by Robin Hardy
Gusta carried up a silent, wide-eyed Ariel to Deirdre. “Oh, Ariel,” she breathed, hugging him. He wrapped his little arms around her neck.
“Mother and father must leave for a while. We’ll be back, Ariel. Gusta will take good care of you,” she reassured him. Seeing his stricken face, she reconsidered for the first time her going.
“Go too,” he pleaded.
“No, baby; we can’t take you,” she said tenderly, at which he began to cry. Now I know how Roman feels, she thought ruefully.
“Ariel, stop!” Roman said sternly. The child’s lip quivered and he put a fist to his eye. Roman took him from Deirdre and held him in arms of iron. “You must stay here, Ariel. You are the Chatain. You must be strong.”
He pressed his mouth close to the child’s ear and whispered, “I know sometimes you just have to cry. But go to your room and cry alone. God will hear—that’s enough. And He will never use it against you. I love you, son. I love you so.”
Roman set Ariel on the ground and faced him toward Gusta. The boy marched stolidly to her and turned to see his parents off. Deirdre looked in amazement to her husband. “Whatever did you tell him?”
“What he needed to hear.” Roman smiled just slightly, grasping her waist to help her mount. Then he swung up on Fidelis while Kam, Colin, and Nihl mounted their horses. Roman gestured a farewell to the palace as the scouting party departed through the front gates.
Behind them in the courtyard, Basil stood staring after them with anxious eyes. Troyce, seeing him, asked, “Is something troubling you, Counselor?”
He blinked. “No, not really. Only that Surchatain Galapos left in such a similar way for Goerge. . . .” He let the sentence die under Troyce’s steady gaze.
The party crossed the stone bridge spanning the Passage and took the broad northbound market road at a good clip. Newly paved with clay brick, it invited fast travel. And this kind of morning inspired great endeavors, being sunny but not hot, green and dewy and clear. But such seasoned soldiers knew better than to let the weather dictate the success of their mission.
They galloped steadily without conversing, so Deirdre returned to the problem of naming her horse. He was a pretty black, with no white at all but a small star on his chest. He had a smooth gait. How about . . . ?
“Surchatain,” Nihl said abruptly, and everyone looked to see what had drawn his attention. Sitting on the side of the road was an old woman draped in widow’s black. If she was begging, she chose a poor place and manner of doing it. She did not look up at the approaching party, but sat staring at nothing in front of her.
Studying her, Roman held up his hand to stop the party. “Are you in need, woman?”
“I am a widow. I am in mourning,” she said, stating the obvious.
“What do you require, lady?” Roman asked again.
“Mercy,” she said.
Kam cocked his head and Colin’s transparent face conveyed a youth’s judgment of her mental condition.
“In what form, woman?” Roman asked patiently.
“How would you give it?” she returned, looking up at him for the first time.
Roman reined back. “I have no time for your riddles. I trust this will provide what you need.” He dropped a small leather money bag to her.
She said, “It will come back to you.” He glanced at her, then spurred on, the party with him.
“Crazy old woman,” muttered Colin. Deirdre turned back to look. The woman was gone. Deirdre craned her head in the other direction, but still saw no sign of her.
Aside from this exchange, the first day of their adventure was uninterrupted riding. They traveled so efficiently through the day that they arrived early at Outpost One, their lodging place for the night.
In the time since being breached by Tremaine, the gates had been repaired and the fortress itself refurbished. It now housed a thousand soldiers as comfortably as any inn. They were still dispatched to patrol the border, but had seen no fighting for many months now.
As the scouting party approached the forbidding southern face of the outpost, the guards in the watchtowers shouted down greetings. Rounding the corner to the northern gates, Roman cast a peevish glance at a huge apparatus sitting off to the side and serving no purpose but to house birds and foxes.
