Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (19 page)

This time, when she left, he followed her out.  A skinny thief held no fears for Glafeld and he left his heavy club behind the bar.  True, it had its uses if things got rough when a client realised how much precious earnings he had frittered away on over priced drink and girls of doubtful morality.  However, when out and about in the street Glafeld preferred to rely on the spring loaded blade concealed within his sleeve.  The woman ducked down a side street. Glafeld followed with all the
innocent unthreatening air that his rotund shape and waddling gait could muster.   It would work here as it had countless times before, right up to the moment when he buried his blade in the victim’s armpit.  No more of his clients would be robbed on his premises, well leastways, not by anyone but Glafeld.

They sat in council, a semi-circle of advisers around Gregor’s throne.  Findil and Feyril, as honoured guests, joined Archbishop Forven, Seneschal Quintala and Prince Eadran while two scribes sat ready to record their deliberations.

“The fog bank
to the West has shielded Sturmcairn and the pass from our inspection. Marshal Bruntveld’s pickets are hard pressed to cover the length of it, still less penetrate its secrets,” Gregor began.  “My Lord Feyril, on the road you said you might know something of the nature of this fog.”

“’tis certainly magical in origin your Majesty.”  At Feyril’s opening remark, Forven hastily crescented himself.
“I have seen it’s like before, a long time hence.”

“
Of the heretics who practice magic even the most er.. er…” The Archbishop struggled for a moment for an adjective he could bear to attribute to users of magic.  “ er… accomplished of them could not invoke an effect on such a scale.”

“Far be it from me to agree with the Archbishop,” Quintala said. “But as a d
abbler in the dark arts myself, I would have to admit that a conjuration covering so many leagues is unprecedented.”

“Not unprecedented, my young friend,” Feyril
replied.  “A millenia ago there was one who could bend the weather to his whims.”

The cryptic clue baffled all but Findil and it fell to Gregor to probe the Elf-lord’s meaning.  “Do you speak of one
of your own race, my lord? Illana has gifts in the mastery of storms, I know.”

“My wife’s skills in such work are as childish daubes compared to the dark artistry of the one I speak of.
”  Feyril paused, eyeing his audience in turn before announcing, “this is the work of Maelgrum.”

Whatever reaction Feyril may have hoped for, he was disappointed.  Gregor laughed, Quintala smiled, Eadran looked
puzzled and Forven retorted, “nonsense, utter nonsense.”

Findil was on his feet in an instant, advancing on the prelate with grim intent.  “How dare you speak thus, to my Lord Feyril.”

“Findil be still,” Feyril ordered.

“
Forgive his reverence, Captain Findil, I am sure he meant no offence,” Gregor urged.  “For myself, if I seem less eager to accept your suggestion it is only because I know who is behind the evil that has befallen us.”  It was the King’s turn to look at expressions of doubt on the two elves’ faces.  “It is my brother Xander, he was seen at Sturmcarn before it fell, taken in from beyond the barrier by my son.   He is the architect of our present misery.”

“Xander?!
It has been what, seventeen years?”

“Aye, and n
o wonder we could not find him. He has been beyond the barrier marshalling some allies, plotting a revenge, determined to open another chapter in the kin-slaying wars.”

Feyril shook his head slowly.  “Xander has not the wit nor the power to have wrought this doom.”

“You forget my lord, Eadran’s blood runs in his veins. Only one of Eadran’s blood could have unlocked the gates of Sturmcairn to allow an enemy within.”

“Opening Sturmcairn
is but a trifle compared to surviving beyond the barrier for near two decades.  Eadran the Vanquisher himself perished in the attempt and he strayed into the wildlands for but one season.”

“I did not say he was unaided in his efforts, who knows what dark alliances my brother has made to survive…”

“We know who,” Findil interrupted heatedly.  “Maelgrum is at the root of all this evil.  Whatever Xander has done, Maelgrum’s hand is in it.”

