Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (44 page)

The priestess shot her a troubled glance and Tordil’s eyes widened in astonishment.  “Our way is perilous, not fit for a servant girl,” the elf captain exclaimed.

“I have already trod a more dangerous path than I could ever have imagined,” Hepdida replied evenly.  “It seems to me that the shadow will reach me where ever I hide.  I would rather be doing something than running away.”

Niarmit shook her head emphatically. “I did
not invoke the Goddess’s favour in dragging you back from the jaws of death to lead you straight back into jeopardy.  Yours is the civilian’s part in this conflict.”

Hepdida’s chin jutted forward stubbornly.  “
Taking the civilian’s part did not protect my mother or my father. Nor did it save me from Grundurg’s foul imagination.  I don’t think there are any should seek or hope to be civilians in this struggle.”

“Well said, girl,” Feyril gave a slow wink of approval.

“But what value would you bring on such a mission, beyond an encumbrance to be protected?” Tordil retorted.

Hepdida swung on him.  “I lived in Morwencairn for ten ye
ars, I know the roads within and without the city.  I have fished both banks of the river and know which bays and islets can grant a sheltered harbour to a small boat.  Can you say the same, Captain Tordil?”

The elf was discomforted and the priestess was smiling
as she said, “It is true, my own visits to the capital have been but fleeting visits on matters of state. A little local knowledge may be of value, eh Captain, value enough to justify the guarding of this wilful encumbrance?”

The C
aptain gave no answer and Illana clapped her hands briskly.  “It is settled then.  Tordil, Niarmit and Hepida will take boat together, with such prime volunteers as the Captain can garner.”

“There will be many as want to make the trip,
Tordil,” Feyril admonished the Captain.  “Be sure to take only the best. The rest will find honour enough as escorts of the party bound for Silverwood.”

“So, I’m going with you,” Hepdida turned to Niarmit.  With the die cast she waited for her spinning emotions to settle.  With the commitment irrevocably made, would it be fear or relief that landed uppermost.

“Aye, you’re going home, to Morwencairn,” the priestess lazily acknowledged.

“You took your time,” Dema snapped up at the weary rider.

“Do you
mean the five years or the three weeks,” Odestus riposted.  “And could you not give me a hand of this damn nag, my buttocks are but paper over bone with all this infernal riding.” 

He hel
d out his gloved hand for assistance. The Medusa took it and gave a sharp tug that dragged him tumbling from his horse.  As the little wizard fell, her other arm swung round to catch and hold him pressed against her chest.  His feet still dangled four inches short of the ground when she bent her head forward to whisper in his ear, “by all that’s unholy I’ve missed you, little wizard.”  Beneath her hood the serpents slithered and softly hissed a reptilian purr.

She put him down and stepped back to better survey her newly restored companion.  “Look at you, I see you put some flesh back on those bones, never mind what the saddle
might have worn away.  My, my, there’s you the victor of Bledrag field, Governor of Undersalve, and me Castellan of Listcairn.  Look what we have become eh?”

“Indeed, Dema.” Odestus echoed.
“Look what we’ve become.”  The Medusa cocked her head to one side at the equivocation in Odestus’s tone, and the little wizard hurried on.  “Now perhaps you can tell me by what means you have dragged me from a mission on our Master’s behalf to one of your own choosing.  I have rarely felt him so incensed before.  If I did not know such a thing were impossible, I would have said he was passing on an order that you had given to him.”

Dema gave a fleeting grin which faded into grim urgency. “I cannot tell, I must show, come with me to the tower.”  She
seized and dragged him by the hand.

“Is such haste necessary,” Odestus called as his
half numb legs waddled in the Medusa’s wake.  “No pause for a little repast? Perhaps to discuss the affairs of my troops with Vesten.”

“I can broke no further delay,” Dema replied still towing the reluctant mage.
  “Besides you forget, your troops are now under my command so Secretary Vesten’s opinions are as irrelevant and inaccurate as his understanding of military matters.”

The horse’s hooves scrabbled on the cobbles as Xander spurred the animal mercilessly towards the summit of Morwencairn.   Mul and Tarbin the veteran outlanders had stayed with him, on promise of a treasure and a fortune beyond compare.  The rest of his battalion having, charged past the advancing legion had dispersed in various small groups kicking in doors of houses and bursting in on a chorus of screaming. 

Fires raged in the wooded parks and timber artisan’s district.  Small groups of terrified citizens scurried from house to house along the narrow streets.  Mothers carrying babies, fathers dragging children.  They ducked and hid as Xander charged past, but he had no time for them.  “Come on,” he shouted at his two companions, lest they should be swayed from their mission by such tantalisingly soft pickings.

They rounded the corner where the main street climbed and opened into the broad plaza between the citadel and the temple.  The trickle of refugees from different corners of the town were all making their way to the steps of the temple merging into a mass of humanity seeking the hollow sanctuary of the temple.

“Come, come my children, the G
oddess will protect and save you,” a strong voice was calling.  It was a tall figure at the top of the steps, long white beard and hair, his Archbishop’s crescent held high in one hand as his other hand dispensed blessings and benediction to the tide of people flowing past him through the wide doors of the temple.

“Forven!” At a d
istance of sixty yards or more Archbishop and traitor Prince saw and recognised each other.  Neither had more than half a heartbeat to spare to vent their mutual loathing, each with more pressing matters than personal vengeance.

The shadow of the dragon passed over the plaza, causing the trembling citizens to cower still further and to remind Xander of the great will he had crossed for perhaps the last time in this pell mell rush to seize his prize.  The baying of wolves from the base of the hill
marked the approach of other forces more likely to bend to Maelgrum’s orders than Xander’s.

