The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 03 - Road of Shadows

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Well, we don’t want to see any of them die, so I’m sure they’ll meet my expectations,” Kestrel blithely answered. He knew how hard it was going to be for the elves to remain calm among the strangeness of the human culture. Combat would in many ways be the best environment for the elves to experience, because it would keep them focused on their mission.

  Together the two talked for more than an hour. “I need to let you finish up and rest,” Kestrel said at last as he stood. “Will you be ready to depart the day after tomorrow?” he asked.

  “We could leave before daybreak tomorrow if you wanted us to,” Giardell said assuredly.

  “We won’t do that,” Kestrel assured his friend. “I’ll need to attend to a few local matters tomorrow before I’ll be ready to go.”

  When he returned to the manor house, he was ready to go to bed, exhausted from his long day of travel. With a candle, and a strange sidelong glance from the housekeeper, Kestrel climbed the stairs and went down the hall to the luxurious suite that was his, one that was just across the hall from the room the imps occupied.

  He’d slept in the room before, but it was still a strange room, one he didn’t know, and the flicker of the candle cast shadows that seemed odd to Kestrel, as tired as he was. There was someone in his bed, he saw, creating a mound beneath the covers, he was certain of that regardless of the quality of the light the candle spread forth.

  He drew a knife, cautious and ready, then re-sheathed the weapon a moment later. “Kestrel, is that you?” he heard Lucretia’s voice call, and he looked past the glowing candle flame to see her head emerge from under the sheets on the bed.

  “Lucretia! You came!” he said with delight, then had a reflexive moment of doubt.

  “Stay right here; I’ll be right back,” he told her, then stepped back out into the hall and considered what to do. Was this the real Lucretia, he wondered, or could there be another of the evolved Viathins already seeking to insinuate itself into his life again?

  “I’m back,” he said cheerfully a moment later when he returned to the room, and saw the pleased, but puzzled, look on Lucretia’s face as she climbed out of the bed and came to greet him. They hugged, and then looked at one another closely.

  “What is it Kestrel?” Lucretia asked.

  “I want you to do a favor for me, without asking any questions,” he said.

  “Of course,” Lucretia said. “Anything for you. That’s why I’m here.”

  “Here; take a drink of this,” Kestrel held up his ever-full water skin from Decimindion.

  “What is it? Are you trying to get me drunk?” Lucretia asked with a grin. She sniffed the spout. “It doesn’t smell like wine. What is it?”

  “No questions – just drink,” Kestrel replied.

  Without any hesitation, Lucretia put the spout to her lips, her eyes watching Kestrel as she did. She stopped momentarily, then took a drink, and handed the skin back to him.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “One other thing,” Kestrel replied. He pulled his knife named Lucretia out of the sheath on his hip. “I’d like to see a drop of your blood.”

  “Kestrel, what in the world is this all about? You ask me to run across the entire length of the Eastern Forest to join you, and you expect me to go with you back to the human lands, and now that I’m here, you’re putting me through these senseless tests?” Lucretia asked in exasperation.

  Kestrel reached out and grabbed her wrist, then quickly jabbed the point of his knife into the tip of a finger. He squeezed the finger as Lucretia shouted in surprise, then pulled the finger close to the flame of the candle and looked closely at the red color. Satisfied that it was not the black blood of a Viathin, Kestrel released his hold on Lucretia and put his knife away.

  “What in the name of the world is wrong with you?” Lucretia shouted in anger. She took two steps backwards away from Kestrel.

  “I just had to be sure,” Kestrel replied. “I had to check. Let me tell you a story, Lucretia, now that I know it’s you.”

  “Of course it’s me! Taking a drink of water doesn’t prove that! You’re crazy!” the angry elf maiden replied.

