by Dan Rabarts
~
Bane watched the closed door for a long moment after she left, then tugged the bell for a servant. A minion hurried in, prostrating himself silently on the bottom step, tail hovering well above the floor.
“Bring me Skerrl the chef,” Bane said, and the servant scuttled away. In the following silence, Bane chewed his lip. What unlikely courage was this, his youngest son defying the Emperor’s soldiers and fleeing for his life? The noblest sort of cowardice, perhaps? Maybe there was more to his chubby progeny than he’d imagined. Miracles might never cease.
Bane shook his head and turned back to the tome before him. Rathrax expected answers and answers he would have.
~
Eldarian jerked his horse around, surveying the honour guard who would return the corpse of their charge to Landaria. Bladesingers heading up their companies of warriors, noble elves and blooded, both against and alongside the hornung, they held their heads high, noses tilted above the ugly stench of the demi-beast traitors. As Silverblade, the highest-ranking warrior in the prince’s retinue, he was now in command, and had made clear to Emperor Rathrax that he would carry word of Prince Larthia’s murder to the Lord Regent of Landaria with all due haste. Where he had failed to defend Larthia, he would carry out this shameful task with all his might and resolve.
The courtyard clattered with the approach of horses, and the Silverblade wheeled, hand flashing to his sword hilt, prepared to meet any other act of betrayal the hornung may throw at them. Four dozen hornung soldiers, bearing longspears, bows and swords trotted into the courtyard. Behind them came another dozen hornung in the dark robes of the Coven, headed by a gaunt-faced warlock. He rode directly towards Eldarian.
“They come armed for battle,” Eldarian called to his lieutenants in the Old Tongue. “Be ready.” These were not provincial skirmishers, but Kriikan City Guard. The opposing elvish and hornung warparties would be equally well-trained and disciplined, but they would be fighting on the hornungs’ home territory. Eldarian could not hope to win a battle here, now.
“We ride ready for war because we expect trouble,” the warlock answered him, also in the Old Tongue, to Eldarian’s chagrin, “but not from our good friends and allies the Landarians. I am Hrodok, warlock of the Coven. This murderer we seek knows no sympathy from us. We expect he has gathered his accomplices near the castle, waiting to cut down your men as you leave. We will you escort to our borders, to ensure your safety. Is this agreeable?”
Hrodok’s warparty slightly outnumbered Eldarian’s command, which would leave them at a slight disadvantage if the hornung turned against them outside the walls. But if they were indeed attacked on the trail, Eldarian could use every spare sword. Eldarian was a warrior, not a sorcerer, and without scrying magic he was running blind. No hornung could be trusted farther than he could throw one from the castle ramparts, but if Rathrax had also been betrayed, and the hornung genuinely intended to maintain diplomatic relations with Landaria and avoid a political disaster, then to refuse Hrodok’s gesture of goodwill would only exacerbate the situation. On balance, Eldarian saw no reason for the hornung to have committed this murder, yet the whole affair reeked of deception. The weight of the choice heavy on his shoulders, he gave a curt nod. “Very well. But we will be watching you closely and will strike without mercy should you move to betray our quest.”
Hrodok nodded, his face grave. “But of course. I would expect no less of the noble Landarians. Shall we ride? I’ll send outriders and vanguard and maintain a rear-guard.”
“You mean you’ll have us surrounded?”
Hrodok shrugged and signalled his troops into motion. “Try not to think about it like that. Worry will give you ulcers.”
Hornung and elf exchanged stares, Eldarian trying to read Hrodok’s intent. But that sharp face with its cold dark eyes was as closed to Eldarian as a locked tomb. Then the clatter of hooves swirled around them, and they flowed apart as a hundred horses thundered through the gates of Castle Kriikan into the blasted waste beyond.
Chapter Five
Never had Akmenos experienced such an awful night. He’d scratched together some moss, bark and sticks and used his spark cantrip to light a small fire amongst the rocks. He’d wrung out his sodden clothes before curling up as close to the little fire as he could get, but still he slept in broken snatches, waking all a-shiver, pushing more sticks into the fire and puffing life into the embers. When dawn had finally arrived, it was like he hadn’t slept at all. His stomach growled, disgruntled by the fact that not only was breakfast nowhere in sight, but it had been denied both dinner and supper the night before. His legs shook, and his head hurt.
