Lady Of The Helm (Book 1)

by T. O. Munro

  The little dark haired one spoke first, fierce and furious. “No weapons, not even a kitchen knife. How are we to survive with this?”

  “Relax friend,” the fat one named Jonson answered him. “The weapons are distributed at Eadran’s folly, where the escort leaves us.”

  “I’m not your friend,” came the scornful reply as the speaker bashed his chest with a fist. “Marek Firetongue looks after Marek Firetongue, no more no less.”

  “Firetongue eh?” The blond youth with the bulging biceps laughed. “From what I hear the court thought it was more forked tongue, didn’t do much good looking after yourself there.”

  There was a sudden flurry of movement that Odestus barely caught as Marek lunged forward fists raised but was caught at the shoulders and held back by a ruddy faced companion. The guards around the room had barely time to react or maybe they could not be bothered to intervene in the internal bickering of a group of condemned exiles. The muscled blond was laughing as the newcomer hissed, “hush Marek. Keep your head. If the guards think you are dangerously out of control you’ll be taken to Eadran’s folly trussed up like a chicken and dependent on others to set you free.”

  Either the red faced man’s words or his prior acquaintance with Marek hit home. The angry felon shook himself free of the restraint, but nonetheless lowered his fists and contented himself with giving his baiter a long hard stare. “S’all right Tarbin, I’m not a fool,” he told his florid companion at which the flaxen haired taunter raised a sceptical eyebrow. “I’ll be making a list, mind,” Marek went on. “And when I next get a sword in my hand them as have their names on my list had better watch out.”

  “It’s Mul,” the blond one said to Marek’s surprise. “My name is Mul, spelled m – u – l. I can write it down for you if you’d like, always assuming you can read.”

  “Friends,” Jonson interrupted quickly. “Surely this is no time for fighting. A trial awaits us it is true, but surely we can face it better working together as a team. Twelve against the wilderness is better odds than one against the wilderness and eleven others?”

  “Listen, gutbucket, I kill people,” Marek snorted. “I do it alone and I do it very well and I’m not going to slow myself down with lardarses and imbeciles. Anyone gets in my way and before I’m even halfway done they will be begging the orcs find them.” There was a collective shudder as Marek named the great fear of all who went into exile. “And we all know who’s first on my list don’t we!”

  The group parted along Marek’s line of sight to reveal the hooded and bound figure in the corner. The leather hood was like a kestrel’s encapsulating head and eyes but leaving the woman’s mouth and nose uncovered. Marek stalked up to her, relishing his audience, though Odestus guessed that beneath the bravado lay a fear as deep as his own. “Don’t think anyone will be untying you, you abomination. You’ve seen your last sunset already and soon as I’ve a blade in my hand, yours are the first guts I’m spilling.” He gave his threat a foul punctuation with a phlegmy spit that hit the hood but still ran down her lower cheek and chin, yet the woman did not flinch or make any reply.

  “Hey Marek, she is a woman, after all. I mean, no need to kill her, not immediately anyway,” the burly baker from Marishport broke in. “It might be a while before…”

  Whatever his intention, the fellow feeling he had hoped to engender bounced off the bristling Marek, who rounded on him with scarely less ire than he had granted the hooded lady. “You, baker boy! You ain’t natural, the things you do. Don’t think you and I are walking arm in arm off Eadran’s folly no. It’s people like you that exile is too good for. You and your kind, you really deserve the death penalty.”

  “I think this is a death penalty.” Odestus had spoken without realising it and his soft words drew everyone’s attention, even Marek’s.

  “Lo, the silent one speaks,” fat Jonson said in gentle welcome. “Now mayhap you can tell what strengths you bring to our little group.”

  Odestus looked round at the curious faces. He was a merchant. He’d always been a merchant. His other side had only ever been a hobby. A quite pursuit of forbidden study which his trading trips to more enlightened lands in the East had facilitated. Yet it was the hobby not the profession that had landed him in this sad holding cell a few hours from exile and certain death. It was by the hobby they should know him. He stuck out his chin, tried to still the tremble in his lip and announced, “I am a mage.”

