Kingshelm (Renegade Druid Cycle Book 1)

by George Hatt

  “As do mine,” Grantham said. “But we must not allow that demon to lead his murderers into our heartland. We stop him here, Cotrian, and we make him suffer for what he is doing.”

  “I pray we take him alive,” Cotrian said.

  “That will be one of my orders to the men,” the duke said. “Then we will cut pieces off of him while he yet lives and send them one at a time back to his mistress Duchess Betina—and damn the Imperial law that forbids it.”

  “Mahurin be good,” Cotrian frowned.

  “What news of our frontiers along the heathen realms?”

  “None,” Sheriff Cotrian said. “Quiet as a tomb. No Templars have come out of the haunted forests, and no more have ventured in. It was a short-lived crusade.”

  “Entire battles of Mahurin’s paladins don’t just disappear into the ephemeral mists,” Grantham said.

  “Very true, my duke…” Cotrian stopped mid-sentence. Both men heard the commotion, and Grantham strode outside to investigate.

  “She’s here! She’s here!” the cry rose from the men in the camp.

  “Mahurin’s balls,” Grantham swore. He very seldom swore.

  “What?” Cotrian asked as he exited the tent, then stopped and put his hand over his mouth, then stroked his beard. “What in five hells is this, Duke Grantham?”

  Both men watched the fluttering banners drifting high above the cavalcade disrupting the previously organized encampment. Governor Drucilla’s three blue rivers sigil popped in the summer breeze next to the winged horse of Brynn.

  “Governor Drucilla is here! Make room in the camp!” a sergeant somewhere yelled. At least, Grantham hoped it was a sergeant yelling orders. Or a banneret. Someone who would be in a position to bark such orders independent of the duke.

  The two standard bearers and several other riders broke away from the main body of horsemen and rode toward Grantham’s tent. The central rider was slender and smaller than the others, but adorned from collarbone to pinky toe in ornate, close-fitting plate armor chased in gold accents.

  Governor Drucilla, Duke Grantham guessed, had ridden into camp without a helm so the men would see and recognize her. Her woven braids spilled over her armored shoulders and glinted in the afternoon sun with jewels set in dainty golden chains and cloth-of-gold ribbons. Even from a distance, her imperious bearing seemed to cast a wide aura about her as she condescendingly waved at her adoring men.

  “She lords her dark skin over us mere mortals,” Sheriff Cotrian said. “She wears it as if she were marked for dominion over all lands and flesh.”

  “Perhaps she was,” Grantham said.

  “It is meet and proper that I ride with the men who are defending my realm,” Governor Drucilla said. She still wore her elaborate armor as she stood in the command tent with Grantham, Cotrian, and her chamberlain. “My presence shall serve as an inspiration to the warriors and those who are leading them in the battle to save Brynn—and the battles to come when we counterattack and invade Relfast.”

  Anger, admiration and bewilderment swirled in Grantham’s breast, mixed with a leavening of sudden exhaustion. His work had doubled, even tripled, in less than half an hour. Not only would he be planning and executing the defense of Brynn, but now Grantham would also be saving himself and his men from the impulses that occasionally gripped Lady Drucilla.

  However, the dark-skinned beauty’s fiery energy and electrifying presence would no doubt inspire Grantham’s soldiers, and they would desperately need the morale boost if the fighting went a badly as he feared it may.

  By Mahurin, but she is dark and lovely…Grantham quashed the thought as he had many times before. Lady Drucilla of the Rivers was his sovereign (notwithstanding the Emperor), and he was a married man. Grantham wondered how he was so often able to be the calming voice to Drucilla’s passion when he himself was wracked with both admiration and exasperation every time he was in her presence.

  Perhaps magic was not gone completely from the world, but resided still in the form of the dark Taucethians. Or maybe the essence of the heavenly realms from which their ancestors came so many thousands of years ago coursed still in their blood. That is why I am yet drawn to her…that must be the reason.

  Grantham sternly banished the thoughts and desires he felt for his governor—they were especially strong when he was on campaign—and looked at Sheriff Cotrian.

