Lady Of The Helm (Book 1)

by T. O. Munro

  For a moment Odestus had wavered. Marek would be on them in a matter of seconds. He had not the time to untie her now, not now he had seen the tangle of rope that bound her. Maybe he should stand aside, throw himself on Marek’s mercy and let the murderer kill his accidental creation.

  “Odestus, what’s he doing?”

  The moment passed. Marek was not merciful and Odestus knew his blood would join the Medusa’s in a matter of seconds. He threw himself at the ropes with renewed vigour, hoping for some kind of miracle.

  “Odestus?!”

  “He’s getting closer.”

  “How close?”

  The cut-throat answered the question himself with a yell from a few yards away. “Prepare to die you abomination!”

  “The hood, Odestus. Forget my hands. Get the hood!”

  The wizard had recognised their last chance a fraction of a second before Dema. His hands flew upwards seizing the leather hood, modelled on one that a kestrel might wear. He pulled at it, practically swinging from it as the straps dug into Dema’s chin and throat.

  Marek was but a sword’s length away, the weapon raised above his shoulder for the first and final blow.

  It never came. One strap broke, the hood slipped and Dema gazed with half of one eye into the face of her assailant. That sparkling stony gaze drilled into the murderer’s eyes. In less than a second, though it felt a lot longer, the wave of petrification had spread over his entire body.

  The others, who had followed Marek’s charge down the hill, hung back warily. Anxious not to share Marek’s fate and yet certain they could not leave so dangerous a foe alive. Still bound and only half unmasked this had to be the most vulnerable they would ever see her. They circled round. “Jonson, get behind her.”

  Dema swivelled, her one good eye seeking out the voice’s owner. However, he was already looking away. “It’s ok,” another voice cried. “She’s looking at Tarbin, close in.”

  “Keep your eye on the wizard. Keep looking at him. They’re sticking together.”

  It was all sound advice and Odestus felt despair. “The hood, little wizard. Get the rest of this infernal hood off!”

  Running footsteps approached. Dema swung and swayed and a mace whistled harmlessly past her face. The owner had not dared take careful aim once her head had turned in his direction. Odestus scrabbled at the last strap, cursing his uselessly blunt chewed finger nails. The mace wielding baker swung round wildly, back hand, his eyes firmly shut. Dema leaned and kicked and dumped him on his backside but, for the moment, that was the worst she could do.

  Two more were coming in now. Orwen knew their eyes would be on him, their aim, too probably. At last the hood came free and Dema drew up to her full height. The sleeping snakes writhed into wakefulness in the sunlight. Hissing and spitting as Jonson swung with a broad sword. The tip caught Dema’s shoulder but, as the fat man followed through, gaze firmly averted he had no way to duck the fast striking serpent’s head.

  The fat man had barely time to cry out before the poison took hold, sent his body rigid, the sword tumbling from numbed fingers. The eyes, for the moment still seeing, but paralysed. The other attacker drew off. The Medusa’s gaze they had just about come to terms with but the snakes were an added risk which called for a tactical rethink.

  “Get the sword. Cut me free.” Dema commanded. Odestus did as he was bid, sliding the unwieldy blade through the ropes that bound her, levering at it clumsily in a way that cut almost as much flesh as rope, but Dema made no complaint. The remainder of their fellow outlanders were coming on in a rush as the last strand fell free. Dema’s hands swung apart, seizing the sword from Odestus’ feeble grip and slicing in one vicious move across the belly of the first attacker. The baker grunted and dropped the mace. Falling unhappily to his knees, he struggled to fold his arms across the gaping wound, trying to restrain parts of his anatomy that were making an unpleasant bid for freedom.

  Dema had taken a step back, standing over the quivering form of Odestus who had instinctively fallen into a crouch at her feet.

  “Come on and choose,” the exultant Medusa had screamed at the circle of frightened men. “I just elected myself leader of you piss poor set of apologies for the human race. Make your choice. Do you want to work with me and maybe just maybe stay alive another few sunsets?”

  The baker’s choice was already made as he gave up his struggle for life and keeled over in a pool of his own escaping internal organs. Dema kicked the body over and waved her bloodied broadsword in the air. “Or is there anyone else wants to meet their own intestines today?”