  One or two laughed, a few shrugged dismissively, most turned back immediately to their packs, the mystery that had been Odestus instantly forgotten in its moment of revelation. Even the genial Jonson could not mask his crestfallen expression. “Well, perchance you have talents that may help….”

  “Forget him, Jonson,” the baker commanded. “They’ll have had him stuffed full of mind-numbing juice from the moment they arrested him. He won’t be fit to cast a spell for a week at least and he’ll be long dead by then.”

  Jonson nodded sadly, but still something made him cling to the hope of forming a band of comrades from this unkempt twelve. “When did you last take the potion, my friend?”

  “This morning,” Odestus admitted. He’d quaffed the foul tasting liquid in one gulp, anxious not to be any trouble for the warders who had stood over him. Although the rest of his faculties, not least his strong sense of fear, were unimpaired, that part of his mind in which he had enjoyed twisting the symbols of arcane power was now a porridge of confusion.

  “Ah, right,” Jonson took a quick glance at the disinterested guards and then bent closer to whisper in Odestus’s ear. “Still, I know you fellows have secret ways,you know, keeping a vial of the antidote shoved up your arse?” When Odestus looked blankly back at him, Jonson gave a quick nod for emphasis.

  The guards knew also of those secret ways and Odestus cringed at the memory of the many humiliating intimate searches he had been subjected to. All of them had been quite unnecessary for, as an amateur dabbler in the arcane arts, he had neither the contacts nor the inclination to furnish himself with such extreme precautions. With a gulp he admitted, “I have no antidote.”

  “Oh,” the fat man’s disappointment was complete. He stood for a moment then gave Odestus a sad pat on the shoulder and moved off to smile and ingratiate himself with more worthwhile companions.

  Alone again, Odestus sidled across to the hooded woman. She sat unmoving, Marek’s saliva still staining her cheek for her hands were tied behind her back and she could not bring them to her face. Odestus used his sleeve to wipe away the drool and she flinched at the touch.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’s me.”

  Her mouth twisted into a smile despite their predicament. “Ah, Odestus, I had been wondering if you were here at all. You said nothing for the whole journey.”

  “I was thinking.”

  “For seven days? I thought the threat of imminent exile was supposed to accelerate the thought processes not dullen them.”

  “Listen, we could both soon be dead.”

  “I know that.”

  “Well, I just wanted to remind you. You owe me.”

  She inclined her head and the smile grew a little broader. “Indeed, little wizard, how did you work that one out?”

  “If it weren’t for you, I would not be here at all.”

  “I could say exactly the same thing,” she retorted.

  “I will need protecting on the other side, for at least a week. None of the others will do it, but you could. You could if I freed you.” She said nothing, neither rebutting nor accepting his argument. He took her silence as a good sign and went on. “The thing is I need you to promise, to promise to look after me if I set you free.“

  She smiled again. “Little wizard, what makes you think you have any other choice?”

  Odestus was dragged from the familiar dream of past horror into the mundane present of his command tent. Vesten was shaking him awake with an insistent, “Governor, governor, bad news.”

  Odestus
struggled into discombobulated wakefulness. “What is it? have the Blackskulls and the Redfangs started up again.” The squabbling of the raw recruits was a constant distraction as they struggled to meet the looming deadline, however a pause in his secretary’s agitated shaking showed this was not the cause of his current distress. In that moment’s quiet Odestus’ ear caught no sound of uproar in the camp outside, no guttural oaths or clash of blade on shield. All was as it should be.

  Vesten quickly confirmed this with a shake of his head. “It’s not the orcs sire. It is Nordag.”

  “What’s the big oaf done now?” Odestus pushed himself upright, being careful not to upset the campbed and tip himself onto the floor. There was a limit to the number of cack handed indignities allowed while still maintaining the status of horde commander.

  “He’s died, Governor.”

  Odestus blinked owlishly at Vesten’s narrowed expression. Nordag dead? The ogre was practically indestructible. He’d killed hundreds in the battle at Bledrag field with barely a scratch to show for it. “How?”

