by R. J. Grieve
“Do not say that!” cried Sareth. “This is not the end. Do not leave me, grandmother, you are all I have!”
The Queen’s gaze returned to the young woman kneeling beside her, looking up at her so earnestly. “I know your family has failed you, Sareth. The fact that you say so readily that I am all you have, tells its own story. Your betrothal should mean that your mind should go first of all to Vesarion when you are in trouble, but it does not. That is why I say to you to go with him to Sorne, my dear – and do not take no for an answer. He will try to dissuade you, you know. All I can tell you for certain is that I feel most strongly that if you don’t go, all hope is lost for the two of you. Now, quickly, Sareth, you must get ready.”
Chapter six
The Forest of Ninn
The white road to Sorne stretched into the distance, striped by long, purple shadows cast by the late afternoon sunshine. A party of ten riders, led by a tall man on a glossy chestnut mount, was travelling the road at an easy canter. He was followed by six Ravenshold Brigands, including the ubiquitous Captain Seldro, in neat military formation, the evening light gleaming on their spotless helmets and chainmail. Trailing a little behind them was a young man and woman, enough alike to be identified as brother and sister, who rode close together, their heads inclined towards one another in conversation. Last of all came the unmistakable form of Bethro, bumping along uncomfortably with all the grace of a sack of onions, clearly wishing he was somewhere else – a sentiment shared by his horse.
He was not alone in that wish. Vesarion, leading the ill-assorted group, bore the look of a man whose commands have, for the first time in his life, been disregarded, and who has no intention of getting used to the experience. Bethro was the first to irritate him by foisting his unwelcome presence upon him, claiming with aggravating persistence that he felt responsible for the loss of the sword and must therefore, much against his naturally indolent nature, inflict himself upon the pursuit party. Not all Vesarion’s reasonable objections had the least affect on him. He announced, with a stubbornness that infuriated the younger man, that if he wasn’t allowed to accompany them, he just would follow them anyway, and probably get lost and die of hunger and cold, and it would all be Vesarion’s fault.
Then there had been the matter of a public display of intransigence from his betrothed that had left him seriously wondering about the wisdom of embarking on the matrimonial state.
Sareth had turned up at the old tower in a pair of riding breeches and a leather jerkin, astride a fresh-looking gelding, announcing that she would come too.
Vesarion’s temper, somewhat abraded by his confrontation with Bethro, ignited. He announced in icy tones, that to those who knew him well indicated annoyance of no mean order, that she should get off her horse, return to the palace and dress according to her rank as princess.
It had never occurred to him that she would defy him, much less that she would do so publicly in front of an interested audience of Ravenshold Brigands, all staring stonily ahead, pretending that they were not listening.
She informed him, in penetrating tones that could have been heard as far away as the Harnor, that if he wanted abject obedience, he should buy himself a dog. This was rather too much for Eimer, who choked and dissolved into laughter. Acutely aware that the soldiers were within earshot, Vesarion had cast a fulminating glance at his audience just a little too quickly for them to wipe the grins off their faces.
Public embarrassment was an entirely new experience for the Lord of Westrin and one he found himself ill-equipped to deal with. When Sareth declared that her presence was as a result of Queen Triana’s orders, he snatched at this straw as a means of escaping from what had all the makings of becoming a juicy piece of gossip.
That was several hours ago and now he rode along in silence a little ahead of the group, not at all mollified by the fact, that carthorse or not, their fugitive had managed to keep ahead of them.
