by Mark Acres
“Her you can march in as a prisoner,” Marta said. “What about me?”
“You’re the witness wot saw ‘er spyin’ on the army ‘afor the battle at Clairton,” George said, smiling broadly. “Come to tell ‘is Majesty wot you saw.”
Marta nodded. Anticipating the new environment of the city, she had already toned down her customary costume; she no longer wore armor or carried a visible weapon. Instead, she dressed like a common peasant woman in a coarse, brown, full-length tunic, tied around the waist with a bit of rope. She still wore good boots, though, and had a dagger secreted in the right one. The remainder of her belongings were tied in a large bundle strapped to her back.
“Awright, let’s go,” George said.
The threesome again made their way onto the roadway. George led them at a smart pace straight up to the gate, pushing Shulana in the back from time to time, causing her to stumble forward. It was the effect he desired.
“Who goes there?” one of the slothful guards challenged as the group came into clear sight, heading directly for the gate. The man stepped forward to meet the party, his arm extended in the gesture meaning “halt.” George noticed he didn’t bother to draw his sword, and the rest of the men continued their conversation, not even reaching for their pikes.
“George, miller’s son, of the Fifth Legion, with a prisoner for the royal dungeon and the royal court,” George answered smartly.
“Prisoner?” the guard said, stepping up to George and looking curiously at Shulana, who averted her eyes from the man’s gaze.
“Elf. Caught spying on the main army at the battle of Clairton. I’ve got orders to deliver her personal to the main dungeons ‘ere, and see she’s questioned proper,” George explained.
The guard nodded. An elf prisoner. Well, the officers ought to like that, he thought. The man turned his gaze briefly to Marta. “No camp followers, though,” he said. “Orders is orders.”
“Ain’t no camp follower,” George protested. “She’s a witness. She’s the one wot caught this ‘ere elf in the act. Come to tell about it, she ‘as.”
“Well…” the guard mused.
“And,” George added, leaning forward to convey a confidence, “she’s a great one for sportin’ wit’, if you know wot I mean. Help an old soldier wot’s earned ‘imself a reward stay a bit more comfortable on a warm summer night.” George poked the man gently in the ribs.
“Alright, alright,” he relented “Pass.”
By similar means, the threesome continued through the inner gate at the fortress wall. There, the captain of the guard, more smartly alert than the fellows at the outer gate, detailed one of his men to escort the group directly to the dungeons so the elf could be put safely under lock and key. “Take them to the lower dungeon in the east wing, where they keep that other old elf,” he instructed. Watching the group depart into the bowels of the palace, the captain had a second thought. “Go inform His Majesty,” he told another man, “that an elf spy has been captured at the front and is now being placed in the lower dungeon near the other elf prisoner.”
George, Marta, and Shulana were afforded only the briefest glimpse of the entry hall to the great central section of the palace, the official quarters of the king. What little George saw rekindled his smoldering anger. The hall was paneled with dark hardwoods; the amount of the wood used to make the walls would cost a whole village’s annual earnings. Over these wooden walls were hung tapestries whose threads of crimson, azure, gold, and silver gleamed in the light of great crystal chandeliers, ablaze with countless candles. There were rare furnishings—small tables, chairs, and settees, anyone of which would be worth a thief’s life for six months. Everywhere there was an air of opulent decadence such as George had never before encountered.
“King lives well,” George commented to their guard and guide.
“Hunh,” the stout, slightly flabby man snorted. “Ain’t nothin’. You should see the rest of the place.” The man turned immediately to the right outside the entrance to the hall and led them down a narrow corridor of stone lighted by torches in wall sconces. “But,” he added, “them parts of this place ain’t for the likes of you and me.” The man stopped before an iron-banded, wooden door, fumbled with a jingling ring of black, iron keys, and finally got the door open. “Down ‘ere’s where we go,” he joked.
The group made its way down a narrow, winding, stone staircase. Shulana noticed that the stone steps were well worn, with smooth depressions in their centers. They descended for five full revolutions before coming to another locked door. Again the guard fumbled with his keys, before ushering the group into a narrow corridor, the walls of which were made of cut stone. The sconces were less frequent here, and there was a slight chill of damp in the air. There were more corridors, more doors, more stairs.
“A fellow could get ‘imself lost down ‘ere,” George commented to the guard.
“Aye, if he don’t know it well,” the man answered. “Part of the plan, I reckon, Once in a great while someone gets loose down here. But I ain’t never heard of no one makin’ it out.”
“Only a fool would test the strength of the garrison in this maze,” Shulana said, the first time she had spoken since entering the palace grounds.
“Shut up, you scum!” the guard barked, shoving Shulana’s head savagely against the stone wall. “Prisoners don’t speak.”
“Careful!” George interjected, wrapping an arm around the elf as she began to sag to the floor, stunned by the force of the double blow to her head. “If you damage me goods, I may not get me full reward.” The elf had courage, George thought to himself. He realized she was telling him not to worry about memorizing the maze—she had some other plan in mind for getting them out. That was good, George thought. He certainly hadn’t seen any way for them to get away from this place.