  ***

  Kimbolt lifted the battered broadsword from the wooden trunk. It was old but not ancient, the windings on the pommel worn and sweat stained into the shape of the owner’s hand, the blade once broad and heavy now honed and re-honed until its edge was near invisible. Kimbolt essayed a gentle swing of the weapon. The balance felt odd.

  “Captain, you seem to take a rather broad definition of obedience.”

  Kimbolt swung round at the Medusa’s voice, cursing that she had returned so noiselessly. She stood in the doorway, arms folded coolly appraising the scene. Her new sworn slave standing over the trunk of her private possessions, the lid thrown back and her old sword in his hand.

  Kimbolt looked from the unsmiling Medusa to the aged blade he was holding, despite the fact that its point was aimed in her direction, he was conscious only of a sense of helplessness. He, let the blade fall and Dema crossed the room in a few quick strides to take it from him. “Quite so, Captain. When summoned to an audience with my Master, I should have no need to give orders to a slave of what he cannot do when alone in my chambers.”

  “Please, I am sorry. I was curious,” Kimbolt stammered through his excuses, ending with a fearful, “don’t let him hurt her.”

  “You should have considered that before you went delving in places you had no business,” Dema upbraided him as she replaced the weapon and closed the trunk lid on her feeble collection of valuables.

  “Please,” he implored. “Let him hurt me, not her.”

  She looked at him sharply and repeated her earlier unanswered question. “Have you been lovers long?”

  He shook his head rapidly, “no, nothing like that, no.” When the Medusa raised a doubting eyebrow above her mask, he felt bound to explain further. “I’ve failed in so many ways these last twenty four hours. I just cannot fail her.”

  “Near a thousand souls have perished here, Captain,” she reminded him. “And you choose to pin the tattered shreds of your professional honour on safeguarding one solitary serving girl. Soldiery has clearly changed greatly in the years I have lived beyond the barrier.” She shrugged, “still, whatever duties you will assume as my personal slave, I think we both know that rummaging unbidden through my possessions is not one of them. There must be consequences.”

  “And let them fall on me. Let Grundurg take his knife to my skin, please. Spare the girl.”

  “Well, it seems the fates conspire in your favour, Captain. Grundurg would find it amusing to show the girl how through your unwise curiosity you have, as you put it, failed her. However, neither my orc friend nor I are to have the luxury of that leisure time.”

  Kimbolt looked at her blankly. “Our Master has new plans for us. Grundurg and I depart in an hour’s time on missions that will take us many leagues apart. No time for petty vengeance when Maelgrum commands. You will ride out with me, Grundurg takes the girl.”

  “You can’t let that monster take her. How can you trust an orc’s word?”

  “At this moment an orc’s word seems worth more than a guard Captain’s honour. However, you can rest easy. My Master’s skills keep all his servants in daily contact. So long as I live Grundurg will know and obey my wishes. The girl may not be comfortable in his foul smelling company, but she will be safe. Unless that is you give me cause to give Grundurg any instructions to the contrary.”

  Kimbolt gulped back any further inquiry after Hepdida.
If the Medusa seemed inclined to let his indiscreet curiosity pass unmarked, he had no wish to re-awaken her ire. Instead he asked, “Where are we headed?”

  She shook her head sorrowfully. “Really Captain, you should know better than to ask your captor for the secrets of our strategy. Suffice to say that of the two tasks, I would say our path is by far the more perilous. If you pray for anything, pray that we are successful, for should you or I perish, we will lose either the inclination or the means to keep your little servant girl safe from Grundurg’s exquisitely vile imagination.”

  ***

  The argument in the throne room came full circle. Forven nodded his approval as Gregor once again declared, “by the Goddess he is of your blood, Quintala. It should be you that treats with him.”

  “Aye sire,” the half-elf replied. “And he is married to your blood. I would say the word of his wife’s brother should carry more weight than the testimony of a half-sister he has barely spoken of, let alone with, in two centuries.”

  “Do you mean that I should attend in person on our most tardy Prince?” Gregor growled, his eyebrows arched in rebuke.