  “Assassinated, in his own bedchamber, Governor.”

  Odestus sighed and ran his hand unthinkingly across his head. A few years ago the gesture would have involved combing his fingers through silver grey locks, but while orcs grew more hirsute with age, it appeared wizards grew bald. As he pondered the Nordag question, Odestus reflected that he had come a long way in the last twenty years. Certainly, he had survived and even prospered, after a fashion, where none had expected it. However, the deeply personal and immediate fear he had experienced in that nightmare room in Sturmcairn had been replaced by a far more complex mosaic. The demands of rulership entailed delivering results through others and, as Odestus had once tried to explain to Vesten, it felt like sitting atop a bubbling cauldron constantly adding the ingredients that one hoped would keep the mixture just this side of a catastrophic explosion.

  “What is to be done, Governor?”

  “This is ill-timed. The usual reprisals must suffice, and Galen will have to take the Mayordom for the time being at least.” Odestus scowled as Vesten glanced away, hands slipping one over the other in fearful anxiety. “What is it? Has Galen also fallen victim to this accursed resistance? I would think he had the wit not to be surprised at slumber, at least he does not share Nordag’s tastes in the bedroom.”

  “No, Governor,” Vesten conceded. “But he has been experimenting with the latest spell and I gather …. I understand that…. Er… one of the creatures escaped him.”

  Odestus’s eyes widened in anger. “The bloody fool. The last thing we want now is a general alarm at our backs because the people have seen one of those roaming at large. Has it been recaptured, or destroyed?”

  “No sightings or reports Governor.” Vesten added the hopeful rider, “perhaps it died?”

  “Those things are already dead, Vesten. They can hardly die again. Still mayhap it has fallen somewhere quiet where it can rot into inactivity.” He thumped the bed with his fist, nearly upsetting the delicate framework. “Damn fool necromancer. Send Galen a message. The extension of his temporary tenure as Mayor depends entirely on him keeping his pets under strict control, and crushing those impudent scoundrels who killed his predecessor.”

  “Yes Governor, it shall be done.” Grateful to have instructions to convey, Vesten bowed low and withdrew. Odestus contemplated seeking sleep once more, but thought again of the dreams that awaited him and decided he may as well make an early start to the day.

  ***

  Niarmit swam in easy strokes across the rock pool delighting in its refreshing cleanliness as she threw off the stench and stains of the mission to Woldtag. She rolled onto her front and dived, kicking powerfully to reach the bottom and then, turning, floated upwards ever faster until she broke the surface and drew deep breaths of forest air. The distant, but unfamiliar, cracking of a twig brought no perceptible reaction from her save only a slightly longer pause between breaths. A few more easy breast strokes and then she dived again, deep as before, but this time she tugged herself sideways using the rocks and the weeds at the pool bottom as handholds.

  She finally surfaced in the shadow of an overhanging rock, hidden from the area where the unexpected noise had come. Her lungs cried out for air, but she rationed them to deep infrequent breaths and gradually the pounding in her temple subsided. Kaylan was a hundred yards down the track in the opposite direction, at their pitiful little camp. He knew where she had gone and he would not approach her at her ablutions without first announcing himself. They had a system of agreed bird calls for this and other eventualities. So the noise had to be a stranger, perhaps a random walker in the forest, but Niarmit thought it unlikely. This was a difficult spot to stumble on, but once found a hard one to forget.

  There was another sound, a scrape of nailed boot on rock. The stranger must have broken the forest cover to draw near the edge of the pool. He was close, standing on the rock beneath which Niarmit now sheltered. The low morning sun flung his shadow across the still water and Niarmit eyed it carefully. The proportions of head and body suggested human sized at least and as he turned this way and that scanning the surface for a sign of her, she saw no evidence of the squashed and distorted features of an orc. However, there was the long thin shadow of a scabbard stretching down from his waist. An armed human who chose not to announce himself? To some eyes Niarmit, weaponless, naked and stuck in the pool might appear to be at a disadvantage. However, as her father had often told her, in battle knowledge was power. Niarmit knew where the newcomer was, while he had no idea where she was.

