Chronicles Of Aronshae (3 Book Omnibus)

by J. K. Barber

  The woodsman looked at the “giant figure” the squirrel had seen and relaxed, straightening from his crouch. A young woman of nineteen winters stood before him, wearing the blue robes and mantle of a formally trained sorceress; the silver trim on the mantle indicating she had completed her arcane schooling and was a fully-fledged practitioner of the eldritch arts. She stood a few inches shorter than Jared and had an expression of sudden fear on her face. Her hands, instinctually the woodsman guessed, had begun the subtle gestures of a spell. Not wanting to find out if the enchantment was offensive or protective in nature, Jared held up his hands and took a step backwards. Doing his best to sound non-threatening the woodsman said, “Easy, Katya, it’s just me.”

  The sorceress looked down at her hands as if just then realizing what she had been doing. Quickly stopping her gestures, Katya spoke reproachfully to the woodsman. “You’re one to talk about taking it easy,” she said sarcastically. “I just came out to tell you that the meeting with the king will be starting soon and you draw a sword on me.” The slight coloring of the young woman’s cheeks belied the anger in her voice.

  Striking a more formal pose in his best imitation of a “gentleman of the court,” Jared did his best to keep the laughter from his voice. “You are of course correct m’lady. A gentleman should never draw a weapon in the presence of a woman.” The woodsman bowed deeply, letting the stiff clipped tone of his voice drop as he continued. “Even if said lady did, at one point, almost kill said gentleman by shooting lightning into his chest.”

  Katya looked genuinely remorseful as she apologized to the woodsman once again. “I said I was sorry, Jared,” the young woman intoned. Then a bit of fire entered the sorceress’ brown eyes, “but it’s not like you didn’t have it coming, the way you were sneaking up behind my sister in the middle of the night in perhaps the most haunted place in all of Illyander.” A mischievous grin broke out on Katya’s porcelain-skinned face.

  Jared couldn’t help but laugh at the sorceress’ retort. Both from the spirit in her reply, which reminded the woodsman so much of Katya’s sister, Sasha, but also in what was an almost direct quote from Jared and his thoughts on the Bloodwood Forest, when Sasha had first told the woodsman that they needed to journey into the “haunted” wood. Blodwood, Jared mentally corrected himself. The Nhyme call it Blodwood. Sasha must have told Katya about how I reacted for her to know what I had said. Jared assumed the young sorceress’ arcane training must have also imbued her with a well-honed memory for her to get his words almost exactly right.

  Jared retrieved his sheath, replaced his blade in the metal bound leather, and sat back down on the grass beside his boots and jerkin. The hunter gestured for Katya to take a seat and reached for his boots. The sorceress tucked her robe under her and sat next to the woodsman, placing a hand on his knee. “The meeting isn’t for another half an hour or so. There is no great need for haste.”

  Jared looked at the young woman, noting again the differences and similarities between Katya and her red-haired sister, and then down at the pale slender hand on his leg. The hunter wondered exactly what it was the sorceress was doing and whether she knew she was doing it. Though Jared had not declared any intention, subtly or overtly, towards either sister, Katya had, for the most part, seemed to defer to Sasha when Jared was in the room. He was confused at her behavior now and he was sure it showed on his face.

  “Um…,” he stammered. “I know that you’re…”

  “What’s that?” the sorceress asked, looking innocently at Jared.

  The woodsman could feel the skin on his face redden. “I’m just a little confused is all. I mean you and Sasha… and well we haven’t really discussed…” Jared let his voice trail off when he realized he had no idea what it was he was going to say next. He looked down at the young woman’s hand, a puzzled look on his face.

  Katya looked down and realized that she had left her hand resting on the hunter’s knee. She snatched her hand back, quickly tucking it into the sleeves of her robe. Though her face turned slightly crimson, her eyes did not look away from Jared’s. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…”

  “No it’s fine… I mean, it’s good that you feel comfortable around me… but you… and… and me….” Jared stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to collect his thoughts. What was the girl doing? What was he doing? The girl was attractive, and nothing really had happened between him and Sasha in the Blodwood that night.