“Come now, prove to us your strength and resolve,” said Akmenos to Akmenos. In spite of this rousing cheer, he remained quite glum. Kicking the fire apart—he’d read somewhere that this was important when you were being tracked—he set off along the rocky riverbank. What he wouldn’t give for a cup of tea. What marvellous things might he find to eat if only he knew where to look? Trout, for starters, came from the river. And truffles, of course, most definitely came from the woods, assuming you had a pig to find them. Of course, if you had a pig, why bother with the truffles when you could have bacon, and ham, and trotters? Maybe he could raid a wild hen’s nest for eggs? Then all he’d need to go with his bacon and eggs would be some lovely wild potatoes, sliced and fried with fresh thyme and rosemary, a little garlic oil, tea to wash it all down, and he would be fine.
Buoyed on by such succulent imaginings of wild gormandising, he nearly tripped over the bridge, or more precisely, over one of the heavy ropes that ran from the timber uprights back into the riverbank. Akmenos regarded the narrow path and the equally narrow rope bridge in veritable astonishment.
“Hang on,” he said out loud again. Since he’d been talking to himself aloud since he set out, he saw no reason to break the habit now. “A bridge means a path, means it must lead to a road. Which may be good or bad for me. Also,” he posited, “in the valley, paths might lead down to a road, or up to…wherever it is that paths go, which might be nowhere.”
He briefly contemplated ignoring the path and the bridge altogether, for surely anyone who was looking for him would be scouring every track and path in the valley. Then he looked at the arduous tumble of boulders and moss and mud that was the riverbank, and looked at the state of his hoofs, which were not intended for this sort of misadventure, and the scuffed and broken state of his claws.
“On the other hand,” he continued to reason to the morning in general, “paths surely lead to breakfast, one way or another. So, I’d do well to follow one, but to do so incognito.”
He would need a disguise, then, and the bush would provide. Turning around, the first thing he saw was the flat, shining surface of a drawn blade. “Oh,” he said, looking down the length of the sword to focus on the face at its other end. “Hello.”
“Did you say you were looking for breakfast?” asked the grey eyes behind the blade.
Akmenos’ knees wobbled. “You kill it, I’ll cook it.” He grinned, in a manner he hoped was so disarming it might actually disarm his interlocutor. Of course, she was human, and the grin of a hornung was generally viewed by humans as, if not repulsive, at least unsettling.
The blade-wielder stepped back, lowering her scimitar. In her other hand, she held a brace of hares. “I’ll make you a deal. You help me get my stores across the bridge, I’ll feed you breakfast and lunch.”
Akmenos practically fell over himself to carry the sacks the stranger had loaded on her small cart across the bridge. The bridge was wide enough to allow the single-wheeled cart passage, but it would have been difficult to maintain balance all the way across. By the time both cook and hunter were across the river with the sacks loaded back on the cart, Akmenos was ravenous. “My hut is this way,” the huntress said. “I think I have bacon.”
Akmenos took the cart’s handles and nearly ran up the forest path.
The hut was hidden in a secluded glen, an
d only a trained woodsman would have ever found the unmarked path that led to it. Driven by his hunger, Akmenos carried the sacks inside two by two, while the huntress set a fire to crackling in the stove. Akmenos collapsed onto the small bed resting against one wall, the smell of frying bacon filling his senses. He closed his eyes and dreamed of jamming oily bacon, runny egg and thick hunks of bread into his mouth.
Some time later he started awake. The hut was warm, redolent with the fragrances of salt, old grease and woodsmoke. He sat up, looking around. His unknown benefactor sat at the far end of the bed, sipping from a steaming mug.
“Wha—” he began, his voice so hoarse that nothing emerged but a harsh crackle.
She was a dark-haired human woman, somewhere in her thirties if Akmenos was any judge, not that he’d known many human women in his time. She was also quite plain as humans went. The sort that could blend into any crowd and hardly be noticed. A bit like him, presuming there was room in the crowd for him in the first place.
