A gruesome scream pierced the pavilion, halting the discussion.
“Perhaps the answers I need will finally be forthcoming.” General Haith sipped his mulled wine, a flavorful vintage from the dead king’s stores.
As if summoned, the master torturer appeared at the pavilion’s entrance. Gore stained his leather apron. “My Lord, I have your answer.”
“Come.”
Bruthus took a single step into the pavilion and then stopped, as if he knew his reek was offensive. “My lord, the knight spoke the truth when he said the marshal keeps them moving, changing camps every third night…but he neglected to speak of the gathering place.”
His interest spiked. “What gathering place?”
“A place to gather patrols, scouts, and stragglers with the main force.”
“And where is this place?”
“At the dark of the moon, they’re to meet at the Stone Hand.”
“Well done.” Dismissing the torturer, he turned to the maps. “Where is this Stone Hand?”
“Here, my Lord.” Centurion Kirkbee pointed to a balding mountain overlooking Raven Pass.
“So close?” The general’s voice purred with satisfaction.
“It’s been used before as a campsite, but it was deserted when we found it, nothing but trampled snow, horse dung, and cold campfires.”
“Why is it called Stonehand?”
The centurion hesitated. “At the crest, there’s a mage-stone statue, a giant stone hand inscribed with a Seeing Eye.”
“The meddling monks.” He made the words a curse. His hand sought the amulet hidden beneath his armor, a key to wealth and power. “By war’s end, both the Octagon and the Seeing Eye will be eradicated from Erdhe.”
“The Mordant’s will be done.” His officers intoned their assent.
General Marris said, “Three days till the dark of the moon. Will you take them with a direct assault or an ambush?”
“An ambush, the Lord Mordant ordered a quiet annihilation.” His gaze settled on the centurion. “Kirkbee, take a cadre of Taals around to the back side of the mountain. You will be the hammer to our anvil.”
Kirkbee saluted, fist to his breastplate. “As you command.”
“Come the dark of the moon, the Octagon will be finished. See to the details and make it so.” He dismissed his officers. Saluting, they took their leave, while he remained staring at the map. The Mordant had crafted a convoluted plan to shatter Erdhe and bring age-old enemies to their knees, but the timing was delicate. Soon he’d ride south to face a far more lucrative foe. By the time this war was finished, he expected to be a king in his own right, a vassal sovereign serving his lord. The general stretched his gauntleted hand across the map, casting a grasping shadow across Erdhe. “The Dark Lord’s will be done.”
45
Katherine
Word of her court had leaped like lightning through the Citadel. Petitioners appeared before the crack of dawn, braving the frigid cold for a chance to beg boons. Kath crossed the rune-carved courtyard, feeling the incessant peck of their stares, but their endless demands would have to wait.
Conit and Talbert scrambled to lay out sheepskins and stoke the braziers for heat. Kath sat cross-legged with her back to the dark rampart. The morning meal with her maroon band had become a welcome habit. Giant wheels of fresh-baked bread were shared, sometimes laced with raisins, dried apples, crushed nuts, or other treasures from the royal kitchens. Kath tore off a warm chunk, delighted to discover cinnamon swirling through the tasty loaf. Pots of honey for dipping along with mugs of heated mead were passed. Her painted warriors enjoyed the simple fare, sharing jests and tales of daring. All too soon the last crumb was consumed and the mugs drained. Kath gestured to Sidhorn and the big warrior stood to turn the massive sand glass. Cast in solid gold, with dragons entwining the handles, the great glass held blood-red sand brought from some nameless shore. Seeking a way to limit the onslaught, Kath had ordered the great glass brought out to the courtyard. The glass held enough sand in each turn to measure a session of three hours, the limit of her patience for dealing with petitioners.
The turning of the great sand glass released the deluge of petitioners.
Surging across the courtyard, they all spoke at once, uttering a babble of demands.
Her maroon band moved to impose order, reforming the line.
