“Concerning?” the Duke innocently asked.
Jilseponie gave him a sour look.
“M’lady?” he asked politely, feigning ignorance to the bitter end.
“Your attitude has changed over the winter,” Jilseponie remarked.
“Concerning?” the evasive nobleman asked again.
“Concerning me,” Jilseponie said bluntly. “Ever since your arrival in Palmaris, I have noticed a palpable distance, a chill upon you whenever necessity brings us together.”
“I am a messenger, duty bound to my mission,” Bretherford started to say, but Jilseponie wasn’t going to let him evade the intent of her questions so easily. She was frightened enough by the possibilities that awaited her in Ursal, and she didn’t need any trouble with the man delivering her to Danube!
“You have changed,” she said. “Or at least, your attitude toward me has changed. I do not pretend that we were ever friends, but it seems obvious to me that you greeted me with far more warmth in the past than you do now. So what have I done, Duke Bretherford, to so offend you?”
“Nothing, m’lady,” he answered, but his sour tone when he said her title, the title of a soon-to-be queen, gave her all the answer she needed.
“Nothing more than my accepting the proposal of King Danube,” Jilseponie quickly added.
That set Bretherford back on his heels, and he brought one hand up to stroke his bushy, unkempt gray mustache, a telltale sign, she knew, that she had hit the mark. He walked to the side of the cabin to a small cupboard. He reached in and produced a bottle and a pair of glasses. “Boggle?” he asked.
Normally Jilseponie would have refused, for she had never been much of a drinker. She understood the significance of Bretherford’s actions, though. The man was offering her a chance for a private, person-to-person and not duke-to-queen, conversation.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 83
