Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (16 page)

“The prisoner Udecht is of the same bloodline, Master.” Haselrig volunteered
, hungry to buy Maelgrum’s approval.  “He would be as able to disarm the traps and handle the artefacts.”

“I am aware of thissss, little one.  I wait to sssseee how quickly friend Xander perceivesss it.  Now,
go about my busssinesss, Hassselrig.”

“Of course M
aster,” Haselrig replied crawling backwards out of the hall.  

Quintala sprang to her feet as the impatient king rose from the throne.  Eadran and Forven followed suit in automatic obedience of the protocol that none should sit while the King stood.  “Enough of this folly,” Gregor storemd.  “Quintala, get me a scribe, I may at least pen a further message for good Prince Rugan to remind him of those obligations he seems so untimely to have forgotten.”

“Sire,” the A
rchbishop offered stiffly. “If you would call it folly, may I remind you my own advice was against it.”

“If you think that excuses you from blame, Forven, think again.  Mayhap you were not holy enough for this task.”

Two pink spots of indignation flared in the cleric’s pale cheeks.

“Father,” Eadran’s exclamation
dragged all their attention back to the portal.  A foot had appeared poking through the screen, but on their side not in Sturmcairn.  They recognised the guard sergeant’s scarlet boot, though the leather had cracked and faded in his hour long journey.  The booted foot waved uncertainly in the air, seeking out the firm floor beneath it. After a hesitant couple of taps of toe on marble, it set itself fully on the ground and the rest of the intended spy fell through the portal into a heap on the floor.

Nobody moved to
help him at first, all shocked by what they had glimpsed as he fell.  

“His hands, look at his hands, father.”  There w
as a fragile edge to the young Prince’s voice.

Gregor knelt by the prone spy, lifted one of his hands thoughtfully and then very gently rolled the man onto his back.  That first fleeting glance as he fell, the wrinkled and arthritically gnarled fingers
, should have prepared them but it hadn’t.  Quintala stifled a gasp at the sight while beside her Eadran retched and Forven clutched at his holy crescent.  The spy’s face was ravaged, scored with a hundred deep lines, blackened eyelids buried in the deep sockets of an age shrunken skull, lips and cheeks hanging slack about a toothless mouth, the whole framed with a cloud of pure white hair.

“He is twenty six years old,” Gregor muttered.

At that the eye lids flickered, startling even the King. Rheumy eyes stared up at Gregor and the cracked mouth whispered a hoarse question, “am I home?”

“Yes son,” Gregor assured the age withered spy.  “What happened to you?”

“I walked, endlessly walked.  Years I have been walking through emptiness, searching for a way out.  Am I really home?”

“Yes, rest easy, my boy.”

“Goddess be praised,” the man mumbled and then fell limp in his monarch’s arms.

For a long moment Gregor knelt holding the spy’s motionless body and then with quiet dignity he laid the man out on the floor,
sweeping his palm over the wrinkled visage to close the man’s eyes.

“You do him great honour, sire,” Forven
sonorously commended the gesture but was stilled into silence by a sharp wave of Gregor’s hand.

The K
ing stood up stiffly, straightened his jerkin and announced, “we send no more spies by magic.  Quintala, get me that damn scribe. I have will have words for your half-brother.”

The S
eneschal was on the point of reminding Gregor that Prince Rugan was as much his brother-in-law as he was her half-brother, but the words died in her throat at the King’s forbidding expression.  She knew it was a rage at himself that built inside him, but had no desire to be the lightning rod that conducted such fury into the open.

It seemed to amuse Xander to have Udecht accompany him as the traitor Prince and two outlander guards sauntered around the inner bailey.  “See little brother, how I have triumphed. Sturmcairn this morning, Morwencairn before the week is out.”

“T
he credit for this treachery is not entirely yours, brother.”  Udecht’s words drew a blank gaze from Xander, so the Bishop spelt it out.  “It is your vile Master and his associates’ triumph as much if not more so than yours.”

