by T. O. Munro
Niarmit saw a deep reproach in the blank expression that Kaylan afforded her. “I would not kill them,” she said defiantly. “Even if they were collaborators, they are people of Undersalve not orcs to be slaughtered.”
A fresh gust of wind brought guttural whoops and cries embedded with the animal snarls. “Well, my Lady, there’s orcs a plenty behind us now,” the thief reflected stoically. “Doubtless been untying those collaborators and asking who stole their horses.”
“We must outrun them.” She gathered her reins, ready to set thought to deed but Kaylan was shaking his head.
“Horses will never outrun wolf riders, not on this ground.”
“Then we must fight.”
“I, not we, my Lady. Yours was always a greater destiny than mine. You must fly, go on claim it. I will hold them here a while.”
“Don’t be a fool Kaylan,” she snapped at his cloying offer of sacrifice. “We do this together, side by side.”
He seemed ready to argue, but then shrugged agreement as another airborne howl heralded the imminent arrival of their pursuers around the last turn of the pass some three hundred yards below. Drawing a sword to gesture up the path he suggested, “the trail narrows there, my Lady. Two stood side by side could make a decent stand.”
“Agreed.” She urged her horse to motion. Kaylan drew up behind her and then suddenly with a great shout, hit the Princess’s animal on the rump with the flat of his sword. The mare reared up at this insult, nostrils flaring as it also caught the scent of the approaching great wolves. With another blow the horse was on its way, galloping pell mell up the pass as Niarmit clung helplessly to its neck, struggling with the twin aims of soothing the charging beast and directing its frantic flight so neither of them should stumble over the precipitous edge to the trail.
When, at last she could spare a backward glance she could see Kaylan hurling at an equally furious pace down the pass just as the first of their pursuers rounded the distant outcrop of rock. The thief and his mount hurled into the head of the irregular column of wolf-riding orcs. One, no two were knocked over the edge of the pass by the unexpected counter-strike, but then Kaylan’s horse was down and a dismounted orc had somehow got on the other side of the unhorsed thief, drawing an ugly looking sword to plunge into the snarling growling fray which surrounded her most faithful companion.
“You fool, Kaylan, you bloody fool,” Niarmit cried into the sweating mane of her still panicked horse.
***
Vesten liked working for the Governor. In times that were in so many ways inhuman, Odestus treated his secretary with exceptional consideration, a favour the pale faced administrator repaid through his impeccable discretion. He told no-one of the nausea his master experienced at the grotesque public executions which passed for orcish entertainment. He understood the portly mage’s appointments of brutal middle men, like Galen and Nordag. Creatures to whom the Governor could entirely delegate the bone breaking nail pulling realities of rulership in post-Bledrag Undersalve. Vesten knew his master’s public shows of rage were carefully orchestrated charades to keep his underlings uncertain of his favour and therefore of their own livelihoods. Moments of real anger were rare and yet, this was one such moment and for the first time Vesten felt that frisson of threat which Odestus’s play acting usually reserved for orcs and collaborators.
“How many can we put in the field, now?” the Governor demanded as he paced along the tent.
“Twelve thousand orcs, five thousand nomads at this point. In a week’s time we will be fully prepared as planned…”
“We don’t have a week. Our Master’s plans, our plans, have changed.” Odestus stormed. “We break camp in twelve hours.”
“Twelve hours…” Vesten’s jaw dropped. “What of the wolf-riders? Two brigades are on detachment hunting down Nordag’s killers.”
“Recall them. Galen will have to trust to his own resources. I need all the cavalry I can muster, they can rendez-vous with us in two days at the confluence of the River Nevers and the Saeth.”
“What is our objective, Governor?”
Odestus looked up sharply at the unnecessary question. “We march from here to where the Nevers meets the Saeth, where do you think we would be headed Vesten?”
The secretary stroked his thin wispy beard nervously. “That would take us towards the Lord Feyril’s domain in Hershwood.”