“An extraordinary claim. W
here is the evidence?” Quintala demanded.

“Maelgrum is a thousand years dead
!” Forven added his scorn.

Findil turned on the two doubting councillors with a ferocity he could not show to the King.  “We have se
en the signs, in Undersalve.”

“How is Undersalve
involved in this?”  Forven demanded.

“How can it not be
? Do you not see how all the evils that have fallen on us form but beads on a single thread of malice.” Findil, long privy to the inner counsels of Illana and Feyril, let fly at the stubborn scepticism of King Gregor’s court.  “The desert nomads barely troubled Matteus for years, ‘ere they rose in arms against him.  Yet when it came to Bledrag Field, ‘twas not the nomads, but the orcs and ogres that carried the day and who now hold sway in that benighted province.”

“I had understood that the Governor as he styles himself is human,” Forven said.  “Beyond that, all that comes from the lost province is rumour and supposition for none of the Salved have crossed its borders.”

“Supposition!” Findil spat.  “Think ye, my reverence, that we of Hershwood have been idle.  Oft have we crossed from our forest home into that lost province. Many of our kin have we lost in turn, seeking at the truth of what befell there.”

Feyril waved his irate captain into silence as he asked his own question. “Does the name Odestus mea
n anything to you, your Majesty?”   When Gregor only shrugged, Feyril went on.  “It is the given name of the Governor. It is also the name of a practitioner of magic who was exiled in your father’s reign some two decades ago.  Is it not strange that this little wizard should appear alive and well near a thousand miles from where he was last seen en route to exile?”

“If indeed it is
the same man or the right name?”  At Quintala’s softly spoken question, Findil’s threadbare patience snapped.

“T
hat name took much elven blood, pure elven blood, to uncover.  I did not ride five hundred miles in two days to have their sacrifice ridiculed and their intelligence belittled by anyone, least of all by one in whose veins…”

“Findil, Enoug
h!”  Feyril’s voice, so rarely raised in anger, stilled his impetuous captain, even as Quintala leapt to confront him trembling with rage.  As Seneschal and Captain faced each other down, Feyril said, “if your Majesty would indulge me, perhaps we could continue this conference in private.”

Gregor gave a curt nod of assent.

Glafeld was still trying to work out how it had happened when the fear hit.  The red headed thief had him in an arm lock. Her left arm was around his throat, her right hand held a dagger beneath his chin. He had never been so helpless in his life before.

“Why did you follow me
?” she demanded again.

“You’re
a thief.  You stole from my customers.” Surprise sprung the simple truth from him.

“You and me both, unless you really think that adulterated horse piss you call beer is worth the price you’re charging for it.”

“Theiving’s bad for business, for my business.”

“Don’t worry about me,
I’m not stopping in this shit hole.  I’m just getting together money for passage to the East.  ‘s all I want ‘n once that’s done you’ll never see me again.”

“Next ship East ain’t due for a fortnight.”

“That gives me plenty of time to earn my fare. Now have you got a problem with that?”

“Robbing my customers,
it’s bad for my business,” Glafeld whimpered.

“Very well,
Mr Innkeep, let’s have an arrangement. I’ll spot my marks in your tavern, but I’ll do all my robbing outside.  I’ve no need of trouble and I guess, for reasons I can’t fathom, you’re happy with your face the shape it is now.”

“Hmmf,” Glafeld gasped as her arm tightened across his throat.

“Sorry, I don’t speak Dwarfport. Was that a yes or a no? Do we have an arrangement?”

“Hmmf, yeees!” Glafeld squeezed out the affirmative through a bruised larynx, and then
abruptly she released him.  He dropped coughing and spluttering to his knees.  Still in an instant Glafeld twisted round to see his attacker, but he was all alone in the damp alleyway.

“I must apologise for my Captain,” Feyril began when he and Gregor were alone.

“And I for my Seneschal and A
rchbishop,” the King replied.  “These are grievous times where tempers are short and courtesy thin.”