  Katya interrupted Jared’s thoughts. “Perhaps we should get to the meeting early,” the young woman offered half-heartedly. It did not seem to Jared that the sorceress wanted to go.

  “Listen, Katya,” Jared began. “I know that you’ve spent your whole life in Snowhaven, and this may not have come up, but…,” Jared shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not really sure what kind of message you’re trying to send me here.”

  Jared watched several emotions war across Katya’s face and though he could not read them all, he was fairly certain he saw anger, confusion and something that looked, perhaps, like anxiousness. After a short time, it was Katya’s turn to take a deep breath and collect herself. “I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” the sorceress said, emotion evident in her voice. “I just thought after what happened in the Blodwood…”

  “After what?” Jared asked.

  “You know,” Katya said, her face flushing slightly again. “When we…,” her voice trailed off, full of implication.

  “When we…?” the woodsman replied, completely lost as to what Katya was alluding.

  The young sorceress, her voice now becoming tinged with confusion and anger, said, “In the Blodwood, when we almost k…. You know.”

  “No,” Jared responded quickly. “I really don’t.”

  Katya’s eyes flashed with resentment, before her face quickly became a composed porcelain mask.

  “I’m sorry, but…,” Jared began before he was abruptly cut off.

  “It was not my intention to press the matter,” the sorceress continued as if he had not spoken at all. “However, I don’t believe myself as naïve as you seem to think I am.” Jared raised his hand to forestall her, but Katya pushed forward with her words and he let his hand drop impotently into his lap. “Though I have been out of Snowhaven only a short time, I have seen many things that most people would not see in a lifetime of wandering.” Jared was slightly taken aback by the quiet strength in her voice, another trait the raven-haired young woman shared with her sister, Sasha. “Also, I was not cloistered in the Sorcerer’s Tower in Snowhaven while I studied magic, denied interaction with other people… other men.” The sorceress got to her feet, stood over Jared and began brushing the dirt and grass from her robes. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I would like to wash up a bit before seeing His Highness.”

  Jared rose to his feet to say something, but Katya quickly turned away from him, her face blushing prettily once again. The sorceress walked back towards the palace, her steps quick under her flowing blue robes. Women, Jared thought to himself. Sisters, he amended. The hunter pulled on his boots, put his jerkin on, fastening the buckles on the sides and strapped on his sword belt. He looked one more time at the small parcel of woodland around him, missing the simplicity of life in the wild. Then he turned and walked back to the palace, unable to keep his mind off of Katya’s face and the feel of her hand on his knee.

  Chapter 3

  Jared walked into the large room, immediately noticing the broad table that dominated the middle of the chamber. A detailed map of the northern domains of the Kingdom of Illyander was laid out in the center of the table, and a handful of people stood around the map, examining the wooden markers arranged on it and having quiet conversations amongst themselves. At the head of the table was the Captain of the King’s Guard, Veldrun. In his short time in the Royal Palace, Jared had overheard several conversations about the soldier. Tall and well-muscled even in his middle years, the man’s close cropped blonde hair was shot through with silver along his temples and
at the apex of his widow’s peak. The captain was clad in well-polished chain and an immaculate white tabard bearing Illyander’s crest, stylized blue and red dragons intertwined with wings extended for flight. His hand rested comfortably on the hilt of the broadsword on his right hip. The blade was unadorned except for a single sapphire set into the flattened pommel. Jared also noticed that while the captain’s armor, clothes and other accoutrements were of the highest quality and appearance, the man’s sword and sheath, while also of superior craftsmanship, showed obvious signs of being well used. Captain Veldrun was not one to put appearance over functionality. The seasoned warrior looked up for a brief moment as the woodsman walked into the room and then immediately back to the young solider at his side, who was waiting to carry a message away. Jared riled a bit at the obvious dismissal, but realized the captain had more important matters on his mind and let the feeling pass.

