by Ted Neill
Chapter 17
Beatings
The next morning the storms had cleared leaving lavender clouds floating on a pink sky. The winter sun rose slowly, pale and distant, its light doing little to alleviate the cold on the deck of the ship where Haille gathered at the stern with the crew and passengers to say good-bye to Victor Twenge. Val and Chloe wrapped his body in a gray shroud and in solemn silence the crew dropped him over the rail. The shroud billowed and rippled briefly, flaring underwater before slipping out of sight, the ballast sewn into the bottom pulling Victor’s body to the sea floor, out of reach of wind, sun, and even the friends he had made of his former foes.
“A worthy adversary and in the end, an honorable friend,” Val said.
Chloe wiped tears from her eyes, Gunther’s arm around her shoulders. The newly freed men paid their respects in a long silence before one anonymous sailor started to sing. It was a bittersweet dirge that lasted long enough that when it was finished Victor was long lost in the distance.
The sailors returned to their posts and the others went below decks out of the bite of the wind. Haille remained at the stern. Somehow cold air and solitude was preferable to the crush of bodies below deck where there was little to do but nap, play dice, or idly chat the hours away. His relief at being freed had faded quickly with Victor’s death and the news Val and Chloe had shared of Antas: his home in chaos, overrun with vaurgs, the citizens scattered, the Antan Council fled to Carasans, the city under siege by an army of the monsters.
Was it all retribution for what he and his friends had done? Had they started this war while trying to save his father from another?
Haille wondered what other failures awaited him. His body sagged against the rail. He had escaped a prison of stone only to be trapped in one of his mind, with walls of guilt, remorse, and self-recrimination. Azure, who had accompanied his friends in their long search for him, kept him company at the rail, but even her familiar presence did little to lift his spirits. If anything, he found it remarkable that the sight of the jay, who had followed him so faithfully throughout his travels, left him with little feeling at all.
He listened as a set of footsteps climbed the companion ladder to the deck behind him. He imagined it was a crew member making rounds. He felt no desire to engage so he continued to stare out at the sea, even as the footsteps came alongside and stopped.
“Spar with me, Prince,” Val said.
Haille turned to see his friend holding two wooden practice swords, the points balanced on the planking of the deck.
“Maybe later,” Haille said, shifting his gaze back to the sea and the foaming wake of the ship.
One of the swords clattered on the deck, its handle next to his foot.
“No, now,” Val said, his voice taking on an edge. “It will do you some good.”
Haille met Val’s gaze—his eyes were narrow and focused, his scarred jaw set at a stubborn angle. Haille knew his excuses numbered few to none. He picked up the practice sword and raised it limply while Val settled into a fighting stance. The captain would not indulge Haille’s listlessness, driving in with a quick strike that knocked Haille’s blade to the side before following with a slap to his shoulder.
The strike stung, the pain shooting through Haille’s body, waking him up and sparking a flare of anger in his chest. Val read the change in his expression. “If you don’t like being hit, do something about it.”
Haille would. He settled into his own fighting stance—just in time—for Val attacked again. This time Haille parried his strikes, dodging and weaving and returning with counter strikes that clacked against Val’s wooden blade.
“There’s life in you still . . . but is there fight?” Val feinted right then cut left, his feet dancing across the deck in quick measured steps. Haille chose to drive forward, slipping into Val’s radius of attack, locking blades before spinning away with a glancing blow to Val’s neck.
They exchanged a volley of attacks in succession, the match attracting the attention of the crew, a few whom gathered around the ladders to watch. Val was a much different opponent than Gregor had been and Haille was forced to use more advanced combinations. Before long he was panting, his heart beating in his ears, and sweat slick on his forehead. He removed his outer doublet to cool off and to allow him more freedom of movement. It felt like an hour passed before Val took a knee and called for water. One of the crew tossed him a waterskin. He shared it with Haille before drinking from it himself and sitting back on his haunches. Haille copied him, setting his sword to balance on his knee.