  She upended herself and pushed powerfully silently against the rock ceiling with her legs plunging deep into the pool. Then turning she drove off equally powerfully from the pool bottom, accelerating herself upwards with strong strokes whose ripples would only reach the surface after she herself had emerged. She shot from the water right by the stranger’s feet. One hand grasped the rock, the other his ankle and with a jerk on one hand and a yank on the other she had tossed him splashing and spluttering into the water, while herself emerging smoothly onto the rock ledge he had just involuntarily vacated.

  She crossed quickly to the small pile of clothing and weaponry which she had stashed beneath a bush. Seizing her sword she checked the forest cover for any evidence that he was accompanied.

  “Niarmit,” came a cry from the thrashing swimmer behind her.

  She turned quickly to face the pool, the point of her weapon aimed at her erstwhile stalker as he struggled to tread water, sodden blond hair plastered to his skull. Even though his face was angled back to keep his nose and lips just above water, sudden recognition drew a startled exclamation from her lips. “It’s you!”

  ***

  Udecht drew on all his strength as he intoned, once again, the familiar invocation. “Sanaret servum tuum carus dea.” Beads of perspiration broke on his brow. This was the fourth time in as many hours that he had returned to heal his long lost brother and each effort had left him gasping for breath drained beyond all previous experience. Yet he was gratified to see the folorn figure show signs of improvement. His breathing had eased, his sleep grew more restful and his features had even seemed to fill out a little, his cheeks losing their cadaverous hollows. There was nothing to be done for the missing finger, but the incipient ravages of frost bite had been stalled and Udecht was at last satisfied with his work. He brushed his hand across his sleeping brother’s forehead. “Rest easy,” he urged.

  Udecht jumped as Xander’s eyes flicked open. They scanned to left and right and then, with lucid clarity, he spoke. “Udecht? Little brother, is it really you?”

  The Bishop’s smile was choked with happy tears. “Yes, dear Xander, it is I.”

  “You’ve changed,” Xander noted. “I don’t remember you having quite such a belly before.”

  “You’ve changed too, brother, though in something of the opposite direction.”

  “Where am I?”

  “The sacristy at Sturmcai
rn. I’m afraid our Nephew is something of a stickler, he insisted you be kept securely until he had an acceptable account of your movements. “

  Xander sniffed and eased himself upright. “He was always a precocious little turd, even as a child. Ever quick to give us orders eh?” Xander grinned conspiratorily.

  Udecht’s finger flew to his mouth. “Thren has had guards posted, brother. They should not be able to overhear us, but it might be wise to speak softly of our nephew’s limitations.”

  Xander nodded in understanding and licked his lips. “I’m powerful thirsty, if this is the sacristy I don’t suppose you’d have any goddess day mead to hand?”

  “Of course.” Udecht hastened to unlock an ornate cabinet and take out a ceremonial cup and a gilt edged decanter. “I think the goddess will forgive a little break with ritual on an occasion such as this.”

  Xander took a deep draught from the proferred cup and gave a satisfied belch. “Aye, I’ve not tasted something so good in…..” He hesitated and turned his face away from Udecht’s curious stare.

  The Bishop trod carefully into the silence that followed. “Thren has it in mind to let you rest overnight, recover your strength and then question you tomorrow.”

  “Considerate little shit isn’t he,” Xander observed, draining the rest of the amber liquid.

  “Perhaps,” Udecht ventured. “Perhaps you could share a little of the story ahead of times. Nothing that distresses you of course but I am….”

  “Curious?” Xander filled in. “You hurried to heal me. Four times I felt you tried and just so as to get the drop on the tin pot castellan eh?” As Udecht squirmed, Xander grinned. “I’ll trade, little brother. You tell me how things have passed with our house and I will tell you where I have been and what has happened, in so far as I can remember any of it.”

  Udecht greedily accepted the offer and then composed his features for the delivery of bad news. “I have to say, our father is dead.”