Xander seized him by the throat squeezing hard. Udecht raised his bound hands to try to wrestle his wiry brother’s grip free, all speech impossible with the bruising grip of Xander
’s fingers on his neck.  “Do not trifle with me, little brother, you live by my grace alone. You could die the same way.”

Udecht was indifferent to his fate, but had not the breath to tell his brother so and, after a dozen choking seconds Xander let him fall gasping to the floor.  “You do no
t believe me eh, little brother? then come see what fate awaits those who cross my power.”

At Xander’s command the two guards picked Udecht up by his armpits and dragged him down the s
teps to the outer bailey.  The Bishop stifled a sob at the row upon row of corpses laid along the ground.  Soldier, servant, curate, child. It seemed that no quarter of the garrison had been safe from an indiscriminate slaughter.  Stumbling a little, Udecht shook himself free of the guards’ support and walked horrified amongst the dead, seeking and finding face after face that he recognised.

He recognised the corpse of a hoary old man, his shirt stained red but this time it was not the wine that Vlad Psah had so often spilled as readily as he drank, it was the drunkards’ life blood that coloured his tunic.  Udecht scanned the neighbouring bodies and gave a sob at the sight of a woman’s body, flung face down, dress
dishevelled long dark hair splayed across the ground in a disorder that would have shocked the proud Sahira in life.  Udecht knelt beside her, pulling her over onto her back and then choking back vomit at the ruined hole where her face had been.

Xander laughed at his shoulder.  “Orcish shield spike!” he announced.
  “Seen that plenty of times. You need to toughen up little brother.”

Udecht shut his eyes at the nightmarish scene.  “Let me say a few words for the dead, brother, for pity’s sake.”

“Why?” Xander demanded as two lumbering orcs picked up Vlad’s body and began carrying it into the eastern Barracks building. “The dead can’t hear your words. That’s what being dead means.”

“You’re a vile bastard, Xander.”

“On the contrary, little brother,” Xander cried as the silvered edge of ‘the son’ swung towards the priest’s neck, stopping just fractions of an inch short.  “The fact that I can wield this sword is proof beyond doubt that I am of our father’s blood.”

Another pair of orcs gave Sahira’s body a brief glance and then moved on to gather the next corpse and carry it after Vlad’s broken form.  “Wait,” Udecht cried.  “This wo
man, she was that man’s wife. They should be interred together.”

“Interred?” Xander echoed with a giggle.  “I fear the good lady is in no state to share her husband’s ceremony.”  He laughed again at some joke
beyond Udecht’s understanding.

Udecht shook his head, as if this might knock Xander’s words into some sense.  “What is to become of her then?”

“I expect a simpler and more permanent end will be her lot, little brother,” Xander reassured him as an outlander seized the unfortunate woman by the legs and began dragging her away.  Udecht followed the direction of Sahira’s last journey to a pile in the centre of the bailey which he had in a peripheral glance first thought just to be firewood.  But now, with a renewed horror, his closer inspection revealed it was mostly the broken and shattered bodies, limbless or headless piled high in a fleshy pyre. 

“You can’t mean to, Xander! Cremation it is…
it is not the Goddess’s way.”

X
ander sneered at the horrified Bishop.  “Well, as you seem still not to have realised, the Goddess’s writ no longer runs in Sturmcairn, little brother.”

Odestus felt uneasy in the saddle, hungered once more for the upholstered comfort of his litter, but knew it would not meet their need for speed.  The sword hanging heavy at his side was another necessary evil.  He knew that were he ever to draw it, it would place him in more danger than any foe.  Despite the many hours of Dema’s coaching, he had never come to terms with the warrior’s arts.