One at a time the petitioners stepped before Kath to state their case. Some wore silken finery while others came clad in a mismatch of scavenged clothing. Kath listened to them all, regardless of wealth or tier. The deluge of petitions ran the gamut from petty quarrels, to petitions for favors, to appeals for the restoration of ‘stolen’ property, to grim accusations of rape, murder, and collusion with priests. The rogue priests remained a thorny problem. Kath passed any informants to Blaine and his band, but it shocked her to hear how some citizens secretly succored the priests. She’d hoped the citizens of the Citadel would renounce the Mordant, choosing a new way of life, but evil had a way of infesting souls. Many who’d prospered under the pentacle preferred the old ways, choosing bribery and backstabbing to honest labor. Some made it a game to deceive her. At first, many got the better of her, but Kath soon learned that the most corrupt were also the most skilled liars. Lies became the telltale sign of a deeper evil. Once their lies were ferreted out, Kath overturned her decisions, invoking harsh penalties, yet still they tried. Sometimes she despaired, wondering if the Citadel could truly be saved.
A fat merchant bowed low, launching into a tale of stolen goods.
Listening to the endless drone, Kath strove to sort the truth from the fawning tangle of deception. A disturbance snared her attention. The line of petitioners parted, revealing a delegation of raven-faced healers. Led by Thera, they strode towards her, beaks and feathers boldly tattooed across their faces.
The fat merchant fell silent, relinquishing his place with a grudging bow.
Kath flashed a smile towards Thera. “Welcome to my fire.”
The healers stood in a crescent before the brazier. Most wore sheepskin cloaks and leather breeches, herb pouches dangling from their belts, long knives belted to their sides.
Kath met Thera’s dark gaze, worried by the healer’s grave demeanor. “How do the wounded fare?”
“We do what we can. But the healing is slow, too slow.” Concern weighed her voice. “Wounds that should heal continue to fester and fevers linger refusing to quench. It is almost as if something thwarts our lore.”
The courtyard quaked, as if the demons locked in the depths bragged of their prowess.
Kath cast a sharp glance towards Thera. “You feel it too.”
Thera nodded. “All the healers sense it, like a foul curse infesting the Citadel.”
Merrick, a tall gangly healer who served as Thera’s second, sketched the sign of warding. “This place is unclean; we should never have come here.”
Thera stilled him with a glance, her gaze returning to Kath. “We’ve come to ask the Svala for the captured horses.”
“No!” Blaine’s protest cut sharp as his sword. “Those horses are our best chance to reach the south!”
Kath silenced him with a stern look, yet his words fell like stones on her shoulders. In truth, the horses were her best means to get south, but Danya and Zith would never survive the distance, and none of her painted warriors could ride. And then there was the winter. The god-cursed steppes were most treacherous in winter, a frozen killing field, winter’s cruel anvil. The horses were not the answer, yet she saw no other way.
Thera pressed her appeal. “With horse drawn travois we can move the wounded back to the home caves, giving them a better chance to heal.”
Blaine loosed an angry snarl. “We need those horses.”
Furious, Kath rounded on him. “Winter trumps the horses.” And the thrice-damned cold shows no sign of abating.
“So you’ll just sit here, waiting till the spring thaw? By then there will be nothing left to save!”
Kath gaped at Blaine, outraged by his words. Recovering, she met his anger with a flinty stare. “And if we don’t help the wounded, how will the gods judge us?”
This time Blaine looked away.
Sighing, Kath sent a silent appeal to Valin. Turning to Thera, she said, “Take the horses and anything else you need.”
Blaine turned his back to her, radiating anger, but Thera gave her a knowing nod, as if she understood the cost of her request. “The Svala is worthy of the War Helm.”
The healers stood to leave, but Kath stayed them with a question. “What of Danya?”
Thera’s face softened. “Danya’s sleep is a matter of magic not healing. The wolf-girl pays a price for her power. Only time will tell.”
Kath nodded, knowing the answer but needing to ask.
“Neven and his pack have claimed Danya for their own. They take good care of her.”
“I thought as much, but it helps to hear you say it.”
“The wolf-girl will wake in due time.” Thera gathered her healers, retreating across the vast circular courtyard.
Kath watched them leave; troubled by their message, more proof that evil was real. Staring across the rune-carved courtyard, she wondered if the fortress-city could ever be cleansed. Her hand sought the crystal dagger. She’d taken the Mordant’s stronghold but she’d meant to take his life. Rage warred with frustration; she could not afford to be trapped in the north, yet she saw no way south.