There were aspects to the situation which troubled him. In the rush to set off in pursuit, there had been little time for thought, but during the course of the ride his mind had begun to revisit that morning’s events. No matter how many times he surveyed the information they had about the theft of the sword, Vesarion could not rid himself of the feeling that it all did not make sense. Nothing seemed to fit together as it should. Who was this boy? Who had sent him? And why send a mere youth to steal so important an object? Moreover, they had not established exactly when the sword had been stolen. Bethro’s negligence meant that it could have been months ago. It also occurred to him that it was a little too convenient that Enrick had wished him to go to Sorne and now he appeared to be heading precisely there, and at great speed. Enrick was nothing if not a manipulator, and the uneasy thought that perhaps the Crown Prince knew a good deal more about the disappearance of the sword than he was revealing, had already crossed his mind. But he had no evidence of any of this. It was mere supposition, and in the meantime what evidence he did have, seemed to point to the boy as having some involvement in the matter. After all, if he was innocent, why the dramatic bid to escape?
These rather circular musings were interrupted when he reached a fork in the road, where he was forced to draw rein and wait for the others to catch up.
Captain Seldro was not a bad tracker but he valued Eimer’s opinion more. For all his dissolute ways, the young prince was a keen huntsman and had unerringly maintained them on the trail of their quarry.
Vesarion studied the ground but could see nothing. Straightening up, he surveyed the countryside around him. The main road, the most direct route to Sorne, continued ahead of them, curving gently around the rounded, grassy hills that characterised the region, each one now haloed with gold as the sinking spring sun declined. The other fork led slightly westwards. It, too, went to Sorne but by a slightly more circuitous route towards the forest of Ninn, just visible as a dark presence in the distance. Their late start meant that whichever way they went, they would not reach the village of Elig, normally the halfway stopping place on a journey between the capital and Lord Pevorion’s castle of Forestfleet. It meant an uncomfortable night on the open road and he experienced a twinge of satisfaction at the thought. That would teach Bethro and Sareth that it was unwise to disregard him.
When Eimer arrived at the fork, he did not have to ask why they had halted. He dismounted and bent towards the ground. The road itself was packed hard with the limestone dust that gave it its distinctive white appearance. For the first time, Eimer showed hesitation and began to quest over the ground without offering an opinion. Puzzled, he left the road and began to examine the verge alongside the main route, his verdict awaited by the entire party. Apparently finding nothing, he re-traced his steps and tried the road towards the forest.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Hoof prints of that size are not easily mistaken. Moreover, one of them has a nick out of the shoe – quite distinctive.”
He crossed to Vesarion and looked up at him, squinting against the low sun.
“He has headed westwards towards the forest. It’s hard to be certain, but I think we’re catching up with him.”
“My lord of Westrin?” Bethro called. “Where do we stop for the night?”
“We don’t,” replied Vesarion, conscious of taking a certain unworthy satisfaction in the words. “There is a moon tonight, so we continue to travel.”
He glanced at Sareth to see how she was taking this, but she said nothing. They had not exchanged a single word since leaving Addania.
But Eimer was still a little perplexed and returned to the hoof prints, staring at them as if willing them to give him answers.
Finally, he said quietly: “This doesn’t make sense, Vesarion. If the boy is from the Isles of Kelendore, he should be making for the coast instead of going further inland. I mean, once he gets to Sorne, what then? The barony is bounded to the north by the River Harnor and beyond that there is only the Forsaken Lands.”
“Maybe that is where he is heading. Perhaps he
thinks it will be easier to shake off pursuit in such wild and uncharted territory,” Vesarion suggested.
“You could be right, but he takes a risk going into those regions. Little more is known about them now than was known before the war. A few hardy pioneers have established two or three small villages just across the river at the edge of the Great Forest, but none have ventured beyond sight of the Harnor.”
Sareth eased her horse alongside, anxious to get away from Bethro’s inanities. “Why the delay?” she asked Eimer. “Have you lost the trail?”
It was Vesarion who answered. “No. Apparently our fugitive is heading for the forest of Ninn.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Sareth in the manner of someone to whom the information conveyed meaning. “Perhaps this is the time to mention that on the last occasion I was staying with Lord Pevorion, he advised me to avoid Ninn, as a band of cut-throats had been operating there – but that was six months ago. Maybe he has dealt with them by now.”
Vesarion appeared undaunted. “If they’re still at large, they will be looking for easy pickings. They won’t want to tackle a party of armed soldiers.”