His mouth
creased in a wry smile at the memory of that first battle together, two decades earlier when they had been friendless and abandoned exiles beyond the barrier.  The escort from Sturmcairn had led them as far as Eadran’s folly, the low hillock a few miles beyond the barrier where the Vanquisher had finally met his end.   The guards had first dropped a small cache of weapons at the summit.  Then they had assembled the prisoners at the foot of the mound and undone their bonds before beginning a quick march back to the security of Sturmcairn; Waiting to see what use the exiles made of the freedom and the weaponry was neither their duty nor their desire.

Alone of the exiles, Dema remained bound as Marek had forecast.  Indeed the self proclaimed firetongue and killer had been in the lead bounding up the gentle slopes to la
y claim to whatever blade or bludgeon had been left.  As the others hastened after him, Odestus and Dema had been left alone.  Odestus had waited a few seconds, anxious to ensure that, by the time anyone realised what he was doing, they would be too far away to have time to stop him.

With Marek drawing near the small pile of we
apons, Odestus scurried to the Medusa’s side.  The knots binding her wrists behind her back were unfamiliar, a tangle of rope pulled tight by men with an enthusiasm born of fear.  He let out a cry of shock at the blood on her wrists where the rope had bitten deep.  “Odestus?” She was aware of him.  “Hurry, untie me.”

“Right away.”  He began fumbling with the twisted cord.  The short podgy fingers that had so deftly twisted the fabric of time and space were a lot less accomplished when it came to a tangle of purely physical substance.

“Fa
ster, what are the others doing?”

Odestus glanced up over her shoulder.  “Marek has his sword, he is laug
hing, waving it at the fat one, the one called Jonson.”

“My hands ar
e numb, are the knots loose yet?”

“No,
no, I can’t get this end free.  Uh oh?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Marek has seen us. He’s not happy.”

“What’s he doing
?”

For a moment Odestus had wavered.  Marek would be
on them in a matter of seconds. He had not the time to untie her now, not now he had seen the tangle of rope that bound her.  Maybe he should stand aside, throw himself on Marek’s mercy and let the murderer kill his accidental creation.

“Odestus, what’s
he doing?”

The moment passed.  Marek was not merciful and Odestus knew his blood would join the Medusa’s in a matter of seconds.  He threw himself at
the ropes with renewed vigour, hoping for some kind of miracle.

“O
destus?!”

“He’s getting closer.”

“How close?”

The cut-throat answered the question himself with a yell from a few yards away. 
“Prepare to die you abomination!”

“The h
ood, Odestus.  Forget my hands. Get the hood!”

The wizard had recognised their last chance a fraction of a se
cond before Dema.  His hands flew upwards seizing the leather hood, modelled on one that a kestrel might wear.  He pulled at it, practically swinging from it as the straps dug into Dema’s chin and throat.

Marek
was but a sword’s length away, the weapon raised above his shoulder for the first and final blow.

It never came.  One strap broke, the hood slipped and Dema gazed with half of one eye into the face of her assailant.  That sparkling stony gaze drilled into the murderer’s eyes.  In less than a second, though it felt a lot longer, the wave of petrification had spread over his entire body.

The others, who had followed Marek’s charge down the hill, hung back warily.  Anxious not to share Marek’s fate and yet certain they could not leave so dangerous a foe alive.  Still bound and only half unmasked this had to be the most vulnerable they would ever see her.  They circled round.  “Jonson, get behind her.”

Dema swivelled, her one good eye seeking out the voice’s owner.  However, he was already looking away.  “It’s ok,” another voice cried.  “She’s looking at Tarbin, close in.”

“Keep your eye on the wizard.  Keep looking at him. They’re sticking together.”

It was all sound advice and Odestus felt despai
r.  “The hood, little wizard. Get the rest of this infernal hood off!”

Running footsteps approached.  Dema swung and swayed and a mace whistled harmlessly past her face.  The owner had not dared take careful aim once her head had turned in his direction.  Odestus scrabbled at the last strap, cursing his uselessly blunt chewed
finger nails.  The mace wielding baker swung round wildly, back hand, his eyes firmly shut.  Dema leaned and kicked and dumped him on his backside but, for the moment, that was the worst she could do.