The fat merchant resumed his place, bemoaning the loss of stolen goods and ruined property.
Such a petty problem, Kath found it hard to concentrate, yet she forced herself to listen.
The sound of a horn shivered through the frozen air.
The mournful wail sounded…like a call to battle.
Kath sprang to her feet, her hand on her sword hilt. “Did you hear that?”
The horn sounded again, a blaring challenge.
Kath leaped atop the nearest ramparts, gazing down on the Citadel’s gates and out across the endless expanse, but the vast snowbound steppes remained bleak and cold, unsullied by the tread of friend or foe.
The horn sounded again, impatient to be noticed.
Grenfir joined her on the rampart. The owl-faced warrior gasped, pointing towards the wind-swept sea. “A ship!”
Kath saw it then, a single ship scudding across the white-waved ocean. The sea, she’d never considered escape by sea. Kath’s heart thundered, “Whose ship? Friend or foe?” She stared at the ship, searching for a sigil.
Blaine joined her on the rampart. “There!”
The ship changed course, the front sail billowing taut with the wind, its colors bright against the slate-gray ocean. Red and blue checks emblazoned with a soaring osprey, a proud sigil unlooked for in the bitter north. Kath grinned in wild relief, feeling the succor of the gods. “Valin hasn’t abandoned us!” She thumped Blaine on the shoulder. “Hope comes on southern sails! Navarre! A ship from Navarre!”
46
The Knight Marshal
The knight marshal crossed the slaughter field, holding his horse to a walk. A putrid stench rose from the gore. Sixty ogres slain by one squire, it was a prodigious feat, nigh on impossible, the stuff of ancient legends. Surveying the carnage, the marshal had no doubt that Baldwin had saved the maroon…yet the field held a dark warning. Not just slain but slaughtered. Entrails and innards smeared the sullied snow, raising a puking stench. Severed limbs and cleaved heads sat stacked in a grisly pyramid, blood and gore painting gruesome spatters upon the trampled snow. Even the ravens shunned the dead, as if the corpses were tainted. He’d fought on many battlefields, but never in his long years of service had he seen one like this, as if the lords of Hell had come calling. Not just slain, not just slaughtered…but butchered. The marshal shivered at the thought, making the hand sign against evil.
Reaching the far side, he turned for one last look. His gaze sought Sir Abrax lying wrapped in his maroon cloak. A good friend and a stalwart champion felled by the king’s squire, a tragedy cloaked in arcane treachery. It hurt to leave his friend lying upon the bloody field, but the maroon could neither spare the time nor the strength to raise a cairn over every dead hero. The marshal saluted his friend, his fist thumping his armored breastplate. “By Valin, you shall be remembered.”
Turning his horse away, he led the long line of maroon knights back into the woods. Time was against them. Despite his mount’s weariness, he urged his warhorse to a trot, desperate for distance. The maroon needed to escape before the circling ravens enticed the enemy.
Sunlight quenched to crimson, setting the mountain peaks aglow. In the waning light, he followed a faint trail around the backside of the mountain. The ice-encrusted Dragon Spines loomed in every direction. Fierce and jagged, the jumbled mountains had proved a boon, hiding the maroon in a labyrinth of trails and valleys, a bulwark against the enemy…but the mountains also took their toll. Cold and bleak and desolate, he’d lost too many men to frostbite and hunger. He longed for a warm bed snug behind stout walls, a pine log fire crackling in the hearth, a goblet of mulled wine in his hand…the marshal shook himself awake. Straightening in the saddle, he lifted his visor exposing his face to the wind’s biting-cold slap, yet he could not banish the nagging aches pervading his battered body. Everything hurt. A deep bone-weariness bludgeoned him, slumping his shoulders. Too many battles in too short a time, he was getting too old for this.
*Wield me!*
The marshal startled alert.
*Wield me!*
An insidious voice hissed in his mind. A cold certainty gripped him, the dark sword! Bundled in furs and tied to his cantle, he wasn’t even touching the dark-damned blade, yet it preyed on his mind like a curse. Desperate to snuff the voice, he built a mental wall, images of stone and mortar, yet still the vile whisper invaded.