  “No sire, I only highlight how little value would be served by my travelling on an errand to Medyrsalve when a letter and a fast lancer would as readily move Prince Rugan.” Quintala ran a hand through her hair, fighting hard to swallow her resentment at the stubbornness of this proposition. “My place at a time of crisis is here, at your court, by your side sire.” She tried to end on a conciliatory note.

  “Be you his half-sibling or not, Seneschal Quintala,” Forven weighed in. “If you were to appear in person at the Prince’s court, being then the personification of royal authority, it would force Prince Rugan to act as law and loyalty demanded.”

  “There is one better placed than me, to speak with a royal tongue,” Quintala clutched for an alternate to undertake this unwanted mission. Bafflement creased Forven’s features, but Gregor caught her meaning quick enough. The King stroked his beard slowly toying with the idea like an unappealing morsel at a feast. As his face turned fractionally to one side, the start of a head shaking rebuttal, Quintala gave hurried voice to her near still born idea. “Eadran! Prince Eadran could do it.”

  “Send the Crown Prince away!” Forven was shocked.

  “He is my heir, not some petty emissary!” Gregor was equally unimpressed.

  Quintala let pass the lowly inference as to her own nomination for this mission. She knew Gregor meant not the implicit slight. “What other presence save his could carry weight with the middle Prince?”

  “To send the Crown Prince away at a time of peril!” The Archbishop qualified his incredulity.

  “It would be unseemly,” the King concurred, running finger and thumb along his jaw.

  Quintala seized on the glimmer of ambivalence to Gregor’s agreement. The concept of sending his only surviving son away from peril held some appeal, though it would be difficult for the King to present such a flight in a positive light. “My half-brother’s court has both dangers and challenges, sire.” She suggested. “A mission there is not beneath the dignity of a Prince of Morwsalve, not even a Crown Prince.”

  Forven opened his mouth to utter some refutation of her argument, but before the words could form, the door to the throne room was flung open and the Prince himself burst in accompanied by a travel stained cavalryman in the unmistakeable livery of the Sturmcairn garrison.

  “Father,” Eadran cried. “We have a message, the last guardsman to leave Sturmcairn. I brought him straight here. He brings word from my brother in his own hand!”

  The exhausted soldier, unshaven and dusty, nodded dumbly. The Crown Prince held the slim letter out towards his father, he crossed sword seal of Thren’s signet ring in plain view.

  Gregor took it in some haste, but paused a moment before opening it. “Eadran, get this man some bread and beer, I would say he has not eaten in three days.”

  The soldier gulped and nodded. “An’ it please sire, I’ve not stopped save to change horses since Prrince Thren sent me on my way. Saw the beacons lit the first night I rode out, so spurred the horse on. Sire, tell me, is it true, Prince Thren? He was hale and well when I left?”

  Gregor touched the Ankh around his neck, which now glowed dully red as it charted Eadran’s life. “Indeed, soldier, the royal Ankh cannot lie, Prince Thren perished but a few hours after you left Sturmcairn.”

  The messenger crescented himself glumly, his eyes hooded at the undeniable confirmation of ill news. Gregor gave him a hefty clap on the shoulder. “Come my fellow, your sorrow does you and my son both credit, but rest easy that you have discharged his last command completely. Have a seat a while. There is much we may yet ask of you, but first let me read what my son wished me to know the night he died.”

  Quintala, like Forven and Eadran, was forced to infer the contents of the letter from the reactions that ranged across the king’s features, for Gregor chose not to share aloud his son’s last written words. His brow creased with puzzlement at first, then rage as he flung the letter to Eadran.

  “This is a tale of treachery, an incredible treachery, but at its heart as simple as the strife that tore our realm apart in Chirard’s time.”

  Eadran, scanning the letter in speed and confusion, uttered only one word to summarise his stupefaction. “Xander?!”

  The king had swung on the seated soldier, who hastily stood to attention. “Tell me,” Gregor demanded. “Did you see this outlander they brought back from beyond the barrier? Did you see what he did?”

  “I was at the gate house when they brought him in sire. He opened the lock with his hand, just like Prince Thren and Bishop Udecht could do, and he wore a ring, like yours and the Bishop’s, only his was a red ruby. The Bishop recognised him ‘n all.”