  “I, I just came from Blackfriars,” Kestrel tried to explain. “The king of the imps was an imposter, a Viathin that had changed to look just like the king. And a month before that, I was traveling with an elf duchess – I thought she was an elf duchess from the North Forest – and she turned out to be a Viathin changeling too. The Viathins are the name of the monster lizards,” Kestrel explained. “And now, I just don’t know how to believe that anyone is who they seem to be.” He walked in to the room and sat down on the bed, then began to pull his boots off while Lucretia grudgingly came and sat down beside him.

  “Really? It was that real that it’s rattled you this much?” she asked without rancor.

  “Really,” Kestrel replied flatly. He flopped backwards on the bed and lay on his back.

  You can’t do this, Kestrel,” Lucretia told him earnestly. “You can’t start distrusting every person every day, no matter how much it seems otherwise. No one will work for you; no one will trust you if you start putting them through this all the time.”

  Kestrel reached forward and let his hand slowly rub circles on her back. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “But how can I feel safe?”

  “Trust Kere,” Lucretia told him. “Let her watch out for you. You’re still alive even after two of these imposters, aren’t you?

  “Besides,” she added, “how could you have doubted me? Weren’t your reasonable senses overcome by the mere fact that I was waiting for you in your bed? Wasn’t your mind inflamed with passion at the thought of me on your mattress, beneath your covers?” he could tell she was grinning, even though he couldn’t see her face, and he knew she had forgiven him for testing her.

  “I figured that was where you could be most dangerous,” he answered.

  “Oh you!” she stood and turned around to face him with a scowl. “Just for that, you owe me a complete back rub,” she demanded before she lay down in her stomach and motioned for him to begin.

  Kestrel rubbed her back, soothing and stretching the muscles for a long time as the two of them talked, each telling about their adventures since they had separated the previous autumn; Lucretia told Kestrel that his request for her to join his force had come just as she had finally grown restless with the quiet life in the village of Kerbeen. They chatted on, and eventually Kestrel fell asleep, lying down next to her, his hand still gently circling around the small of her back as his eyes shut for good.

  When Kestrel’s servant entered the room with a tray of breakfast foods the next morning the butler was surprised to see the two of them lying crosswise on top of the bed, both still wearing the clothes they had fallen asleep in the night before, Kestrel’s hand on Lucretia’s back. He quietly put the tray atop a stand near the bed, then left the room.

  Kestrel awoke soon afterwards, and found that Lucretia had already discovered both the tray of food and the bath with the running water. “I’ll stay here all day Kestrel, while you go out and do things. We don’t have bathtubs in Kerbeen,” she said brightly as he entered the bathroom. Soon afterwards, Kestrel was out about the manor and the town and the battalion’s camp, running chores and checking on preparations, while Lucretia remained at the manor and indulged in relaxation she felt she earned after running all the way to the manor the previous several days. Kestrel and Giardell agreed that the battalion would leave Oaktown the following day, and that night Giardell and Lucretia and Kestrel had dinner together at the Manor.

  “I remember how green you were that first time I saw you show up with the messenger tube at Silvan’s office,” the Guard officer laughed as they ate, “And now look at you, the Warden of the Marches and lord of the manor.”

  “But you and I could both still put him in his place if he got too big for his britches!” Lucretia promptly added. The easy interaction between his two friends gladdened Kestrel’s heart, knowing as he d
id of the low points they each had reached in their recent lives.

  The following two days saw the battalion of archers leave Oaktown, ending the extraordinary, short-term excitement the town had enjoyed by being an encampment town. The archers were all in high spirits as they ran through the forest on their journey, headed north around the borders of the Swampy Morass, and remained in good spirits until they reached the end of the forest, a relatively narrow stretch of transition from deep woods and tall trees to open pastures and disconnected wood lots at the edge of the lands of the men of Hydrotaz. A few of the elves had fought in the skirmish that had occurred in the vicinity two years earlier, as a distraction from the fire set along the northern border, and talked to their companions about the event as they reached the open road.