He had sent more men to work on that battering ram than any other single project, but it so far refused to yield up the secret of its construction. The crafty Tremaine had built it with baffles and locks to prevent anyone but his own soldiers moving it and using it. All of Tremaine’s men who had attacked the outpost had died here, so Roman’s men had been entirely unable to take the ram apart to transport it to Westford for maintenance and storage.
Roman could have ordered the ram destroyed, but such a war machine was too valuable. They had tried moving it intact, but no matter how many horses they harnessed to it, it stubbornly bogged down in the hardest road, even with stones and planks placed under its wheels. The fact was, it would not be moved or disassembled, and Roman would not give up and burn it, even with it sitting ominously before the outpost’s own gates.
Over against it, standing at the other end of the gates, was one solitary post which remained of the first gates the ram had destroyed. Secured to the top of the twenty-foot pole was Tremaine’s glittering golden robe that Galapos had tossed to hang there. Roman had decreed that as long as the gates stood, the robe would remain as a shining memorial of the divine deliverance from Tremaine’s mighty army.
The scouting party entered the outpost courtyard and gave up their horses to the care of stablemen, then progressed toward the dining hall. On the way, they were met by Captain Clatus: “Surchatain! You arrived so much sooner than I had expected. I was preparing an honor guard to meet up with you—”
Roman waved lightly. “Don’t be concerned, Clatus; you’re not at fault. I’m rather pleased with our fast horses and the improved roads.”
Clatus turned to escort them in stride. “The messenger who came yesterday from Westford claimed he made it in four hours, according to the sundial. Devoy is such a liar, though, I wouldn’t say that to an honest man’s face.” He poked a nearby soldier in the ribs. “I suppose Captain Colin was right in arguing that the cost to improve the roads was justified. Even the local villagers are pleased—they’ve named the northbound road ‘Roman’s Highway.’”
Deirdre thought that was excellent, but Roman hardly smiled. “They were not so honoring at the last tax day. They love my roads and the protection of my army, but they’d as soon hang me as pay their legal dues for those amenities.”
Colin laughed with a snort and Clatus nodded ruefully. Then they all entered the dining hall, where soldiers jumped up from the benches to stand at attention.
Roman’s group sat down to plates of roasted capon—rather tough meat for tender palates. Before attending to the information being directed at him, Roman glanced at Deirdre to see her serenely devouring a good-sized leg. “As you were saying, Clatus?” he smiled.
“Yes, Surchatain—Jud and Vernard returned just yesterday from scouting around Corona. I thought you would want to hear from them firsthand.” Roman nodded as he ate, so Captain Clatus sent a soldier with a summons.
At this point, Clatus paused to watch Deirdre. “Surchataine,” he murmured respectfully, and she smiled on him in satisfaction at being where she was.
The soldiers sitting near the captain exchanged questioning glances, and several pairs of shoulders were raised. Roman told Clatus, “The Surchataine asked to come, and I felt she would be useful to me on this trip.”
“Of course, my lord,” agreed Clatus, and there was a lull.
The men standing near the table parted as Jud and Vernard came up. Roman indicated they should sit as he said, “Tell me what you observed in Corona.”
They glanced at each other. Jud answered, “High Lord, we didn’t even get into it.”
“Don’t call me High Lord. Why didn’t you get into Corona?” Roman asked, picking meat from th
e bone.
“The city almost seems to be in a state of siege. There are guards at every thoroughfare entrance, searching carts and questioning everyone who tries to enter. We also saw them confiscating weapons. Something murky’s afoot,” Jud replied.
Roman chewed pensively. “What did you observe of these guards? Were they uniformed? And how were they armed?”
“Yes, they were uniformed,” Jud answered emphatically. “In red. We couldn’t see their crest at a distance, but they looked to be in the Order of the Bloodclad.”
Roman stared at the scout. Tremaine’s Order of the Bloodclad had been the model for Surchatain Karel’s armed guard, the Cohort, only Karel’s order had been but a shadow of the Selecan original. The Bloods were selected from Tremaine’s vast army on the basis of strength, intelligence, and—most importantly—cruelty and imaginative bloodlust.