“Gr
ievous indeed.”  The elf fixed the king with a steady gaze.

“You are serious aren’t you. Y
ou really think…. You think it is…”

“Maelgrum, aye. I do.”

“He is dead, Eadran destroyed him.”

“He was not alive then
and that which does not live cannot be killed.  As to destroyed, I was there, in the heart of this mountain.  Eadran, Morwena and I.  Of the three of us, I alone remain to tell the tale of what happened that day the Vanquisher earned his title.  We imprisoned the Dark One, we did not destroy him.  There was always a risk that a master of the planes such as Maelgrum might escape the trap we had made for him.”

Gregor stroked his beard.  “What proof have you that he has made his esca
pe.  A treacherous brother and, perhaps, an exiled wizard returned, is this the signature of the Dark One.”

Feyril frowned searching for the words.  “His actions can be seen in the effect they have on others. Nomads on the borders of Undersalve stirred to hostile intent, orcs and ogres co-ordinating their efforts with a ferocious cohesion.  Findil and I were at
Bledrag field, we held our own, but we could not stop Matteus and his force being overrun.”

“A strong leader is needed yes, but why should that be Maelgrum rather than this Governor
?”

“There is magic afoot in Undersalve, a foul dweomercraft that is the very signature of Maelgrum.  The dead, given no rest but bent to the evil one’s will.  As Findil says, Elves have died discovering the Governor’s secrets and now this
Governor, Odestus if you will, has an army of twenty thousand on the edge of Hershwood poised to strike.”

“By the Goddess, Feyril, if this is true then why did you bring the
better part of your force here?  You have left Illana with nothing!”

“She has twelve hundred elves and her own considerable talents.  I brought the greater division here because yours is the greater peril.”

“Greater than the victor of Bledrag and his swollen army?  What could be… you mean Maelgrum again!”

“Yes, I do. D
ear Gregor, only if you can understand the nature of the peril you face, will you do what is needed, do what is the only chance we have for success.”

The elf L
ord lifted his gaze upwards from the King’s face to the polished iron helm atop its plinth behind the throne.

“I will not do it, Feyril,”
Gregor snapped an instant haunted denial.

“Gregor, you have no choice.”

Both King and Elf Lord looked again at the Great Helm of Eadran, symbol of the king’s authority since the days of the vanquisher himself. It was a solid steel helm, polished but lacking any regal adornment or inscription.  Its most remarkable feature was the absence of eye slits to break its even surface, such that, when worn, only the wearer’s mouth would be visible.  A casual observer would think the item quite unfit for purpose as its wearer would effectively be blind. 

“You c
annot make me wear that thing, not with all your fear-babe talk of Maelgrum and the past.”

“Your forefathers wore it,
wore it and wielded it. It is a great weapon.”

“It may once have been, Feyril yes, but now it is an instrument of madness, corrupted beyond your comprehension.  My father
chose not to wear it ever.  I, at your insistence, followed ancient customs.  I wore it once at my coronation.”  Gregor swept back the hair at his right temple to show a small horsehoe shaped mark the size of a silver penny.  “See how I bear the mark of Eadran. The helm’s own brand not some coronation tattoo in facsmilie of the real thing.  And I count myself lucky to have no deeper scar, to have had the fortune to remove that thing.  I will not run that risk again.”

“Gregor, Maelgrum is a greater threat than you could ever know.  Eadran defeated him by a trickery that he will not succumb to again.  This weapon of Eadran’s is the most powerful art
efact the Vanquisher created. It is an object of which Maelgrum knows nothing.  I have seen its wearers, your forefathers, make the Eastern lands tremble and pay homage.  It is the only hope we have.”

Gregor shook his head slowly.  “Truly old friend, you have no idea what you ask.  I have lived and
will die in regret at putting that thing upon my head.  Whatever it may once have been it is no more. You must trust me for only one who has worn it can know what it is, what it really is.”