  Standing to Captain Veldrun’s right was King Morgan, a man slightly past middle age, pale but not unhealthily so, wearing modest well-made clothes, all in the red and blue colors of Illyander. The intertwined dragons of the kingdom were embroidered in gold across the King’s left breast. Morgan’s hair was short, though not as close-cropped as the Captain of the King’s Guard, thick and dark brown, with a touch of grey at his temples and in his full beard. From Branden’s stories, Jared knew that the King had at one time been a soldier himself, tales given credence by the monarch’s still thick arms and the jewel-pommeled ceremonial longsword that hung from a gold-chased belt around his waist.

  The King was in a private conversation with Branden, the twins’ father, a mountain of a man with light brown hair, mostly given over to strands of grey. His thick arms and neck, strengthened by long years working a forge, showed through his battle-tested chainmail. Like Veldrun, Branden wore a spotless white tabard bearing the crest of Illyander, and a longsword at his side. The huge man also had a massive battlehammer leaning against the table within easy reach. The smith’s dress marked him as a member of the King’s Guard, soldiers oath-sworn and honor-bound to defend the King and Queen of Illyander above all other concerns, up to, and some said even beyond, their own death. Jared couldn’t help but observe the stark difference between the man he saw before him now, dressed in the thick mail and alabaster tabard of a member of the king’s personal guard, and the man he had first met in the dark woods a few months ago. Jared had seen the man bring down the head of his hammer that the woodsman suspected weighed half as much as Jared himself onto the head of an undead servant of the Empress of Ice, crushing the Shadow Walker’s skull like a ripe melon. The smith had been covered in the dust and dirt of weeks of riding and wearing the rough homespun clothes of a peasant. However, Jared had seen a warrior’s rage in the man’s eyes as he quickly dispatched the creature that had been threatening his daughter. The hunter had then seen the same eyes turn to him, and Jared had felt a moment of fear before he lost consciousness, falling victim to the same monster that had been attacking Katya as well. While Branden looked much different on the outside, Jared knew that it was the same passion that he had seen in the smith’s eyes while protecting his daughter that led Katya and Sasha’s father back to his former life as a King’s Guard. As far as Jared knew, no one had ever left the Guard before or after Branden, and the woodsman again found himself wondering just what Branden had done to receive such a special dispensation from King Morgan that had allowed the huge man to leave Aeirsga and take a bride in the border town of Snowhaven all those years ago.

  Jared’s thoughts and eyes turned to Mistress Mala, the closest thing that Dara, Branden’s deceased wife, had had to a sister. Clad in the plain steel armor she always wore, but without the pair of swords she usually carried on her hips, Mala leaned over the table looking intently at the map, particularly at the wooden markers bunched around Snowhaven. Leanly built, the Master Swordswoman stood well short of Branden’s towering height, but only slightly shorter than Jared himself, a fact the woodsman knew from the handful of times that Mala had been only inches from his nose yelling at him. The older, brown and grey haired woman was very protective of her friend’s daughters, Sasha and Katya, and had planted herself in front of the woodsman on more than one occasion when she had deemed it necessary in order to drive home the fact that the twins were under her protection. Mala had made two points abundantly clear. She was not in the least intimidated by Jared, nor did she trust the stranger that had pledged his aid to the two young girls. Since the battle in the catacombs below Aeirsga though, Swordmistress Mala’s opinion of Jared seemed to have changed. She now treated him with camaraderie and a grudging measure of respect. Now that the hunter thought about it, Mala treated Jared in a similar fashion to the way she treated Katya and Sasha, though obviously not as familiar. I wonder if she now looks upon me as one of her students, the woodsman thought. She is kind of similar to Sirus, in behavior if not in appearance.