“This way.”  Spurred heels drawing
blood from his horse’s flank, Xander spun right and charged for the citadel.  This had been an early target for the dragon’s fire and the twin leaves of its gate hung open and charred.  Of the guards that had been standing either side, all that remained were two ashy shadows ingrained on the wall.  Xander hurtled through the opening. A soldier, fortunate enough to have escaped the flame, stepped from the guardhouse as Xander passed into the courtyard.  The spear he raised to launch at the intruder clattered uselessly across the paving slabs as Mul’s axe caught him between the shoulderblades.

Xander dismounted with a leap and, drawing his sword, raced through the palace gates towards
a throne room he had not entered in seventeen years.

“Well,” Dema demanded.

“So this is wha
t you led you to challenge the Master,” Odestus mused ruefully.  “Have you taken leave of your senses?  He will not forgive you the affront, not ever and all this to… to undo an accident.”

“Can you do it
? Do you still have the spell and the power in your head?”

The little wizard was running his fingers over the smooth stone statue.  A man standing wrapped in a bedsheet, head cocked to one side, lips parted to mouth a question. A pose of such life like qualities one would have paid the stone mason double the normal rate, yet this was no stonema
son’s work.  “What is he to you? Dema.  Don’t tell me you’ve lost your heart as well as your mind?”

“I owe him, and it is
not his fate to perish here. Nor mine to let it happen.  I did not have you summoned at such speed to my side, just so you could mock my choice of companions in my bedchamber,” the Medusa noted sourly.  “Now tell me true, can you do it, or should I command the Master himself to take up the challenge?”

Odestus’s eyes flared at that threat.  He gave her an appraising stare as she glared back at him through her mask, arms folded, lower lip trembling.  Then with a slow nod he settled to the matter in hand.  “How
long since …. Since it happened?”

“A fortnight, maybe longer
.”

The wizard blenched at the information and Dema hurried on.  “That aside he is healthy enough and young. He
will survive. Of that I’m sure.”

Odestus grimaced, “I can try to be gentle though in truth one cannot take the transformation too quick or too slow either extreme can make the shock of the experience a fatal one.  Give me a moment to prepare.”

“Before you do, there is one other thing.”

“There is more!”  Odestus gasped.

With a quick twitch of her head, Dema directed the wizard’s attention to the garderobe in the corner of the room.  Hesitantly the wizard stepped towards the private chamber and pulled back the curtain.  “Hell’s teeth Dema,” he cried. “What have you done?”

“I would have thought that was obvious.”

“Eadran’s blood. What will you do?”

“Me? Nothing.  You.  You’re going to get rid of it, and do it before you revive him.”

Odestus swayed a moment and then sat down heavily.  “It’s his?”

“No.. stop there Odestus before you rouse my anger,” she cried.  The snakes were writhing beneath her hood and her gaze was chilling through the gauze.  “I’m a monster, that
thing will be a monster too. Proof enough of both those facts is that I haven’t given birth to a child after nine months, I’ve laid a fucking egg in a matter of weeks.”

“And what am I supposed to do with it.”

“I don’t care, Odestus.  I’m going to see your men are quartered and their horses stabled, and see if I can find a use for that spare piece of skin you call a secretary.  When I get back I want him to be living breathing flesh again and I want that thing gone.”  She jabbed a finger towards the statue and the garderobe for emphasis before ending with bitter sarcasm.  “The means to both those ends I leave to you, old friend.” 

In a whirl she was gone, the chamber door pulled robustly closed behind her.  Alone with the statue, Odestus shoo
k his head sadly.  He owed the Medusa so much, not least his life many times over.  In so far as one could feel such emotions in their Master’s service he might even say he loved her.  But, without doubt, life with Dema was full of unexpected complications.

Xander panted for breath.  He and his companions had had to dodge left to avoid a dozen castle guards and now he was working his way round to the throne room through his father’s old chambers.  A snarling and grunting accompaniment to a clash of steel echoed around the corridors, suggesting that the guards had found other invaders to occupy them.  However, it also meant there would be others chasing after the citadel’s rich treasures. 

“Orc’s guts, there’s the winged serpent again,” Mul called as a draft of wind gusted in through the open windows of old King Bulveld’s sitting room.

“He’s circling to land,” Tarbin suggested.

“Come on,” Xander urged them.  It was not the dra
gon landing that bothered him. It was its rider dismounting.

With a shout he burst into the throne room.  Three orcs were already there, blood stained swords held loosely by their sides as they swaggered t
owards the throne and the iron Helm of Eadran. They gave Xander a brief glance of indifference.  “Stop,” the traitor Prince commanded.

“You not give orders anymore,” the wiry orc nearest the
Prince said.  “The Master coming for you.  He not pleased with you.”

“Don’t touch the H
elm, you orc scum,” Xander insisted.

“Or what,” the lead orc retorted re
aching out a hand to seize the Helm from its pedestal.

There was an explosion of sound and light that flung all three orcs thumping against the wall.
The wiry one was scorched and dazed, the second unconscious, but the larger creature who had laid hands on it lay limbs akimbo in a twisted pile on the floor.

“I did try to warn you,” Xander giggled.  He leapt lightly past the fallen creatures and, taking the merest split second to observe the
auspicious moment, seized the Helm two handed from its pedestal.

“What isss the meaning of thisss disssobedience?” Maelgrum strode through the main doors to the throne room, trailing a row of bobbing sycophantic orcs and the nervous antiquary.

“Haselrig,” Xander cried.  “You betrayed me.”

“Friend Hassselrig knowsss the importancsse of my wishesss, a fact you ssseem to have forgo
tten.  Are thessse men with you?”  The Lich gave the merest wave of his hand towards the nervous forms of Tarbin and Mul.

“No, sir. N
o not us.”  Both men threw down their swords and fell to their knees.