by T. O. Munro
“They seem ready to face the orcish enemy now,” Eadran interjected, his own eyes bright with enthusiasm.
“Let us pray to the Goddess they never meet, then!” Gregor growled. “an there be fifteen hundred of that militia yet still five score of orcs would cut them down without breaking out in that slime they call sweating.”
“You don’t mean to let them fight?” The Prince was disappointed, the half-elf unsurprised.
“I don’t mean to let them die futiley,”Gregor corrected, but his eyes scanned the South-Eastern horizon behind his companions. “I need soldiers,” the King muttered before succumbing to the distraction that loomed in the distance. “By the Goddess, what is that? Can it be?”
His companions twisted round in their saddles to follow his gaze. A distant cloud of dust revealed and concealed the approach of some new host. “Has Rugan come at last!” Eadran exclaimed.
“Not Rugan,” Quintala assured him blankly having made her own assessment of the new arrivals.
“Indeed not,” Gregor gasped. “Not even the host of Medyrsalve could march so fast afoot. Come Eadran, Quintala. Our friends have journeyed in such haste that they are at least entitled to a royal escort for the last half league!” With that the King dug his heels into the grey mare’s flank and hurried east at such speed that his followers were fifty yards adrift before they got their own steeds into motion.
Quintala closed the gap faster than the Prince and the lancers, coaxing her mount to draw on reserves it did not know it had. Even so the king was well over halfway to the approaching host before she was close enough to hail him. “Sire,” she yelled. “You should await your escort. It is not seemly.” In reply, she caught only a fragment of his laugh on the wind.
The newcomers had drawn to a halt at the King’s approach. The dust cloud which had been stirred up by their passage was settling back on the ill-made dirt road. It would not have been an easy march. The river road had never been well maintained. Even before the fall of Undersalve, traffic and trade had preferred the meandering but easily navigated river Nevers. In the ruin of Morsalve merchants, precipitated by the catastrophe at Bledrag Field, it was the great Eastway on which all efforts had been expended. The Eastway might yet serve as a land route to the ocean and their rich pickings beyond. The river road now served only the scattered farming villages that filled the Nervers plain, and one other destination.
They stood rank on rank, fine featured and dark skinned. The dull dust eschewed their seamless armour and the bunished steel of their spears glinted brightly in the sunlight. Quintala felt her heart quicken at the sight of so many of her kin, her half-kin she corrected herself, standing and breathing easy, despite the vigour of their march.
Two riders headed the column. The elf Lord sat astride a white stallion, his body still, his hair and beard grey with authority. Beside him an elf Captain, eyes flickering left and right while his horse took small steps in time with its rider’s attention.
Gregor skittered his horse to a halt along side the Elf Lord’s and reaching two handed to pump the newcomer’s hand in greeting. “Well met, Lord Feyril, true and trusted friend. Well met indeed, always the first of our allies to rally to our cause. Right glad are we to see you.”
“We answer the beacon, my King, as honour and the law commands,” Feyril demurred.
“Indeed indeed, though I would there were others who were as well versed in the demands of law and honour as you.”
“Rugan?” Feyril raised an eyebrow in the slightest of queries.
Gregor sighed. “We have only silence from Medyrsalve.”
“Mixed blood could never run true!”
The king looked up at the elf Captain’s sharply toned interjection. Feyril made a hasty introduction. “Your Majesty, may I present Captain Findil. Pray forgive the impetuous tongue of youth; He has but five hundred summers.”
“A good four hundred and fifty more than I.” Gregor growled back. “May I in turn present my Seneschal the Lady Quintala and here comes Crown Prince Eadran with my Lancers.”
Quintala watched the Elf captain’s features and saw dark spots of colour appear on his cheeks as Gregor made the introductions.
“Captain Findil, you will of course have heard of the lady Quintala,” Gregor went on with steel edged courtesy. “The famous half-eleven Seneschal of the kingdom these past two hundred years.”