“A man needs something to fight for, Haille, to awaken him, to rally his efforts against.”
Haille nodded, realizing the effort of the fight had done him some good. At least for the time he was engaged he had forgotten his sadness, his melancholy, even though he already felt it returning as his pulse slowed again. He wondered would he have to become manic to forget the failures and losses he had endured, the failures and losses that he had yet to endure but already worried about? It felt like too much. The walls of his prison were returning.
Val readjusted his legs beneath him. “There is no shortage of evil in this world to oppose Haille. You just have to make the choice to fight it and not to dishonor yourself in the process.”
“What cause is there left to fight for, to honor?”
“All of them, pick one. Your father’s legacy, your own honor, your own home.”
“Dust, nonexistent, and in ruin, all three.”
“The people who remain in Antas are in danger. Even if you don’t recognize the sacredness of your life, you must recognize the value of theirs. In turn, you will find your meaning again.”
“What makes you think I’ve lost ‘meaning’?”
“Otherwise you wouldn’t be perched on this poop deck contemplating your failures.”
Haille dropped his chin into his chest and twisted his mouth. Was he so transparent? “On the island it seemed that those were all I could remember. All my choices had brought me to failure.”
“Imprisonment can do that to a man—put him in a stupor of self-pity and doubt.” Val took his sword and tapped Haille on the shoulder. “I’m here to wake you up. It’s what friends are for . . . be a man of deeds Haille, not of regrets. Purpose is the best weapon against those demons that torment you from within.”
“I’d settle just to be happy again.”
“Life does not owe you happiness, just purpose,” Val said, standing up and readying his sword. “Let’s fight.”
Their practices continued, daily, as they sailed on the northeast winds towards Soledor Cove, formerly a nest for pirates and smugglers but now an outpost for those Antans resisting the invasion of the vaurgs and hoping to free the council from the siege in Carasans.
“They are an army awaiting a commander,” Val said to Haille as they sparred one morning.
“Then I best get you in fighting shape, Captain,” Haille said, dodging a blow and skirting close to Val to stab him. Val parried the thrust.
“I’m a captain, but not a commander. For that the people need a symbol, someone they know. They need you, the prince,” Val said, punctuating the statement with a jab that slipped passed Haille’s defenses and stung him in the stomach. He stood, stunned.
“Me? But I was disgraced in Karrith, Oean himself sentenced me.”
“Oean was not himself, I already told you, his wife sent us to find you. She knows what kind of leader you can be.”
“But I rode the very creature that slew my father.”
“Do you really think Adamantus was the same as those, things?” Val asked, dropping his sword low and stepping close to Haille.
“No, but will the people believe that?”
“They’ll believe in you . . . they will have to. Being a prince carries with it, hope.”
“That hope feels heavy,” Haille said, stepping back into a fighting stance.
Haille had grown used to training in the morning and resting in the afternoon.
But Val and Chloe seemed to have different plans in mind for him, for Chloe came to him as he dozed in a hammock after the midday meal, turned him out onto the floor, and tapped the end of her battle staff next to his head. Gregor sniggered at him from his own hammock across the cabin.
“No rest for royalty,” she said, then tossed her own staff to Haille. She held Val’s in her hand as she walked up the stairs above deck. Haille followed, still weary from the morning’s training. Chloe granted no leniency, battering him and castigating him for mistakes. The staff was a new weapon for him so there were many miscues and no shortage of opportunities for her to correct him.
Haille was not the only one receiving instruction: Gregor joined Gunther and they settled into the corner of the same deck and exchanged knowledge about spells and enchantments, taking turns being teacher and student.
Haille was always the student with Chloe and he found her an even harder taskmaster than Val. She was faster and read his movements before he made them, anticipating his attacks and countering with an effectiveness that often put Haille on his back.