  “Would you gentlemen indulge me in a few moments alone with our Governor,” he asked, though it was inflected more like an order than a question. “I would speak to her alone regarding our strategy.”

  It would take every ounce of persuasion he could muster to talk Drucilla out of decamping and charging the enemy, and Grantham did not want a gallery of observers watching the spectacle.

  “Attend to the affairs of our war camp,” Drucilla said to the officers. “The Duke will elucidate his strategy to me.”

  She looked at Grantham, a faint smile crossing her voluptuous lips. “I trust it will culminate in Marek’s head on a pike in front of the broken gates of Relfast. Your duke will explain to me in detail how this shall be accomplished.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Barryn

  The Black Swan Company was leaving for war, and there was little time for ceremony. Barryn’s acceptance into the storied mercenary company was celebrated with rushed paperwork, armor and equipment issue, and pay call—or what was left after the cost of the initial issue was deducted. He received additional pay for his horse and tack, which had been given over to the quartermaster platoon for the company’s use.

  Barryn once again carried the deadly and beautiful sword Lady Sanguina had given him, as well as the dagger he received courtesy of the ruffians who tried to rob him a year ago in Brynn. Clad in his arming doublet, blackened steel cuirass, kettle helm and black breeches, the young man was better equipped than a chieftain of the Caeldrynn.

  And just like that, he found himself in bond to Castle Dwellers for yet another year. Up until this point, he and his fellow recruits could have left at any time. But now that they were fully vested members of the company, they were bound for the rest of their year-long contract. Going away without leave was now a corporal offense, and deserting in time of combat was punishable by death.

  Barryn and Delton were introduced to their assigned eight-man squad in the Second Infantry Platoon and were led to the squad’s billets by Corporal Jarvik, their squad leader. Their new comrades formed one of the platoon’s two crossbow units, so Barryn and Delton were each issued the bulky weapons and signed for quivers, cleaning kits and cranequins.

  “You don’t need to sign for the crossbow because there’s a good chance you’ll fire it twice, drop it, and wade into the melee with sword and buckler,” Jarvik said. “After the battle, you’ll go back and try to find the one you dropped, if you like it. If not, pick up a better crossbow if you think you find one. They’re all the same, really, so it doesn’t matter.”

  The squad leader showed Barryn and Delton around the military village nestled tightly in the shadow of Falgren Keep. It was an eclectic mix of relatively new barracks and small, weathered houses repurposed for quartering the mercenary company. Another village nearby housed the civilians who worked the surrounding land and provided for the company when it was in garrison.

  “My purpose in life,” Jarvik told them after a brief tour of their sleeping quarters and the squad’s equipment shed, “is to keep the eight of us healthy, walking and breathing. Otherwise, we can’t kill the enemy and earn our silver. Other squads assign all the shit work to the new guys until they’ve earned their place. I don’t operate that way. We all share the work, because we all have each other’s lives in our hands when we’re on the line.”

  Jarvik was tall, swarthy and barrel-chested almost to the point of being fat, with a square head and a thick neck. He carried himself with an elegant power that animated his large frame, and his wide face offered no less than three smiles—smiles!—during his introduction to the squad’s facilities
.

  But his eyes…Barryn saw ghosts of loss and pain in Jarvik’s dark-ringed eyes. Or at least he imagined he did. The squad leader was a calm, jolly giant. But his eyes seemed to gaze in a different direction than he was smiling.

  “Keep your kit packed up, and rest well tonight,” Jarvik said. “We march tomorrow at first light.”

  “Hey, new bloods! Where’d you get your swords?” asked one of their new squad mates.

  “Where are your manners, Crossbow? Introduce yourself like a human fucking being,” Jarvik said.

  “Good day to you. My given name is Faragard, but everybody calls me ‘Crossbow,’” he said in mock formality. “Now where did you get your blades?”