  Kestrel’s imps made a considerable impression on the battalion, until Kestrel finally decided to dismiss them back to their homes. There were likely to be no immediate needs for their help during the trip over to Hydrotaz, and they were a distraction as much as anything else. The blue warriors accepted the opportunity to return home once they received Kestrel’s assurance that he would call them to rejoin him when danger drew near.

  Kestrel halted the battalion in the woods, and left Lucretia to serve as their translator if needed, while he ran up the road to the village and found Mitchell’s squad at the inn, pleased to see his return, though apprehensive about actually facing a battalion of elven archers. That day the connection between the human squad and the elven battalion was made, and the residents of that village and others along the road were treated to the astonishing sight of elves trotting peacefully along the roadway with accompanying guards in Hydrotaz uniforms.

  When they approached the outskirts of Hydrotaz city the next morning, Kestrel sent Mitchell ahead to alert the palace of their arrival, and invited Yulia’s general staff out to watch a demonstration of archery skills from the elven battalion. Mitchell returned with a note that she and her staff would join Kestrel, and bring Hydrotaz archers as well, which resulted in an impromptu tournament as human and elven archers competed in shooting at targets, while the two staffs mingled in a tented pavilion that was hastily erected. Lucretia provided translation service for Giardell and the other elves, her human language ability rusty and hesitant at first, but she grew more comfortable, and turned to Kestrel for help less frequently as the day progressed.

  In the late afternoon, Yulia, Ferris, Kestrel, Giardell and Lucretia gathered around a table with a series of large maps, and began to look at the battlefield predicament they faced.

  “The Graylee forces are starting to move towards our city,” Ferris explain, pointing to the relative locations of the city, the river, and the invaders on the map. “You’ve gotten here with just a day or two to spare. “We’d like for your battalion to position yourselves on the top of this bluff looking down on the road along the river; that will close off their ability to completely encircle the city, so we won’t be besieged.”

  Kestrel waited as Lucretia translated for Giardell, and they all studied the map.

  “How large is the invading force?” Kestrel asked.

  “It’s four times the size of our force, including your men,” Yulia answered grimly.

  Kestrel looked at the map again. “If they start to get around us, we’ll be cut off from the city,” he observed.

  “Your best choice in that situation would be to keep your northern flank open as your escape route. That’ll take you away from the city,” Ferris replied.

  “And we’ll be of no further use to you,” Kestrel added. “Will you be able to give us any of your archers with their longer range bows?” He asked after a pause.

  Yulia looked at Ferris momentarily. “We can arrange for you to have a squad; I want Greysen to lead it.” She waited until Ferris gave a curt nod of agreement.

  “Go put your men in position,” Ferris said. “Greysen will join you tomorrow morning.” With that there was a round of farewells, and the humans of Hydrotaz returned to the city, while Kestrel and the elves began circling around the fields outside the city walls and climbed up the slope to reach the crown of the bluff that looked down at the river on the front side, and at the walls of the city not too far away on their left.

  “We’ll take our stand here,” Kestrel told his troops as they gathered around, “for as long as we can. When the Graylee forces come this way, we’ll make them think they’ve entered the Eastern Forest when we let our arrows loose on them. We’ll have humans with their strong shoulders up here to help us pick off the farthest targets, while your arrows will aim first for the officers and the leaders, then aim for the supplies -- the horses and the cart drivers who are in easy range. Then aim for anything else that moves down there.

  “Now,” he concluded his brief directions, “let’s start piling up a barricade around the top of the bluff. What would you tell them, Giardell?” he asked.

  “Only a few of you should be visible to them until we know that all the main targets are within certain range,” Giardell instructed. “Let the lead of the column start to get past us before we bring everyone up.

  “When you talk about aiming for the wagons, are you thinking of trying to resupply from their supplies?” he turned to ask Kestrel.

  “That’s exactly what I had in mind,” Kestrel grimly agreed.