“Of course your Majesty,” The Captain gave Quintala a curt thin lipped nod, to which she responded with a gracious deep bow and a grin.
“Sire,” Feyril broke in on the stilted greetings of the near-kin. “Prince Eadran is Crown Prince?” he queried. “Then Prince Thren is..”
“Perished in the fall of Sturmcairn.” The king was brisk and businesslike. “Or so we can only assume. The scouting patrols I sent thither have found only a bank of fog that covers the foot of the passes. It is dense cloud into which, let alone beyond, they cannot in safety explore.”
“I think I know of what character and origin that fog might be,” Feyril said.
“I have my own theories, Lord Feyril, and I am not entirely without intelligence as to the situation at Sturmcairn. But come, the road is no place to discuss matters of state, or offer rest to weary but most welcome travellers. Quintala, ride on and arrange a billet for Lord Feyril’s troop. How many have you brought two thousand?”
“’tis three,” Findil corrected.
“By the Goddess, Feyril, you must have stripped the trees.”
“An’ I could have persuaded them to march, my King, I would have brought the very trees themselves, for you will have need of everything ‘ere this matter is done. But as you say, a different time and place is moot for such discussions.”
“Two hours shall we say, we will meet. Come to the citadel then. I have affairs to settle first, but then we can share our thoughts on the strategy we will take.”
“Two hours, aye.” Feyril’s acknowledgement fell on the king’s departing back as Gregor spurred his horse back to the citadel. Quintala waited a moment, while Eadran offered an uncertain bow to Elf Lord and Captain, before they hastened after the King.
***
Dwarfport was an arsehole of a town, a ramshackle collection of hastily erected wooden buildings, waiting only for a strong wind or a flood tide to wash or blow them away. It was a settlement built on necessity, greed and gold, dwarvish gold. The dwarves of the Hadrans had, these last five years, closed their doors and their trade to the province of Undersalve. Since Bledrag field, the stout hearted miners of the Hadran mountains would have no truck or dealings with a land where orcs walked openly in the streets. So the great port of Neversmouth in Undersalve no longer received the monthly dwarven caravans laden with the bounty of their excavations. Yet still the dwarves mined and generated an excess of gems and metal which they needed to trade, so still the dwarves needed a route to the sea and to the merchants of the Eastern lands.
So it was that the muddy mouth of the Rhumb, where a small and nameless fishing village had nestled in a storm-sheltered bay, became the new outlet for Dwarven merchandise. It lay in the land to the North of the Hadrans, to which both Medyrsalve and Oostslave had made some token but unenthusiastic bids for a disputed overlordship. Until the coming of the dwarves there was little of interest or profit for a provincial ruler in a barren sparsely populated land where few but the coastal fisherman could scratch out a living. But now, while Rugan and the Prince of Oostsalve argued in the courts, the entrepreneurs and business men made what fast money they could in a town rich in the dwarven trade and low in law and order.
Initially fuelled by Dwarvish gold, the overrun fishing settlement had become a boom town of epic proportions. Drink, gambling and every vice imaginable had become the basis of its economy. So much so that Rugan and his rival argued as much over how, in all decency, to exploit this money spinning miracle as they did over who should claim jurisdiction.
Glafeld the Innkeeper, high in greed, low in morals, was but one turd floating in t
he cesspit of Dwarfport’s business class. The dwarves themselves eschewed Glafeld’s establishment on their monthly trips, but that bothered the fat Innkeeper not at all. The dwarves were a principled race who came here strictly to do business and had no need or hunger for Glafeld’s brand of entertainment. However, the human sailors and traders who enjoyed moments of temporary wealth with every passing caravan, they were the objects of Glafeld’s business plan. Put hardworking men in an environment with no laws, lots of money and even more alcohol and it was a simple matter to unleash their baser instincts and in so doing part them from the hard earned cash.
While Glafeld’s Inn conformed to the definition of an Inn, in so far as it served drinks downstairs and had beds upstairs, the strength of the drink and the company that could be enjoyed in the bedrooms went way beyond that which would have earned the Goddess’s approval. But in so doing Glafeld offered his clients a kind of service available no where else in the Petred Isle, nay, nowhere this side of the Eastern lands.