  “It was a gift from Duke Grantham presented to me when I was made a knight,” Delton said. Half of the squad snickered and made sounds of derision under their breath, and the others fell silent and looked uncomfortable to be around a nobleman. Barryn noticed the fine sword for the first time. He must be a knight after all. I’d like to hear that story some time, he thought.

  “What about you, rosy cheeks? Where did you get your steel?” Crossbow asked Barryn.

  Barryn felt heat and blood rise to his face at the epithet. His time with the tawny castle dwellers had made him more and more aware of his fair complexion and the attention it drew from people in the Empire.

  “Ah, mine was a gift, too,” Barryn said, and cleared his throat. “From Lady Sanguina at the House of Portia. I was indentured there before I joined…”

  “The House of Portia! Bullshit! Let me see that,” Crossbow said. The rest of the squad members put down what they were cleaning or packing and crowded around.

  Barryn looked at Jarvik for permission to bare steel indoors. Jarvik nodded. “Be careful with that thing.”

  He methodically drew the sword and handed it Crossbow.

  “Fuck me,” Crossbow said almost reverently. “That’s an actual M’Tarr blade. No shit.”

  “And you’re letting that dumb ass touch it? You’ve got a lot to learn around here, new blood!” one of the mercenaries said when Crossbow passed it to him for inspection.

  “Fuck the sword, you were in the House of Portia for a year? I’d give a month’s pay just to roll around in their dirty laundry!”

  “How much do you want for this?”

  “Go shit yourself, Hansid. Your entire family couldn’t afford it,” Crossbow said. “Give the snowflake his blade, you thieving ass.”

  “Here, Snowflake,” Corporal Jarvik said, taking the sword from Hansid and handing back to Barryn after admiring it himself. “Keep it close, and don’t let these rascals talk you out of it.”

  To the rest of the squad he said, “Go back to cleaning and preparing your gear. Chow’s in an hour, and I want everything ready to go before we eat.”

  Barryn sheathed his sword, then took it and his belt off and laid them on his cot. I suppose they’ve accepted me already. I haven’t been in the squad an hour, and I already have a stupid nickname, he thought as he organized his belongings.

  The dream came again that night, the one of home Barryn had at least once every week. There were no people in it, just his native land. He wandered from fishing hole to favorite climbing tree to the old ambush site where he collected rusty steel arrow heads when he was a child. He listened to the wind through the trees in the summer afternoon of his dream, and he felt the cool water of the stream where he swam and bathed.

  Barryn walked down the logging trail toward his village and wandered from house to house. They were abandoned and falling in on themselves. He found his house and walked inside. It was just as forlorn and decrepit as the others in the dream village. Barryn tried to move the broken timbers out of the way and rearrange the overturned chairs and table of his childhood home, but it was no use. The place would never be livable again.

  But tonight, the dream was different.

  Where I am, there is your home, the etherial voice reverberated from an unknown distance. I am Ashara.

  In his dream, Barryn was not fazed by the disembodied woman’s voice. Instead, he walked into his mother’s room. It was empty, but the walls and roof were whole. They showed none of the dilapidation of the rest of his house.

  Then the room was no longer empty. A sword, shining with light captured from the sun, hovered several feet above the stone floor where his mother’s bed should have been.

  Take my sword, and render it unto my chosen in this world. Proclaim her mighty works, works done by and through my power, the supernal woman’s voice commanded.

  Barryn reached for the sword, and the world around him turned into pure light. But who is her chosen to wield it?

  He woke up shrouded in darkness. Groggily, Barryn slipped his boots on and walked outside to use the latrine. As he relieved his bladder, he brushed his hand to his chest and felt the iron arrowhead hanging from its thong.

  Another voice came to him, this time from his recent past. It was an admonition from Sergeant Drake, given in a quiet and confident voice to the recruits late in their training when they were competent enough to be spoken to like human beings: Never whistle while you piss.

  Be present in the moment, Paardrac had reminded him several times during his druidic studies. Concentrate on what you are doing. Do not let your mind be divided.

  “Never whistle while you piss,” Barryn said quietly to the darkness.