Vernard added in a subdued tone, “They carried heavyweight broadswords, typical of Tremaine’s kind.”
Roman turned to Vernard. “Have you any idea what they number now?”
Vernard shook his head. “No, Surchatain. The man we had on the inside is there no more.”
Roman raised one brow and flattened the other, as he did when conflicting questions crossed his mind. “How did you lose him?” he demanded first.
With reluctance, Vernard explained, “We found his body one morning nailed to the city wall. We stole it during the night and buried him.”
“How is it you let him be exposed?” Roman asked in displeasure.
“Surchatain, we used great caution—we never spoke with him in person, but used a code of rock arrangements outside the city wall. There’s no earthly way he could have been found out! But his last message to us was something we could not understand—about eyes in the night. Eyes watching him in the dark,” muttered Jud, and Vernard nodded.
“It was the next day we found him nailed above the rocks, and the code read, ‘The eyes saw him, and have seen you, too,’” Jud added. “That’s when we left.”
A stillness fell on those listening. “That’s uncanny,” someone murmured. Deirdre felt the hair on her neck stand up.
“Surchatain,” Vernard said bluntly, “we don’t take to the idea of your going there. What’s your army for, if not this?”
Roman stared past Vernard’s tense face. His reply was quiet but unshaken: “Two armies fighting within the city would destroy any innocent lives left. Something is there only I can deal with.” He lowered his eyes and shifted infinitesimally toward Deirdre.
She gripped the fork in her hand. “You must let me go, Roman. You gave your word.”
He looked at her as if wounded by an unjust accusation. “I would not go back on my word to you,” he said, though it appeared he wished he could.
After they had eaten, Roman motioned for the members of his party to take their mugs and come with him. They went up the outpost’s narrow passages to the suite which had been prepared for Roman. The soldiers they met in the corridors stopped and held a salute until they passed by.
Roman herded them into the Surchatain’s suite, then deliberately bolted the door. He faced the group with heavy words on his mind, and took a moment to think them through before speaking.
“It seems I have taken too lightly the problem in Corona,” he opened. “The Lord has just now given me a glimpse of what we actually face there. I see now why you were all compelled to come with me—you too, Deirdre. You are all strong believers. And I see that our only hope of success—that means coming away with our lives—lies in our going under the protection of the Lord. I want you to join me in asking for His power to cover us.” He paused to see that they were all of one mind.
He knelt, and they followed suit, kneeling in a circle facing each other. Roman placed his palms on the floor in front of him as a brace and said, “My Lord Jesus Christ, we have come at your summons to root out whatever evil this is growing from Corona. Lord Jesus, if we came amiss, I ask that you prevent us from pursuing this mission. But if you indeed bid us go, Lord, I ask that you go before us in power, and direct our steps to accomplish your ends.
“Lord Jesus, let my life and the lives of these be precious in your sight. Empower us to deliver Corona from the grasp of this new tyrant and take it captive to you. And while Deirdre and I are away from our son, protect him by the power of your name. Our eyes are on you, Lord. Amen.”
Deirdre and the men repeated, “Amen.” As she looked up into her husband’s taut face, a surge of love passed through her. Over the years she had seen Roman grow stronger and deeper, and, in some way, more vulnerable, with a compassion defying reason.
They stood. Nihl calmly picked up his mug to drain it, appearing not reluctant to take on this challenge. Kam pensively crossed his arms on his chest.
Colin broke the quiet. “Surchatain, I thought I should tell you . . . while I was serving under my father, during the alliance with Galapos, we had some experience with the Bloods.”
“Yes?”
“We had one outpost on the border of Seir and Seleca, north of the Fastnesses, which was overdue in sending a report. We feared they might have had an early clash with Tremaine, so we took scouts through a hidden mountain pass to check on the outpost.