After one such flattening, Chloe let Haille rest and settled down cross-legged next to him. Watching the clouds drift across the blue sky, Haille thought aloud, “Val told me to be a man of deeds, Chloe.”
“Deeds are worthy, true,” she said, sipping water. “A good cause is even worthier, but only in so much it helps the thriving and fulfillment of others.”
“You sound like a philosopher.”
“I speak from the codes of the Order of Oban. Some say that is just what we are.” She offered him the skin of water. “If we live in a world of individuals, Haille, it’s a selfish, meaningless world indeed.”
Haille propped himself up on his elbow. “You and Val talk a lot about meaning.”
“We have spent our lives trying to weave it into all our actions.”
“Actions for a right cause are meaningful.”
Chloe shrugged. “That is what Val would say.” Her eyes darted to her husband who was repeating an incantation for Gregor to memorize. Her face softened. “Love of others is meaningful, too. Now pick up your staff and prepare for a beating.”
Chapter 18
Chastain Manor
Lorna was nothing if not resourceful. She assembled two dozen hearty men with horses, armed and ready to ride by the next morning.
“There is no end to your industriousness, my lady,” Darid said, mounting Barnaby. “I don’t know how you find the time.”
“I’m old,” Lorna said, patting Barnaby’s neck. “I can’t sleep at night, so I scheme.”
“And she naps in the afternoon,” Sorrel said, handing up a satchel to Tallia. Katlyn was pleased to see a sort of kinship had formed between the two girls from such different backgrounds yet so similar, each exhibiting a quiet confidence. They had both stayed up during the night sharing what they knew of herbal concoctions and potions from their respective people, even as Katlyn had been nodding off.
They set out, an organized troupe of sorts, with Darid at their lead and Adamantus at his side. Gail followed in the role of Darid’s squire and Katlyn and Tallia in their wake. The rest of the men rode in pairs along the trade road, their weapons at the ready. But as they rode they found they did not need much vigilance. The Eastlands were empty of people and vaurgs. Not a single sign of the monsters was to be found, not a print, a scent, a kill, or spoor. Katlyn was relieved and with so many men along with them, she slept soundly at night, nurturing the hope that perhaps the horde had returned to the forest or at least been defeated.
“Don’t let your guard down,” Gail said to her as warning one night as they tucked their blankets around themselves. “There is a lot of land to cover as of yet.”
There was and as they moved west towards the city and passed more abandoned farmsteads and deserted villages, Katlyn could not help but think of all those she had come to know: Pathus and Annette, Garn and his kinfolk, not to mention her own family. The emptiness of the countryside grew ominous, a foreboding that deepened with every league they marched. With no sign of friend or foe, their unanswered questions grew to many.
Soot had gone south, delivering a message to Karrith, sharing news and seeking aid. Sapphire had remained, ready to send back more news, yet more days passed and they had none. Daylight was encroaching on the long winter nights, the sky lightening earlier, the stars emerging later, yet the days were still often gray with a lid of clouds pressed low on the bowl of the sky. The winter silence was absolute with only the sound of the wind rushing through bare branches, occasionally punctuated by the sound of a barn door swinging open on an abandoned farmstead. Raindrops came and went, dampening their cloaks and muddying the ground. Even their horses grew subdued, their heads low, their hooves heavy with the mud of the road.
They were outside Kinth when they found their first sign of the battles that had been waged. A horrid odor greeted them at the edge of town and in a field not far from the road they found the ashes of a great pyre. The bodies burnt were no ordinary creatures, as the malformed skulls with rows of needle teeth attested. The dead vaurgs were all too familiar to Katlyn. The charred bones, the blackened armor, all were strange and hideous.
The men wore grave expressions, while Darid circled the pyre on Barnaby. “Better dead than live,” he said. “Do they burn their own?”
“No,” Adamantus said, circling the pile in the opposite direction. “This is the work of men.”
“Then we have allies.” Darid scanned the horizon as if to spot them.
“But what has become of them?” Gail asked.