  He walked back to the squad house and bundled up in the cot. It was the most comfortable bed he had slept on since joining the Black Swan Company. He tried to fantasize about Jasmine, but was too tired. He wondered when he would next have a chance to see her and fell quickly back to sleep.

  They marched out the next day at first light, just as Corporal Jarvik had said. Banners and armored riders led the way; pipes skirled and drums beat a martial rhythm that propelled Barryn and the men surrounding him in the ranks toward hardship, death, glory and the promise of steady pay.

  Barryn gripped his crossbow and marched beside his new comrades.

  I am Ashara, the haunting voice whispered, then left him in the rising dust of the road.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Barryn

  The routine of waking up, breaking camp, marching, and digging in for the night had become familiar and tiresome by the time Barryn first shed another’s blood with the Black Swan Company.

  The day started the same as the previous ones. The company bugler played the wake up call at dawn, then the pipers and drummers played “Better Days than These,” a drinking song whose words had been modified to become the company’s anthem.

  Barryn and his squad mates hopped out of their sleeping pallets, and the early morning silence gave way to the sounds of a stirring camp outside and the befuddled cursing of mercenaries inside the still-dark tent.

  “Blessed Mahurin,” said Pruska, an aloof but hard working member of the squad. “Hear my entreaty to you, Warden of Fentress.”

  Barryn and his squad mates fell silent in deference to the religious man’s prayer. “Bless us this day, which you have made. Grant us a straight road to march and strong arms with which to fight. Let us shine in Your wisdom and glory and return safely from the day’s labors. In Your name are all good things set before us.”

  The prayer finished, the bustle of the morning’s activities resumed. Barryn and Crossbow helped each other buckle their cuirasses over their black doublets. Delton and Hansid did the same nearby. Jarvik had assigned the new soldiers “battle buddies” to help guide them through the everyday activities and idiosyncrasies of life in the squad.

  “It’s crooked, Snowflake,” Crossbow said and nudged Barryn’s kettle helm. “How’s mine?”

  “Good.”

  “Let’s go. Out of the tent,” Jarvik said. “Don’t be the last one in here.”

  The squad rushed out the door and stood in line abreast in front of the tent, awaiting the corporal’s inspection before the day’s work began. Jarvik started at Barryn’s right, making minor adjustments and poi
nting out at least one off detail or minor problem to correct on each of the mercenaries.

  Then it was Barryn’s turn under Jarvik’s humorless gaze, and the squad leader’s neutral face magnified the cold darkness of his eyes. Barryn felt Jarvik’s body heat and breath as he tugged at straps and straightened seams on his clothing.

  Every item on Barryn’s frame was surveyed quickly and thoroughly: his calf-high boots, black breeches (tucked snugly into the strap-laden boots), arming doublet, blackened cuirass, dark brown belt, Blood Singer, wickedly fluked and spiked buckler, cranequin, crossbow, blackened steel kettle helm. Barryn catalogued each item as it fell under Jarvik’s gaze and wondered what deficiency the corporal would find.

  “That cranequin needs oil,” Jarvik said, and moved on to Delton.

  After the early morning inspection, the mercenaries lined up at their platoon’s mess tent to break their fast on boiled oats, sausage and a ration of dried fruits meant to prevent scurvy. Each platoon also had a sutler wagon that was allowed to sell the mercenaries whatever treats and condiments they could afford.

  Barryn saved his coin and scarfed down his ration, then helped his squad dismantle and pack their tent on one of their assigned mules. Each of the mercenaries’ few belongings and money were stored in locked trunks that were loaded into the squad’s wagon, along with their pavises, spare crossbow parts and various projectiles designed for a variety of targets.

  After the camp was packed away and the men formed by platoon, they marched for three hours and, instead of stopping for a midday meal, lined up in battle formation on a small rise in the grassy plain. The crossbowmen screened the rest of the infantry, and the heavy cavalry guarded the flanks.

  A half mile away, a motley array of horsemen began to form their ranks and advance toward the Black Swans. They left a cluster of tents surrounded by laagered wagons, but otherwise sparsely defended.