And, as a man devoted to relieving his customers of all available cash, Glafeld kept a watchful eye for anyone else who might be looking to harvest the same crop. He had one such individual in his eye now.
The red haired woman had spent three nights in his bar. At first he had taken her for a whore, like some of the casual street walkers who, for a fee, he let recruit their clients on his premises. She was a scrawny looking thing and her attire was travelworn and masculine rather than alluring, but then Glafeld’s establishment was a broad church entertaining many tastes. However his suspicions changed, as he watched her nurse a solitary drink all night and engage in brief and unenthusiastic conversations with the few clients who breathed a beery greeting into her face. She left occasionally, but always alone and returned too swiftly for the business Glafeld had at first attributed to her. He had been meaning to raise with her the matter of ‘the arrangement’ he would expect for working his Inn. But now, as another client cried out in alarm at a lost purse, Glafeld had a clear idea of what game the red haired woman was up to. True he had never seen her pick a pocket or lift a purse. She was never there when a client discovered his loss, but these past three days, since she had arrived there had been a sharp rise in the number of thefts. Correlation was proof enough for Glafeld.
This time, when she left, he followed her out. A skinny thief held no fears for Glafeld and he left his heavy club behind the bar. True, it had its uses if things got rough when a client realised how much precious earnings he had frittered away on over priced drink and girls of doubtful morality. However, when out and about in the street Glafeld preferred to rely on the spring loaded blade concealed within his sleeve. The woman ducked down a side street. Glafeld followed with all the innocent unthreatening air that his rotund shape and waddling gait could muster. It would work here as it had countless times before, right up to the moment when he buried his blade in the victim’s armpit. No more of his clients would be robbed on his premises, well leastways, not by anyone but Glafeld.
***
They sat in council, a semi-circle of advisers around Gregor’s throne. Findil and Feyril, as honoured guests, joined Archbishop Forven, Seneschal Quintala and Prince Eadran while two scribes sat ready to record their deliberations.
“The fog bank to the West has shielded Sturmcairn and the pass from our inspection. Marshal Bruntveld’s pickets are hard pressed to cover the length of it, still less penetrate its secrets,” Gregor began. “My Lord Feyril, on the road you said you might know something of the nature of this fog.”
“’tis certainly magical in origin your Majesty.” At Feyril’s opening remark, Forven hastily crescented himself. “I have seen it’s like before, a long time hence.”
“Of the heretics who practice magic even the most er.. er…” The Archbishop struggled for a moment for an adjective he could bear to attribute to users of magic. “ er… accomplished of them could not invoke an effect on such a scale.”
“Far be it from me to agree with the Archbishop,” Quintala said. “But as a dabbler in the dark arts myself, I would have to admit that a conjuration covering so many leagues is unprecedented.”
“Not unprecedented, my young friend,” Feyril replied. “A millenia ago there was one who could bend the weather to his whims.”
The cryptic clue baffled all but Findil and it fell to Gregor to probe the Elf-lord’s meaning. “Do you speak of one of your own race, my lord? Illana has gifts in the mastery of storms, I know.”
“My wife’s skills in such work are as childish daubes compared to the dark artistry of the one I speak of.” Feyril paused, eyeing his audience in turn before announcing, “this is the work of Maelgrum.”
Whatever reaction Feyril may have hoped for, he was disappointed. Gregor laughed, Quintala smiled, Eadran looked puzzled and Forven retorted, “nonsense, utter nonsense.”
Findil was on his feet in an instant, advancing on the prelate with grim intent. “How dare you speak thus, to my Lord Feyril.”
“Findil be still,” Feyril ordered.