Odestus have a quick grim nod. “Hershwood, it was always going to be Hershwood. We have unfinished business with Lord Feyril from Bledrag field.”
“Orcs’ blood though, Governor,” Vesten could not hide his fear. “Attacking elves, in their own forests?”
“Let us hope it is more elves’ blood than orcs’ blood, Vesten. And that our Master’s other plans run more smoothly than they have so far.”
***
Kaylan was in the midst of the orcs. His initial charge had sent two of them tumbling to their doom but now he was on foot, his short sword a meagre weapon in the face of snarling long toothed opponents of both lupine and orcish varieties. A wolf’s snout darted towards him, he dodged right and thrust his blade up through the creature’s snout. It gave an earsplitting howl of pain and a jerk of its head as it all but wrenched the blade from his grip. Kaylan ducked as a club whistled past his ear, for the moment his light armour and lightning reflexes were keeping him safe, but with his assailants crowding in on him, his slim advantage of speed was being nullified. He parried one blow but then a club connected with his knee and he collapsed flashing his sword across an orcish ankle as he fell. Biting his tongue against the pain he rolled on to his back to face the foul stink of rotting meat presaging the leap of a wolf towards him, its jaws wide, ready to clamp around his throat.
There was a sudden howl from an animal he had not struck, a cry of orcish alarm. Kaylan got his leather clad arm up to block the animal at his throat, but its teeth fastened on his wrist, sinking through the hardboiled leather as though it were softest silk. Kaylan bellowed his own pain as the animal’s teeth met between the bones of his wrist. Above him, through eyes reddened with agony he saw an orc swinging a club towards his lightly helmed head. There were more orcish shouts and other voices too, deep sonorous voices that awakened in Kaylan memories of childhood visits to markets to learn the art of pickpocketing. Then the club connected with his head.
***
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so beautiful,” the elf lady said. “It is as though the Goddess is mocking us.”
“How so, Illana?” Her husband gently enquired. His wife was tall, but the Elf lord was taller still, his dark skin was uncreased by age. Only the steel grey beard and hair, both trimmed in a bygone style, bore testament to his venerable status even within his long lived kind. Nonetheless, he moved with the fluid ease of youth to pull his wife towards him and meet her troubled gaze with his own soft grey eyes.
“You know my Lord, what peril we face. The greatest in a millennium, and yet when we have so much to lose. The Goddess makes the very leaves sing her praises.”
The elf Lord held her close against him as they both looked around the clearing at the rich spectrum of autumn colours, the reds and purples, coppers and golds and a dozen shades between with which the trees had decorated themselves.
“Methinks, Illana, the Goddess intends only to remind us what it is we will be fighting for. Nature’s beauty beyond compare.”
Their reflections were broken by the arrival of an elf captain in shimmering chainmail. “My Lord Feyril, my Lady Illana, all is ready.”
“Give us a moment more, Captain Findil,” the old elf commanded. The Captain bowed low and withdrew along the narrow forest path whence he came.
Illana watched him go with a frown. “I see in young Findil an eagerness for the fight, my Lord. He should have more sense of what he … what we all have to face.”
“He has but five hundred Summers, my love. That youthful ignorance may yet be his shield. He knows of Maelgrum only through tales he has been told and the
y can never touch the reality we both faced long years ago. Besides, we have grown strong in the Dark One’s absence. He shall not find us unprepared for his return.”
“Aye, my Lord, mind our numbers grow so slowly. A day on a battle field can wipe out those whom it took two centuries of the Goddess’s favour to nurture.”
He tilted her face towards his. “It is our destiny Illana, that which is dead cannot be killed, so ‘twas always chance we might fight Maelgrum again. The Goddess spared us that trial in the time of Chirard’s madness. Let us not now begrudge the fact that we must take up arms again.” He raised his voice to call towards the trees. “A moment longer, Captain Findil!” The faintest rustle, inaudible to all but elvish ears, signalled the unseen Captain’s shamefaced withdrawal.
“I said he was eager.”