*Wield me now!*
He felt like vomiting.
*Wiled me and victory shall be yours!*
“No!”
“No…nooo…noooo!” The marshal’s shout echoed against the mountaintops.
A thunder of hooves galloped from behind. Lothar pulled rein on his left, Sir Rannock on his right. Weapons bared, they scanned the forest. “What is it?”
Chagrined, the marshal muttered, “nothing.” Regaining his composure, he made his voice firm. “Stand down.”
Sir Rannock saluted, but Lothar threw a skeptical look his way.
His friend saw too much, but thankfully he kept his questions for another time.
Shrugging his shoulders, Lothar sheathed his battleaxe. “We’re all war weary, flinching at shadows.” He flicked a glance towards the darkening sky. “Nearly the dark of the moon.”
“Just so. Time to make for Stonehand.”
“How many do you think we’ll gather?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Since the bitter loss at Raven Pass, Stonehand had become the maroon’s secret gathering place. On every dark of the moon, the war host returned to the great mage-stone statue, a chance to gather lost scouts and missing patrols, to gain supplies from Castlegard and bolster the strength of the maroon. His men needed food and rest, but most of all they needed reinforcements. The marshal turned to stare at his friend, the truth bitter upon his lips. “However many come, it will not be enough. Not nearly enough.” The marshal spurred his horse to a canter, but he could not escape the dark whispers slithering through his mind.
47
Katherine
Kath stood atop the rampart watching the ship, but instead of turning towards the Citadel, the brightly checkered sails changed course. The ship zigzagged back and forth across the bay, as if taunting the Citadel.
Beside her, Blaine said, “What are they doing?”
Kath studied the ship, noting they way it kept a wary distance. With fresh eyes, she stared down at the Citadel. The fearsome fortress overshadowed the bay, tiers of crenulated battlements studded with trebuchets and catapults. The Mordant’s black and gold banners were long gone, c
ut loose to ride the wind, but nothing replaced them. Kath had no banner and neither did the painted people. The Mordant’s Citadel was conquered, yet from a distance it looked the same, a forbidding fortress of dark stone bristling with menace. “They’re testing the Citadel.”
“What?”
“They’re hoping for friends but they fear a foe.” Unclasping her cloak, Kath pressed the maroon wool into Grenfir’s hands. “Take this and wave it upon the ramparts. We need to signal the ship.”
“Yes, Svala.” Grenfir leaped to the battlement, waving Kath’s maroon cloak high above his head like a battle banner.
“Blaine, your cloak! Give it to Tangor.”
The badger-faced warrior joined Grenfir on the battlement. Yelling and jumping, they waved the cloaks, desperate to be seen.
Kath stared at the ship, willing it closer, yet it stubbornly veered back and forth, scudding across the bay at a wary distance. “It’s not enough.” She pounded the dark rampart with her fist. “They don’t see our cloaks…or they don’t trust them.” A sudden fear gripped her, knowing she dared not let this one hope pass by. Somehow she needed to lure the ship to shore, yet it held its position, sailing a trebuchet’s throw from the dark coastline. A trebuchet’s throw, the idea teased her mind. Kath peered over the rampart to the tier below. Satisfied, she turned back to the others, her voice ringing with command. “Grenfir and Tangor keep waving those cloaks like your lives depend on it.” Kath’s gaze found the two badger-faced boys. “Talbert and Conit run and get fresh baskets of bread and bring them to that trebuchet.” She pointed to the tier below. “And be quick about it. Run as if your lives depend on it!”
The two boys set off at a hard run.
“The rest of you come with me.” Leaping from the rampart, Kath raced across the courtyard, scattering petitioners like wolves through a sheep herd. Blaine and her maroon band pounded at her heels, a jangle of arms and armor. They burst through the ruined gate, following the curving street down and around into the lower tier. People turned and stared, some shouting questions, but Kath never slowed. She led them to the west side, to the first trebuchet overlooking the ocean. “This will do.”
The Knight Marshal (The Silk & Steel Saga) Page 27