No answers were apparent but Darid thought it necessary to at least visit the manor of the appointed seat of the government council. “If there is a stronghold, it will be there. We might find survivors.”
“I know the way,” Katlyn said. She rode to the head of their column and led them down streets she had walked with Cody the previous autumn when she had first recruited Val and his friend as allies. How different the town was this day. The streets were abandoned, empty of people and covered instead with windblown leaves from the previous season. Some houses were boarded up, others had been left in haste, the front doors ajar. Katlyn remembered Pathus’ account of Cadrae, this village built too close to Sidon wood, where in one night all the inhabitants disappeared, taken by vaurgs.
History repeats itself.
The town square was empty and silent but for the bucket of the village well creaking in the breeze on its crank. Dark patches of blood stained the cobblestones. Whether it was human or vaurg there was no telling, but the men of the party rode with their weapons drawn. Gail kept an arrow ready in her bow, Tallia a spear in her hand.
The main road leading to the Chastain Manor was also transformed. Gone was the tunnel of turning leaves: they had fallen to molder on the ground. Bare skeletal branches interlocked overhead, the sky the color of a tombstone beyond. Again they were met by the smell of the dead as they neared the manor. The gates stood open, a few tools, hoes, rakes, shovels, lay in the courtyard along with an empty yoke and a few overturned buckets. The smell of rot drifted from the stables. One of the men rode in only to return, his sleeve lifted to cover his nose.
“The animals, all dead.”
“Slain?” Darid asked.
“No, looks more like they starved to death.”
The men formed a perimeter around the manor house, Katlyn stealing a glance at the holding cells where Garn had cut Val and Cody loose. She dismounted and entered the manor with Darid, Adamantus, Gail, and Tallia. The tapestries that had formally adorned the walls sat in moldy piles, the seal of the Chastain fox torn and laying in scraps on the floor. Furniture was broken and upended. By silent understanding, the others followed Katlyn, since she had been there once before, albeit as a prisoner. When they reached the anteroom where she and Haille had once been dazzled by the bejeweled hilts and scabbards of swords, they found the walls stripped bare, nothing of the treasures left there except their shapes on th
e faded wall.
No one was in the hall where she had once met Annabeth Chastain and learned of Annabell’s low place in the household as a bastard child. But as they stood and listened, the dead silence was broken by the sound of footfalls creaking across the boards overhead.
“Someone is upstairs,” Darid said.
“We’ll take the main staircase up,” Adamantus said. They filed after him, climbing the stairs in the front hall. At the top they turned down a corridor in the direction of the sounds. Katlyn saw signs of habitation: cheese rinds, chicken bones, and corncobs were scattered on the floorboards. She could smell a chamber pot that had gone too long without emptying. Darid came to the end of the hall, his sword drawn, and stopped in the door to a private chamber. He said nothing at first but his eyes followed the movement of a figure, the shadow cast on the floor at his feet like a ghost.
Katlyn came alongside with the others and saw Lady Chastain herself. She was in her bed clothes, her hair tangled and disheveled, her feet wrapped in rags. Her face was sallow and drawn as if the skin were too big for her bones. She crossed the room to a high-backed chair where she sat down, her arms hanging over the sides, her hands bony, her nails overly long, and the rings too big for her fingers.
“What intrusion is this? Trespassers in my home. State your names and stations.”
Any fear Katlyn had held for the woman was gone now. She stepped forward without hesitation and said, “I am Katlyn Barnes of Antas, friend of Prince Haille and ally to the crown. The last time I was here you held the prince and me prisoner.”
“How dare you address me with such tone. I am Chancellor of Kinth.”
Katlyn scanned the room. The bed was unmade. Dirty dishes sat piled on a table in the corner. The air was thick with smoke from a weak fire, the remnants of book spines smoldering in the ashes.
“Your province lies in ruin, my lady,” Darid said with a sniff and a grimace. “What happened here? Do you require aid?”