“Coming out of the pass, we found the body of one of our soldiers impaled on a post. It was set in the ground like a signpost at the secret entrance to the pass. Going farther, we came upon a second body, headless. Still farther, we found another man, also tortured to death. Then another and another—they were laid out in a trail for us from the pass to the outpost.
“We saw from a distance that the outpost had been taken. Plundered, burned, and ground to rubble—I’d never seen such thorough destruction. At what had once been the entrance, a broadsword stood rammed into the ground. It bore Tremaine’s crest of the Order of the Bloodclad.”
The group silently pondered this. Colin continued, “It doesn’t excuse my father’s actions, but—it was after this that he agreed to betray Galapos. That secret pass leads from the mountains directly into Ooster.”
“I’m sure he saw no other option, with his capital in peril,” Roman mused.
“If they have resurrected the Bloodclad, then what is our plan against them, Surchatain?” asked Kam.
Roman straightened, running a hand through his thick black hair flecked with grey. “I don’t know yet,” he said flatly. “But don’t worry. The Lord Jesus is mightier than any number of Bloods, and we are following in His shadow. Let’s get some sleep now.”
The others exited to their quarters, and Roman lay wearily on the mattressed bed, rubbing his forehead. Deirdre undressed and lay beside him, reaching over to caress his temples. He closed his eyes. She kissed his forehead, his nose, his stubbly chin, then firmly planted her mouth on his.
“Deirdre, this is not a good time,” he murmured, lightly stroking her back. Undaunted, she lay across his chest to kiss him. “You are incredibly demanding,” he mumbled. She loosened his shirt laces, drawing it off over his head, and he rolled over to embrace her.
Chapter 4
In the early dawn, the outpost’s officers stood by as Roman’s party received their freshly groomed animals from the stablemen. “If you won’t let us accompany you, then what we’ll do is post a watch outside Corona for you, Surchatain,” said Clatus. “Day or night, if we see you coming out, we’ll have someone there to meet you. Don’t forbid me that.”
“That would be welcome,” Roman replied. He pressed the Captain’s hand. “So watch for us.”
They started off on the grassy plain at a brisk canter, but the horses were frisky and wanted to run. In the cool freshness of the morning, the party could not help but cast long glances at the eastern sky, with flashes of the awakening sun bursting up from the horizon through the clouds. As they galloped, the horses scattered the crystalline dew, leaving a trail of prints on the glossy green grass.
With increasing daylight, the Fastnesses appeared more clearly before them in the distance�
��silent, deep green sentries watching all the little humans scurry back and forth through them on their great campaigns.
The riders let the horses run off their excess energy, then slowed to a more suitable pace for travel. Still, they did not seem inclined to talk—not even Deirdre. They were inwardly preparing for whatever they might soon be standing against.
When, later, they exited Falcon Pass, they diverted their course to climb a short way up a gradual northern slope. From there, they could see much of the road and the surrounding countryside for miles, almost to Corona.
“What do you see, Kam?” Roman muttered, squinting into the distance.
Kam, who had generally the sharpest set of eyes in the army, shielded his face from the sun and scanned the straight northern road. “Nothing,” he said at last. “I can’t pick out any uniforms at all. There doesn’t seem to be anything on the road—strange, for this time of day.”
Roman took the reins to lead his horse back down the slope. “There may be a deceptively simple reason for that.”
They rode out of the Fastnesses in formation, with Deirdre to the inside. When they came within view of a village they slowed. A small field grew wheat scattered among weeds. A hut stood back a ways from the road, but there were no animals around it.
The scouting party cantered into the village, which was vacant. “This place has been deserted for some time,” noted Kam, nodding toward the village well overrun with ivy.
“Umm,” Roman murmured, looking. “No sense in stopping here, then.”
“We might see if we could water the horses,” Colin suggested. He slid from his mount and ripped away some ivy to peer down into the well. Then he lowered a bucket on a rope by hand to bring up water. He stuck two fingers in and tasted it. “It’s good,” he said, so they all brought their horses up to drink.