“Hunh!” the guard was saying. “Awful protective of that little thing, ain’t you? Is she good for a bit of sport, too?” he grunted.
“Not after your lot gets done wit’ ‘er,” George jested back.
“Hunh,” came the reply. The man stopped in front of yet another narrow, locked door, selected the key, then opened it. “Through here,” he said, throwing the door open.
The smell hit all three of them at once—a damp, fetid smell, mixed with the pungent, sharp-but-sweet odor of rotting flesh and slowly decaying dried blood. Only Shulana detected an underlying odor of something green and living, even in that environment of death—the smell of damp moss growing in the cracks between the stones in the floor.
“This here is where we keep the instruments,” the guard explained. He grabbed a torch from the nearest sconce and bounced into the room, lighting the wall tapers as he chattered merrily. “There’s the rack,” he said, pointing to a large wooden table equipped with iron cuffs for the feet and hands and surrounded by a complex series of iron chains and wooden cogs. The man lit another taper. “This here is the prisoner’s wife,” he said, pointing to an upright chest that was rather like a sarcophagus, with a vaguely feminine shape. It stood open, and from the interior of both the top and bottom iron spikes protruded in abundance. The guard went on to illuminate the rest of the large room. There was a large fireplace, with rows of knives, spears, pokers, and brands neatly arrayed nearby. A wooden chair sat off in an open space, equipped with a thumbscrew. Large iron buckets were scattered about the floor, some filled with water, some with foul waste.
“We hear many a fine song in here, you might imagine!” the guard said. “There’s a wheel, too—right through that door,” he added, gesturing to one of the three exits from the room.
“Impressive,” George played along.
“Yes, but where do they keep the elf prisoners?” Marta whined. “I’m tired,” she clamped a firm hand on George’s shoulder, “and I need something to eat and some sleep. And you promised me I could see any other elf prisoners.” The fat woman contorted h
er face into a pathetic pout.
“Alright, alright,” the guard said, answering George’s unspoken plea. “We keep that other elf right through this door,” he said, fumbling again with his key ring. “The old wizard, Valdaimon, is mostly in charge of him. He keeps him here so we don’t have to take him very far when we want to hear him sing,” the man said, chuckling.
George glanced at Shulana, who nodded in the affirmative,
“No you don’t,” Marta said aloud. “This one is mine.”
“What?” the guard said, turning from the door where he had just inserted the proper key.
Marta rushed up to the man, grabbing him around the waist from behind. “You’re so cute and funny,” she said, “I want to give you a little hug!”
Marta lifted the man off his feet and, against his laughing protests, carried him back across the room.
“Hey, now, I thought you was with him,” the man said. “C’mon, put me down, and we can work something out.”
“First, you’re going to get your hug,” Marta protested, releasing the man, spinning him around, and slamming him backside first into the bottom of the prisoner’s wife.
“Aaawwk!” was the only sound the stunned man could manage as the iron spikes dug into his flesh. Blood spurted from a dozen wounds, and the man flapped his still free arms, trying to grasp the edges of the device to gain leverage to pull himself off the points.
“No, no, stay still,” Marta scolded, deadly fire in her eyes. “Here comes your hug.”
Marta slammed shut the lid, then threw the full weight of her body against it, pressing hard. Stifled wet sounds came from within, then silence. A pool of blood slowly formed as the red fluid trickled through the crack in the bottom of the device.
“Let’s go,” Marta said.
Shulana had already unbound her wrists and sprung to the doorway. She flipped the key in the lock and pulled open the door. There, in the darkness, cruciform in manacles and hanging against the far wall, was the frail, horribly thin, white-haired form of Elrond, leader of the Elven Council and the oldest member of his race. His face was pressed flat against the cold, wet stone, and his pale eyes were rolled upward so that only the whites were showing.
George peered into the chamber over the stooped Shulana. He could see little in the darkness and motioned for Marta to bring a torch. As his eyes adjusted, aided by the sputtering light Marta held above the threesome, George shook his head.
“We’re too late,” he said. “‘E’s dead.”
“No,” Shulana said very softly. “He is listening to something—something very far away.”
Culdus stifled a groan as the servants lugged into the throne room a table that the general immediately recognized as his own large worktable, for it was covered with his campaign maps and blocks of wood he used to mark the positions of his legions on the maps. If these idiots had disturbed his papers....
“I wanted to show you this on your own maps, Culdus,” Ruprecht enthused. “I’ve figured it all out completely. You will be amazed.”
Culdus again exchanged glances with Valdaimon as the servants arranged the table and brought heavy wooden chairs for the king and his two highest servants.
“Sit, sit!” Ruprecht commanded, his dark eyes ablaze with the excitement that he usually reserved for moments of lust or torture. There was a different lust burning in that decadent brain now, Culdus thought. What was it?
“Go!” the king ordered the servants. What he had to say was for the ears of Valdaimon and Culdus alone.