  Jared’s musings were brought up short when he looked further around the table to see the King’s Magus clearly scrutinizing him. The slender man’s form was almost lost in his voluminous blue robes and gold trimmed mantle. Magus Lucian’s head was completely bald, whether on purpose or by the Mother’s design, Jared had not gotten close enough to the goateed man to find out. The woodsman looked boldly back at the Master Sorcerer, feeling his distaste for the man curl his upper lip. The Magus had made it obvious in their first meeting that he did not care for the woodsman, considering him to be some kind of backwoods peasant with no knowledge of the pertinent things of life. Jared in turn had made his feelings of contempt blatantly apparent, declaring that at another time, in another place, Jared would have been more than willing to separate Lucian’s pearly white teeth from his learned head. To his credit, the Magus held the woodsman’s gaze with his own disdainful stare for several moments before turning back to Katya.

  The young sorceress next to Magus Lucian was paying close attention to the Master Sorcerer. Whether it was out of respect for the man’s position as her superior in the arcane hierarchy of the Sorcerer’s School of Snowhaven, her actual interest in the Magus’ words, or out of a desire to patently ignore Jared’s entrance into the King’s war room, the woodsman couldn’t tell. Though her hair was now bound back in a tight braid, Jared remembered what it had looked like in the garden earlier. Most of her face had been hidden behind a waterfall of glossy black hair. The woodsman again found himself with a clear respect for the amount of self-discipline that Katya had at such a young age, to be able to so completely disregard his presence so shortly after their confrontation in the Royal Gardens.

  While waiting for the rest of the group to arrive, Jared walked over to the western wall of the room, leaning back against the giant mural of Illyander. His head only came up to the harbor town of Valshet in the southeastern area of the kingdom on the map.

  The hunter did not have to wait long as Katya’s sister Sasha came striding into the room, Talas keeping pace beside her. Tan where her sister was pale, Sasha’s red hair was held back in a tight braid that swung back and forth across her back as she walked purposefully into the room. The young swordswoman’s confidence was almost palpable as she approached the planning table, bending a knee before the king and placing a closed fist across her chest. King Morgan motioned for her to rise, but did not turn his attention away from Captain Veldrun, to whom he was now speaking. Jared noticed that Sasha carried no blade, as was law in the King’s presence. The hunter knew going weaponless must have made the young swordswoman uncomfortable, but her countenance did not show the slightest hint of irritation. Jared wondered what kind of woman Branden’s late wife Dara must have been to have birthed two such daughters as Katya and Sasha and to have torn Branden away from a life of personal service to the King. The woodsman felt a twinge of regret that he would never have the opportunity meet her.

  Talas touched Jared’s arm, drawing his attention away from the twin sisters. “How are you lad?” the older man asked. The hunter noticed the uncharacteristic white s
tubble that salted the priest’s scalp and chin, but made no mention of it. Jared also detected a hint of breathlessness in the veteran’s voice and wondered bemusedly if it had anything to do with Sasha’s brisk pace before the pair had entered the room.

  “I’m good, how are….” Jared’s voice trailed off as he took a better look at the man standing next to him. Talas wore a suit of chainmail, over which hung a long forest green tabard, trimmed with a pattern of brown leaves.

  “What’s this all about?” Jared asked, fingering the veteran’s new tabard.

  Talas gently moved the woodsman’s hand away and brushed the tabard, smoothing some non-existent wrinkle. “You’ll be happy to learn your instincts were correct. I have rejoined the Mother’s Temple…,” Talas’ voice trailed off as his gaze slid off Jared and over to where Captain Veldrun was calling for everyone’s attention. “We can talk more about it later,” the newly re-minted priest whispered. “We should probably listen to His Lordship here.” Talas gestured towards Veldrun and attempted to usher Jared towards the others. Jared resisted and shook his head, indicating his desire to stay where he was. The older man nodded his bald head understandingly and took a handful of steps, approaching the large rectangular wooden table alone.

  Veldrun waved the remaining soldiers and pages out of the room and gestured towards the pair of King’s Guards at the door. The white-liveried soldiers, two of the only four people in the room allowed to carry a weapon other than King Morgan himself, closed the doors and stood sentry inside the room. Outside, Jared knew that half a dozen more of King Morgan’s personal guard safeguarded the hallway.