“And he is right, I must be on my way.”
“King Gregor will have need of good counsel and strong spears in these dark times. I hope he heeds your advice.”
Feyril nodded, “he must be persuaded. Since Maelgrum fell, there is magic in this world of which the Dark One knows nothing. Therein lies our only hope to surprise and defeat him.”
They stood a moment longer in silence, drinking deeply of each other’s company, savouring the last few seconds before parting.
“You must go,” she said, pushing him gently away.
“The little wizard will come, my love, you know that.”
“And I will be ready for him.”
“I could leave you a thousand more spears, some archers too,” he suggested with an anxiety made urgent as the moment of separation arrived.
She shook her head. “I will make do with what I have, my Lord. You and Gregor face the greater peril. Take that force we agreed.”
He drew her face towards his. Their lips met in a long last kiss, and then he was gone, striding from the clearing to the impatient Captain Findil.
***
Niarmit stood at the crest of the pass, gazing down for a pursuit that never came. Her horse stood sweating at her side, still winded from its panicked flight up the twisting trail. From this height one could glimpse through the clouds the still green fields of Undersalve, the enslavement of its people hidden in the unrelenting fertility of its land. Eighteen years earlier she had sat astride her father’s great grey horse at another pass gazing on a land of promise and opportunity.
Just five years old she’d been, fresh from the great court that had settled the fate of the vacant principality of Undersalve. Her father the newly anointed Prince, plucked from worthy obscurity en route to retirement, had bristled with pride at his elevation. Without waiting even for the others of their household to join them, father and daughter had taken a small escort and ridden night and day to their new domain.
Where had all that promise gone? Davyn’s words came back to her. ‘My father is no fool, not like yours was. You know they say that’s the only reason why old King Bulveld let him have this province, that in his madness he somehow knew it was past saving. Why else would he trust it to a hack of an old general rather than his own son.’
Had that been it? Was it always doomed? How could Bulveld have known what would befall the southern province, or had the Goddess told him? Niarmit looked suddenly up at the sky where dark clouds already gathered. “Was that it, my Goddess, a cruel trick you played on all of us, on my father, on me, on poor foolish Kaylan. Did you set us so high just to make our fall more amusing? How can you be good that let’s such evil prosper?”
She was screaming now, loud enough to scare the horse, but years of grief and disappointment fuelled her cries. “Was it your whim to crush my father so? or that every man, woman or child I ever loved should follow him to the grave? Did it please you to see my every effort unravelled, my every blow against the enemy rebounding with twice the force upon myself, my friends. Loyal have I been in your service, loyally have I served my province. I see it now, a fruitless waste.”
She seized the crescent medallion from around her neck, pulled sharply till the gold chain snapped, not caring that it first bit deeply into her neck. “Hear me now, Goddess, I abandon you, I deny you as you have denied and abandoned me.” With that she flung the shining symbol way over the edge of the path, watching it spinning downwards, bouncing off rock and stone. Despite her bravado she still waited, half ready to jump should some bolt of lightning or other sign of her deity’s ire strike at her impudence. But none came, and that in itself, seemed to be the final confirmation of divine indifference.
Wearily Niarmit remounted and set her horse on the path down the Hadrans towards the grey lands claimed by Prince Rugan of Medyr Salve. No longer princess or priestess, she would make her way now as one of Kaylan’s kind, living off her wits unnoticed by anyone, least of all those fools she separated from their gold.
Part Two
Hepdida shivered despite the blazing sconces in the castle passageways. Somewhere beneath the surface a bubble of hysteria was threatening to burst. A few hours had transformed her from servant girl in the strongest fortress in the realm to an orphaned prisoner in a castle overrun by orcs, outlanders and something so terrible that she and the other captives had been locked in the western barracks lest they catch a glimpse of it. Last night she had gone to bed hopeful of another dream where the bold Captain Kimbolt would take her in his arms. This evening she had not dared shut her eyes, for fear she would not wake up at all. The grim adrenalin fuelled business of minute by minute, second by second survival was the only thing keeping hysterical shock at bay.