“So, you’re awake?” she chided, eyeing him warily. “I’m pleased we’re not lovers, if falling asleep is your idea of delivering on your promises.” The hares still lay on the sideboard. She handed him a mug of steaming tea which she poured from a pot on the stove. “Drink. Then eat. Then cook. Then we can talk.”
Akmenos nodded. His brain was as scrambled as a plate of eggs anyway.
He drank tea, and ate a plate of bacon fried in garlic, along with some thin, dark bread, then set to work preparing the hares with the primitive utilities he found in the shadows beneath the stove. He was pleased to still have his knives as he skinned, gutted and jointed the carcasses, keeping aside the choicest sweetbreads. Then he raided the sacks for onions, potatoes, carrots, and herbs, and got a crock to boiling. In another dish, he tossed the sweetmeats in herbs and garlic and set them in the coals to bake.
The woman gestured to the mess of dishes on the sideboard. “Hot water’s on the stove. Washing bucket’s over there.”
When she was satisfied he’d left her tiny kitchen as clean as he’d found it, she invited him to sit with her on the bed. “You can’t hide here,” she said without preamble. “If the Warlocks don’t scry you out, or the trackers don’t hunt you down, the wyrmken’ll find you, and I can’t have it doing to my hut what it did to the forest last night.”
Akmenos’ blood ran cold. “How can you know—”
“Don’t worry how I know, or who I am. But I can help you get far from here. Do you want my help?”
“What’ll it cost me?”
“I’m not here to make a profit, only to ensure justice is done when evil men turn their devices against the innocent. It won’t be an easy path, but it’s safer than staying here and trying to prove your innocence alone.”
Akmenos’ head grew light, bobbing like a cork on his neck.
The woman took this as a nod. “Good. Then make some bread to go with the stew—you can’t expect me to eat stew without something to soak it up. We’ll depart when darkness falls. It’s a long road ahead.”
Akmenos nodded, hunting out bowls and ingredients, his hands mixing and kneading while his mind reeled. It suddenly seemed real, this nightmare his life had descended into. Now, in this most unreal of places and situations, the full weight of his predicament hit him. His family had thrown him to the wolves and his nation was hunting him down. He was all alone but for this kindly stranger.
“What shall I call you?” he asked, as he pushed and pulled the dough, a motion both soothing and mesmerising.
“I have many names. Call me what you will.”
Akmenos regarded her, recalling the moment they’d met. “I shall call you Scimitar.”
A thin smile pinched her eyes. “And I shall call you my fool, and my donkey, and whatever else it suits me to call you.”
Akmenos shrugged and inhaled the swelling aroma of rabbit stew and fresh yeast. If fool was the worst name she had for him, that couldn’t be worse than what he’d endured from his brothers for so many years already.
Chapter Six
Dark wings blotted out the morning sun as the wyvern descended. Shambra pressed himself into the mountainside as the wyvern—somewhat larger than the wyrmken but smaller than a dragon—and its rider alit, its claws raking the mountainside.
“Subtle, Zaertha,” Shambra grumbled, by way of greeting the other wyrmken.
The wyvern’s rider vaulted from the saddle, flaring her wings and landing beside Shambra with silent grace. “Well, apparently you’re an invalid, and I don’t plan on carrying you.” Zaertha’s scaly features gave no hint as to whether she spoke in jest.
Shambra watched for a tell-tale dart of the tongue to indicate anger or mockery, but she revealed nothing. “And do you think the Coven won’t notice an invasion into their domain by a wyrmken and her pet wyvern?”
Zaertha’s tongue flicked in disdain, her yellow irises contracting around narrow black pupils. “Some risks are more justified than others.”
Shambra bit back his reply. This was no time for excuses. The wyvern, for its part, stretched its wings and shook its long neck, then began poking its beak about in the rocks in search of juicy lizards.
She knelt, peeling aside his poultice. “It’s deep, but it should heal soon enough. You’re lucky he keeps his knives clean, or it could’ve been much worse.” She unstrapped a saddlebag, opening a leather satchel and tossing him a ceramic tub. “Rub some of that on it, then drink this.” More carefully, she handed him a small blue vial.