While he was speaking, Sareth’s attention had been diverted to the sky to the north. “It looks like the weather is turning,” she observed. “I assume that you will not want to stop to find shelter, so it seems that we are in for a soaking.”
The words ‘well, you did want to come’ were on the tip of his tongue but he bit them back.
It fell to Eimer to lighten the atmosphere. “Indeed,” he agreed brightly. “Soon the only thing dry about us will be our wit.”
Vesarion laughed, never proof against the young prince.
Sareth’s prediction unfortunately proved right. Heavy clouds rolled in, blotting out the sun just as it was giving up its struggle to stay above the horizon. They extinguished whatever light might have lingered in the sky and frustrated Vesarion’s desire to make use of the moonlight by spreading a dense blanket across the heavens. Soon the only thing that could clearly be distinguished in the gloom was the white road, faintly luminous, curving towards the dense mass of the forest ahead of them.
When they reached the wood, Eimer sought out Vesarion in the darkness and grasped his arm.
“This is madness, my friend. I understand the need for urgency but we can’t even see each other in this darkness, never mind a trail. We could pass within a stone’s throw of our quarry and never see him – and matters are only going to get worse once we are amongst the trees. We must stop until dawn.”
“You’re right,” Vesarion conceded regretfully. “I had hoped to be able to catch up with him tonight, but now he will be further ahead than ever and we may very well lose his trail.”
“Perhaps not,” said Sareth. “I suspect he might have been forced to stop as well.” She held out her hand, palm upwards. “And just to prove that problems never come singly, I believe the rain has arrived.”
And rain it did. The clouds, as if weary of their burden, shed water in unrelenting torrents. The party went a short distance into the wood in search of shelter but there was little to be found. The ash trees, always the last to produce their leaves, still bore the immaturity of spring and offered them little respite. They dismounted and huddled miserably under their cloaks, stoically enduring the discomfort. Sareth, crouching with her back to a tree, breathed in the delightfully musky smell of damp leaf-mould and listened to the oddly quiet sound of heavy rain. She heard the pattering of water from the trees and the rather musical pinging sound as droplets struck the metal breastplates and helmets of the soldiers. And despite the discomfort of being cold and wet-through, what Sareth breathed in was freedom. Only now did she realise how trapped and confined she had felt in Addania and inwardly she blessed Triana for sending her on this mission – no matter what the outcome.
As the night wore on and the rain eased a little, most of the pursuit party, inured to rough travelling, managed to doze against their selected tree trunks. Even the horses, steaming gently in the cold air, hung their heads sleepily. Only Bethro could not sleep. He was tired, cold, wet and hungry – four unpleasant conditions that he had managed to avoid for most of his life. If he crouched by a tree, like the others were doing, he got cramp and water ran down the back of his neck, so he restlessly paced about, occasionally tripping over an irritated sleeper.
But it was Bethro’s inability to endure discomfort that saved the entire expedition. For not only was he awake, but he was uneasy. That same feeling of being observed that he experienced every time he descended into the depths of the old tower, had reappeared. Twice he thought he heard a footstep amongst the trees. Twice he turned sharply, his eyes probing the darkness, his breathing held in abeyance, but he could see nothing. Logic told him that it was his imagination playing tricks. After all, in all the years he had experienced this feeling in the tower, nothing bad had ever happened. But logic was proving an ineffectual weapon and the feeling persisted.
Finally, just as the rain ceased, Bethro heard something that he knew he did not imagine – the distinctive scrape of a sword being drawn from a scabbard.
He let out a yelp of alarm. “Wake up! Wake up! We are being attacked!”
The Ravenshold Brigands proved the worth of their training, for in a instant they were all on their feet, weapons drawn.
But nothing happened. The night was inky black and silent.
Vesarion strode forward, sword in hand. “What are you about, Bethro?” He demanded angrily. “Did you have a nightmare?”