  “’tis Xander then!” Gregor affirmed heavily.

  “Prince Xander, Sire? But he’s been missing near, it would be seventeen years.” Forven struggled to keep up.

  “Not missing, hiding beyond the barrier, gathering the scum about him, bearing a grudge as ever. ‘Tis only one of Eadran’s bloodline who could have brought Sturmcairn into peril. “

  “But what could Prince Xander want?”

  “What he always wanted, power. Eighteen years ago it was Undersalve he aspired to, but I am guessing his ambition has only grown with time. If poor Thren’s fate was at Xander’s hand then it is clear he means to have my throne. Gentlemen, if my brother wants to start a second kinslaying war he will not find us unprepared. Swift action may yet strike this serpent down before too many more lives are lost.”

  ***

  Hepdida shivered in the draughty room. A rough bandage wound round the servant girl’s back and shoulders, but still thin lines of red stained through the cloth to mark the dozen places where Gurndurg’s knife had scored her skin.

  Kimbolt stretched out a tentative hand towards her shoulder, but then dropped his arm, and asked instead, “Does it hurt?”

  Her attempt at a shrug induced a wince of pain which answered his question. Again he raised his arms to embrace her, again he aborted the action half made. Her lips bent in a faint grin of self-reproach. Time was when she had longed for his touch, when she had tried to manufacture opportunities to brush her hand against his as she served him at dinner, or to stand not too tidily to one side as he strode down the corridors of Sturmcairn. Now, when only her discomfort prevented him from holding her closer than she had ever dreamed, it all seemed sadly pointless.

  “I know you don’t love me,” she said, bluntly.

  “Hepdida, I… er. I..” he stammered, searching her expression for guidance.

  “I’ve been so stupid. Ma and pa both dead. Orcs in Sturmcairn. What was I thinking? What does it matter now?”

  “Hepdida,” he interrupted. “We don’t have much time, Dema she promised us a few moments only together.”

  “The lady is too generous,” the servant girl responded with a hollow laugh.

  “I care, Hepdida. I
care. It may not be love, but I care, you have to believe that,” he insisted.

  She looked at him. Blank eyes, drained of the power of emotion by the trauma of the last twenty four hours. “I’m going to keep you safe,” he went on. “I pledge my life to it Hepdida. I will keep you safe however I can.”

  “We are to be separated it seems, many leagues apart.” She shot a bolt of realism to puncture his fervent assurances.

  “Aye, but I will find you again. I will keep you safe.” He turned away quickly, muttering beneath his breath, “it’s all I have left.”

  In the midst of all her horrific recent experience, a sudden bloom of pity flowered for the Captain who seemed to invest more in her survival than she herself did. She stood up on tip toes, touched his cheek with her hand and brushed her lips against his in the lightest of kisses. They stood a moment thus, inhaling each other’s breath. “I know you will,” she said. “I know it is.”

  “Are we quite finished then,” the Medusa’s mocking voice broke in on the moment even as Hepdida stepped away from the non-plussed Captain. Dema stood in the doorway, Grundurg grinning at her side. “I wonder if the good Captain has been entirely truthful about your relationship, my girl?”

  Hepdida ignored the question and, without a backward glance, walked steadily to the orc, her jailer. The monster grabbed her arm and hustled her through the door drawing a cry of alarm from Kimbolt, but Hepdida made no protest nor looked over her shoulder at the Captain. Whether she would survive, whether they would ever meet again, she knew not. But by the Goddess she knew that she was fitter for the challenge of separation than he was.

  ***

  Quintala had to admire the consummate royal showmanship. A great cheer went up from the men on the parade ground as Gregor swung the gleaming blade that was ‘the father’ above his head. He whirled his grey mare around twice and called again, “For the Goddess and the Empire of the Salved!” Once more the assembled militia echoed him, waving the assorted agricultural implements that masqueraded as their weapons.

  At last, as the cheering died down, Gregor ordered his captains to take command of their divisions and spurred his horse to the edge of the field where the Crown Prince and Seneschal had been waiting and observing with a troop of the household cavalry. “A rousing speech, sire,” Quintala congratulated him.