  The elves started gathering tree limbs, stones, and other such objects they could find to erect a low barricade around the crown of their fastness as the early evening passed, and then they settled down to rest and wait for the bloody adventures they expected to see the following day.

  Shortly after dawn the following day, as the elven camp fires were heating up breakfast foods for the guards, a large squad of human soldiers in the uniform of the Hydrotaz palace guard came tramping up the backside of the hill. Alerted to their arrival, Kestrel stood at the top of the hill and grinned as Greysen brought his men up the slope on the back of the bluffs. For good measure, he called the imps of the Swampy Morass to rejoin him for the day’s battle.

  “So they sent you over to the easy assignment, did they?” Kestrel greeted his young friend.

  “They told us you were going to host a picnic over here, so we came to be the ants,” Greysen laughed back as the two of them embraced. He looked up at the imps that floated overhead. “I heard you had special relations with the imps and sprites, but I didn’t believe it until I saw them.”

  Kestrel called Lucretia and Giardell over and introduced them. “Lucretia and I are the only ones who speak the human language,” Kestrel explained.

  “If we have a choice, we’ll talk to her instead of you,” one of Greysen’s lieutenant’s spoke up, drawing laughter from the others who understood the language as Lucretia’s cheeks grew red.

  Kestrel began to explain how they wanted to use the human archers, and Greysen’s officers listened attentively, then moved their men to the wings of the elven positions, where they unloaded their packs and nodded politely to their neighbors as they settled down to patiently wait for action.

  At noon, as the sun reached its zenith and the hilltop began to feel warm, a cloud of dust appeared in the far distance of the road they guarded, showing the approach of the Graylee army. All the elves and humans watched the dust grow closer, and as it did, they all began to realize that the expectations they had been given by the Hydrotaz leadership, an expectation that a major diversionary force would pass by, was wrong. It was clear from the size of the moving mass that the main force of the besieging army was going to pass directly beneath the bluff. Scores of officers on horses, the whole leadership of the Graylee army, was in the front, and the disassembled siege engines that had been used in the last attack on Hydrotaz were also being hauled along the road, ahead of the bulk of the invading forces.

  “Greysen, send a messenger back to the city to tell them what we see,” Kestrel spoke in a hurried voice to the leader of the humans. “We need all the help they can send, especially arrows with pitch.”

 
; Greysen hurried away, and sent one of his archers running down the back of the hill towards the city.

  Kestrel continued to keep an eye on the approaching vanguard of the great invasion.

  “Greysen, Giardell!” he called. “That is the prince of Graylee right down there, riding next to the ambassador from Uniontown!

  “If we could isolate him, we could take him captive and put a stop to this war right here!” Kestrel said excitedly, as Lucretia translated his words into elvish.

  “It’s pretty crowded down there to try to isolate anyone,” Giardell warned. “With just a couple of hundred of us, I don’t think you could ever get him cut off from the body of his army to seize him successfully.”

  Kestrel sat tensely, observing the moving mass of the approaching army, trying to gauge the opportunity for a stunning success. “You’re right,” he admitted regretfully. “We won’t try to capture him, but we will have him and every leading officer of his army within bow range in just fifteen minutes. We may still be able to win this war right here if we can inflict enough damage on their leaders.”

  The four leaders went in separate directions as each took a position along the lines, and waited for the vanguard of the attacking force to draw even with the bluff. Tension ran high among the elves and men who crouched down out of sight atop the bluff, as they heard the sounds of the horses and men passing beneath. Kestrel peeked between two branches in the barrier before him, keeping his eye on the prince, a face he knew well, one that he would never forget, as the carefree leader of Graylee laughed at a comment made by one of the sycophants that rode with the army.

  It was time; Kestrel felt something within him assure him that the time to attack had arrived. He raised his bow into position, notched an arrow, and looked down the line in both directions to see that others were waiting for his lead. He stood up suddenly, as though his legs were powered by springs, and shot his first arrow at the ambassador from Uniontown.