“No!” exclaimed the librarian, revolted by the suggestion. “I wasn’t asleep. I heard a sound. I think it was……”
He got no further because out of the darkness came the unmistakable whistle and thud of a crossbow bolt finding it mark. One of the soldiers gave a sharp cry of pain.
“Is he hit?” Vesarion asked of the darkness.
Captain Seldro’s voice replied. “Yes,” he growled. “They were lucky to hit anything in this darkness.”
“How many?”
“Can’t tell,”
“Send two men to guard the horses. Maybe that’s what they’re after.”
Vesarion heard the low murmur as Seldro passed on his orders and sensed, rather than saw, the two men move towards the horses in the darkness.
But still nothing happened.
He crouched, sword drawn, straining his ears to detect the sound of the attack that inevitably would come. But all he heard was the dismally dripping trees, the soft snort and stamp of the horses, and the occasional whimper from Bethro who had gone to ground somewhere. He glanced at the sky, wondering what time it was, but there was not even the faintest hint of dawn to be seen.
When the attack came, it did so with a suddenness and ferocity not to be expected from mere criminals with no greater motivation than gain. Several dark figures launched themselves through the trees. He heard a crash that sounded like someone falling, then the clash of weapons over by the horses. He had no time to take in anything more, for an assailant was upon him. The lack of vision meant that this was no sophisticated fight with tactics and skill, but a desperate scramble for survival.
A dark form loomed up out of the blackness and Vesarion struck out with his sword, keeping the blow low in the hope of taking his opponent in the legs, but in the darkness he misjudged the distance and missed. Some instinct told him to duck and as he did so his opponent’s sword sliced through the air just a fraction above his head. Vesarion sprang forward, his shoulder colliding heavily with the man, bringing them both down in a bruising fall. At such close quarters, his sword was more of an encumbrance than a help and releasing it, he swung back his right fist and threw a punch that connected with his opponent with a satisfying crunch. The man had also abandoned his sword, but he was a heavy brute, clearly used to brawling. He recovered at once and landed a tremendous blow that was intended to take Vesarion in the stomach but which, misdirected in the darkness, instead caught him in the ribs.
Vesarion staggered back
against someone who turned out to be Sareth. She gave a slight cry of pain and rounded on him, ready to defend herself, but Sareth had excellent night vision and suddenly realising who it was, she reversed her grip on her hunting knife and thrust the hilt into his hand. He had only just time to push her out of the way, before his opponent brought him down again. Vesarion, pinned underneath his burly attacker, and finding his windpipe taken in a lethal grip, took the only option open to him – he plunged the heavy hunting knife almost up to its hilt in the man’s neck. Warm blood sprayed everywhere as the man went rigid, then the pressure on Vesarion’s throat slackened as his opponent suddenly sagged against him.
Eimer, knowing nothing of his cousin’s plight, had joined in the melee at the horses. He orientated himself on the confused cacophony of clashing weapons and shouting, and was soon in the thick of it, lashing out with his sword and praying that he didn’t mistake a friend for an enemy in the poor light. From what he could gather, the Ravenshold contingent was outnumbered and getting the worst of it. They had lost another soldier but were fighting stubbornly, showing no inclination to give in, and suddenly, faced with such unexpectedly aggressive victims, their attackers began to lose their appetite for the fight.
He heard one of them shout: “Leave the horses. Let’s get out of here!”
The others seemed to be in agreement with him, for in an instant they disengaged and began to retreat through the trees. Eimer had no intention of letting them get away so easily and hounded them relentlessly, supported tenaciously by Seldro and two of the Ravensholders. However, their assailants had the advantage of the poor light and managed to slip away, one by one, and melt into the darkness amongst the trees.
The first grey threads of dawn revealed a dismal sight. Three corpses lay on the damp ground, the raindrops still dripping from the trees onto their frozen faces. Two were soldiers who had lost their lives, and the third was the dead bandit, still with Sareth’s hunting knife buried to the hilt in his neck, his eyes staring vacantly at the grey sky.