He did as instructed, quietly relieved that it was Zaertha the Hood had sent, and not one of her less forgiving counterparts, with instructions to scour him to a crispy pulp for his failure. The pain eased within a few minutes, and Zaertha helped him climb astride the wyvern.
She nudged the wyvern into flight, and they left the mountain ledge behind. “So what happened?”
“Fool thought I was trying to kill him,” Shambra said, scanning the valley. “Didn’t figure that if I’d wanted him dead he would’ve just been dead and never known I was there.”
Zaertha thrust a scaled claw at the fire-ravaged forest below. “Didn’t give him any reason to think you were a danger, did you? Like, dropping in a hellfire potion and setting the woods afire?”
Shambra’s tongue flickered in exasperation. “I was covering his tracks! The hornung had released dogs, and he was leaving a trail so wide they could’ve tracked him even in the pitch black. If I hadn’t done something he wouldn’t’ve lasted the night.”
“Did you try talking to him first?”
Shambra bit his leathery lips to keep his tongue from betraying him. “He was in a state,” he said at last, “would’ve tried to kill the first thing he saw, and since that thing was me, I decided it best to grab him from behind, quickly.”
She shook her head. “So, you started this relationship by attacking him? Well done. You’ve made an enemy out of a potential ally. Could you have screwed this up any worse?”
If he could, he would’ve flushed. As it was, he simply slitted his eyes against the morning sun, and scanned the forest for their quarry. Akmenos, son of Bane, must be found.
~
A shadow passed over the sun, drawing Eldarian’s gaze upward. He was not alone, for several shouts rang out in both the Old Tongue and infernal Hornung, and the riders reached for bows and shields.
“Save your arrows!” Eldarian called to his archers. “It’s too high and it’s not coming this way.”
His own archers heeded his call, but a few hornung arrows snapped skyward, warcryers with fluted holes drilled in the heads, causing them to shriek as they cut the air. Eldarian had to hand it to the Hornung: they had turned war into more than just an act of relentless engineered brutality, but into a sculpted art-form all its own. Lamenting their failure in song, the arrows fell well shy of the vanishing wyvern, landing in the blackened forest beyond. Hrodok rode back down the trail towards Eldarian, ash and cinders crackling beneath his black charger’s hooves. Although
the warlock had so far been true to his word, many miles of forest still lay ahead, and the sighting of a wyvern changed things.
“Did you see it, Silverblade?” Hrodok asked as he swung around to ride beside the elf.
“Indeed.”
“This confirms my suspicion that the wyrmken are involved in this attack on our two peoples. No doubt the beast is spying you out in the hopes of laying an ambush further on.”
Much as it irked him, Eldarian couldn’t help but agree with this logic. “Your soldiers must know this terrain. Where might an attack come from?”
Hrodok shrugged. “There are many places to ambush an unwary foe on these roads. But I have a suggestion, if you would hear it.”
Eldarian’s eyes narrowed. “Go ahead.”
“We divide our forces. Half continue on horse, walking pace, as a diversion, the rest move on foot, proceeding up into the rough country, keeping abreast of the horses. When the attack comes against the horsemen, we will have them outflanked and smash them from the side.”
Something about this rankled, but Eldarian could see no better solution. Foes lurked at every turn. “Very well. I’ll slow our advance, so your forces might move up the ridge.”
A grin, either cunning or demonic, crossed Hrodok’s face. “Of course, you and I will lead the auxiliary, and you’ll bring your superior archers. We can’t risk having the chief Silverblade of the Landarian envoy lost in a minor skirmish on his way home.”
“What are you up to, horn? This reeks of deceit.”
Hrodok spread his hands. “Why can you not trust that in light of recent events the hornung are taking extra precautions to ensure no further tragedy befalls our valued allies?”
Eldarian frowned but had no reply. Whatever his intentions, Hrodok’s logic was impeccable. Still, Eldarian didn’t like the idea of splitting his forces. “If the wyrmken are looking for elves, why not pass out some Landarian standards and armour to your heavy horse, and we will all move into the footward assault force?”