“Forgive his reverence, Captain Findil, I am sure he meant no offence,” Gregor urged. “For myself, if I seem less eager to accept your suggestion it is only because I know who is behind the evil that has befallen us.” It was the King’s turn to look at expressions of doubt on the two elves’ faces. “It is my brother Xander, he was seen at Sturmcarn before it fell, taken in from beyond the barrier by my son. He is the architect of our present misery.”
“Xander?! It has been what, seventeen years?”
“Aye, and no wonder we could not find him. He has been beyond the barrier marshalling some allies, plotting a revenge, determined to open another chapter in the kin-slaying wars.”
Feyril shook his head slowly. “Xander has not the wit nor the power to have wrought this doom.”
“You forget my lord, Eadran’s blood runs in his veins. Only one of Eadran’s blood could have unlocked the gates of Sturmcairn to allow an enemy within.”
“Opening Sturmcairn is but a trifle compared to surviving beyond the barrier for near two decades. Eadran the Vanquisher himself perished in the attempt and he strayed into the wildlands for but one season.”
“I did not say he was unaided in his efforts, who knows what dark alliances my brother has made to survive…”
“We know who,” Findil interrupted heatedly. “Maelgrum is at the root of all this evil. Whatever Xander has done, Maelgrum’s hand is in it.”
“An extraordinary claim. Where is the evidence?” Quintala demanded.
“Maelgrum is a thousand years dead!” Forven added his scorn.
Findil turned on the two doubting councillors with a ferocity he could not show to the King. “We have seen the signs, in Undersalve.”
“How is Undersalve involved in this?” Forven demanded.
“How can it not be? Do you not see how all the evils that have fallen on us form but beads on a single thread of malice.” Findil, long privy to the inner counsels of Illana and Feyril, let fly at the stubborn scepticism of King Gregor’s court. “The desert nomads barely troubled Matteus for years, ‘ere they rose in arms against him. Yet when it came to Bledrag Field, ‘twas not the nomads, but the orcs and ogres that carried the day and who now hold sway in that benighted province.”
“I had understood that the Governor as he styles himself is human,” Forven said. “Beyond that, all that comes from the lost province is rumour and supposition for none of the Salved have crossed its borders.”
“Supposition!” Findil spat. “Think ye, my reverence, that we of Hershwood have been idle. Oft have we crossed from our forest home into that lost province. Many of our kin have we lost in turn, seeking at the truth of what befell there.”
Feyril waved his irate captain into silence as he asked his own question. “Does the name Odestus mean anything to you, your Majesty?” When Gregor only shrugged, Feyril went on. “It is the given name of the Governor. It is also the name of a practitioner of magic who was exiled in your fat
her’s reign some two decades ago. Is it not strange that this little wizard should appear alive and well near a thousand miles from where he was last seen en route to exile?”
“If indeed it is the same man or the right name?” At Quintala’s softly spoken question, Findil’s threadbare patience snapped.
“That name took much elven blood, pure elven blood, to uncover. I did not ride five hundred miles in two days to have their sacrifice ridiculed and their intelligence belittled by anyone, least of all by one in whose veins…”
“Findil, Enough!” Feyril’s voice, so rarely raised in anger, stilled his impetuous captain, even as Quintala leapt to confront him trembling with rage. As Seneschal and Captain faced each other down, Feyril said, “if your Majesty would indulge me, perhaps we could continue this conference in private.”
Gregor gave a curt nod of assent.
***
Glafeld was still trying to work out how it had happened when the fear hit. The red headed thief had him in an arm lock. Her left arm was around his throat, her right hand held a dagger beneath his chin. He had never been so helpless in his life before.
“Why did you follow me?” she demanded again.
“You’re a thief. You stole from my customers.” Surprise sprung the simple truth from him.
“You and me both, unless you really think that adulterated horse piss you call beer is worth the price you’re charging for it.”
“Theiving’s bad for business, for my business.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’m not stopping in this shit hole. I’m just getting together money for passage to the East. ‘s all I want ‘n once that’s done you’ll never see me again.”
“Next ship East ain’t due for a fortnight.”
“That gives me plenty of time to earn my fare. Now have you got a problem with that?”