The present circumstances plumbed new depths of anxiety. She’d been separated from the small band of surviving captives by the fearsome orc who had slain her parents. He pushed and prodded her along corridors once familiar but now creatured more than peopled with the brutal new overlords of Sturmcairn. The orcs they passed were of slighter build than her escort and bobbed in deference to him. The outlander humans too avoided both chief Grundurg’s eyes and Hepdida’s frantic pleading for assistance.
“Where are you taking me?” The previous seven such entreaties had gone unanswered and this last request got no more response than a grunt and a shove from the orc.
A few more twists and turns brought them to a heavy wooden door and, with a jerk of his scaly green fist, Grundurg indicated that Hepdida should go through it.
“No.” Fear made her bold. “No, tell me where you’re taking me. Why am I here?”
Grundurg was unmoved. He grabbed her painfully by the upper arm, kicked the door open with a heavy boot and flung her into the room with such force that she stumbled and fell headlong onto the stone floor.
“Do you always make such an entrance?” A woman’s voice made a cool rhetorical enquiry. Hepdida looked up at the lady, hooded and masked as at their last encounter but without the blood stained sword in her hand. She scrabbled to her feet as Grundurg, having followed her in, shut the door behind him.
“Why am I here?” Hepdida repeated.
“To play a part in a lesson,” was the unilluminating reply as the hooded Medusa gave Grundurg a nod of instruction.
The orc disappeared into a side chamber and returned with a bound and struggling form. “Captain Kimbolt!” the exigencies of the situation could neither stifle Hepdida’s joy nor soften the formality of her address.
“Hepdida!” Kimbolt gasped. “Has this animal harmed you?”
“How touching,” Dema observed. “But let us to business first. Grundurg.”
The big orc crossed the room in a couple of strides and grabbed Hepdida round the waist lifting her clear of the floor. She kicked and screamed. Kimbolt rose to his feet and, despite his hands tied behind his back, tried to charge across the room. Dema kicked out with lazy ease, knocking the captain to the ground.
“Put her down, you monster,” Kimbolt ordered from the floor as Hepdida swayed and struggled in the orc chieftain’s grasp.
“Now, girl, my advice is to stop wriggling so. Grundurg is quite skilled with his little knife, but
you wouldn’t want to knock his hand with all that fittering about.”
Hepdida was abruptly still. While the orc held her easily with one arm, his free hand held a jagged edged blade a fraction of an inch from her cheek.
“What do you want?” Kimbolt spat a demand.
“I want you as my slave. I have paid a high enough price for it.” She touched her cheek, where the frozen blow of Malegrum’s hand had left a white scaled scar. “From my slaves I demand obedience. Now, this girl, she is your lover, yes?”
The Captain’s lips worked in some confusion as he sought a safe answer. “She is nothing to me.”
Dema raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. Then let the lesson begin.”
Hepdida shivered. It was a plan, it was all part of a plan, she had to be strong. The knife was stroking her cheek now, lightly, not breaking the skin, but still the tears came unbidden.
“Do you know Grundurg’s special trick? It gets quite an audience whenever there’s a suitable prisoner. He can remove a creature’s entire skin without killing them.” She shrugged, “though to be honest, the subjects don’t survive very long afterwards, no more than a day say!”
Hepdida gave a sob; Kimbolt squirmed into a seated position only for Dema to kick him down again before resuming her commentary. “Usually we have a crowd for his showcases, thousands of orcs gathered around a pit, but here Captain you have a prized ringside seat.”
“You’re sick. You and your foul pet.”
Grundurg’s knife had been working closer now, breaking the surface and drawing a thin bead of red as the shallow cut drew blood. He gave a surly growl at Kimbolt’s choice of epithet and drew the knife more sharply across the girl’s shoulder making her yelp with pain.
“Please,” she gave up. Whatever the plan was, she couldn’t do it. Enough. “Please, make it stop!”