The youth crawled up with his knees in the seat of the chair, his body perched forward on the table. “Look,” he said. “Here is a map of the entire area of our current campaign.”
Culdus hardly needed to look—that map was emblazoned in his memory. The long, east-to-west expanse of Heilesheim in the south, its border, the River Rigel, separating it from the patchwork of states called the Duchies and from Dunsford to the immediate north. Farther north was Argolia, and beyond that, the southern border of Parona, the great power of the north. In the far east, beyond Heilesheim’s own eastern desert where the city of Laga marked the farthest extent of civilization, the great Eastern Mountains rose, running northward the length of the known world. Those same mountains formed the eastern border of Parona and then turned to the west, forming its northern border as well.
Another great river, the Pregel, ran southwest from the northern mountains. Tucked against the south side of that river was the Elven Preserve, a long, narrow stretch of woodlands where the remaining elves of the world lived, protected by the Covenant that had ended the horrid wars between them and humankind. On its western and southern sides, the Elven Preserve bordered the occupied lands of Argolia and the Duchies.
Wooden blocks, carefully arranged by the king, showed the current positions of the Heilesheim army’s ten legions. Six were in Argolia, all within two days’ march of the northern border of that land, ready for rapid concentration against Parona, the next target in the plan of conquest. Two of the other four were currently involved in sieges against fortifications along the Rigel, strongpoints of the already doomed resistance. Two more were now scattered to the winds, occupied in garrison duties. These the king had indicated as being present in Dunsford—as good a representation as any, since the land route through Dunsford was the vital supply and communications artery of the entire army.
“Here,” Ruprecht said proudly, “are the present locations of our troops. Is this accurate, Culdus?” The eager young face turned up from the table.
Culdus stared at the narrow head, the sharp, aquiline nose, the thin chin, the greasy, tangled locks of curly, black hair that spilled down the king’s neck. Why, he wondered, was he giving his genius, perhaps the greatest military genius in a millennium, to this whelp who was in the thrall of Valdaimon?
“Accurate enough, Your Majesty,” the general replied.
“And as any fool can see, we are poised like a dagger near the southern border of Parona. Yet we are dispersed just enough to keep the enemy wondering where the blow will fall,” the king lectured.
“We are not yet at war with Parona,” Valdaimon reminded the king. “The schedule prepared by Baron Culdus—”
“Is not being met,” the king said shortly. “The invasion of Parona should have begun a week ago, and we are behind, behind, behind!”
“As I have earlier tonight attempted to explain to Your Majesty,” Culdus began, seeing an opening, “the failure of the League of the Black Wing to....”
“No matter,” the king snapped, cutting him off. “We are not going to invade Parona.”
“But Majesty!” thundered Culdus, “Never has there been such an opportunity for Heilesheim’s arms! We have swept the center of the world—only the northlands remain! With time to organize our rear areas, we can yet....”
“Truly, Culdus is correct, Majesty,” Valdaimon cut in. “War with Parona is inevitable, and it could never come at a better time than....”
“Then after the conquest of the Elves!” the king shouted, leaping to his feet on the tabletop, sending the carefully arranged wooden blocks flying.
Valdaimon and Culdus stared dumbly at the king.
“It is our will,” the wastrel monarch began. “No. It is our order, Lord Culdus, that you prepare the army for a movement against the Elven Preserve. We will attack first from the southwest, the narrow end of the Preserve nearest us. We will march north and east, clearing their forest world as we go, and then larger forces, now deployed in Argolia, will invade from the flank, crushing the remaining elven resistance. In the meantime, those troops will play the great role of guarding our invasion against any interference from Parona, or the few bands of rebels still roaming about in Argolia.”
Valdaimon was the first to break the awkward silence that followed the king’s outburst. The old wizard spread his thin, long, yellowing fingers flat aga
inst the smooth surface of the map, stroking it gently. “Your Majesty has obviously given this great thought,” he said. “But not even I had an idea that Your Majesty intended to renew the wars against the elves, which proved so... difficult to our ancestors.”
“See, see!” the king jubilated. “Even Valdaimon is surprised! Isn’t that grand, Culdus! Even the very father of cunning and intrigue is surprised. The whole world will be stunned by our boldness!”
“I confess that I, too, am quite surprised,” Culdus said. “Pray confide to me Your Majesty’s reasons for wishing to delay war with Parona while fighting the elves—who are not part of the Holy Alliance and have thus far maintained their neutrality in all human struggles.”
Ruprecht leapt from the tabletop to the floor. He spun around to face Culdus, a smirk on his face. “Because,” he said, “I don’t like elves.” The young ruler’s face was alight with a broad smile. His voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. “What greater proof of our absolute power could there be,” the king demanded, placing a hand on Culdus’s mighty forearm and stooping to gaze earnestly into the old general’s eyes, “than the extermination of an entire race merely to satisfy Our royal whim? We shall be thought of as a god!”
You shall be thought of as a demon, and a damnably stupid one at that, Culdus thought.
