Mask of Dragons (3 page)

They had all been slain in the Great Rising, and now only ruins filled Mastaria’s hills.

“Lord Adalar?” said Talchar One-Eye. 

Adalar blinked and rebuked himself for inattention. “The same way any man young or old learns of war, swordthain. The hard way.” 

Talchar’s remaining eye blinked, and he barked out a harsh laugh. “Good answer, Lord Adalar. Good answer. Everything I know, I learned the hard way.”

His scarred countenance lent weight to his jest. He had lost his left eye long ago, and replaced it with a red crystal sphere that he had stolen from a tomb of Old Dracaryl. It gave his stern, craggy face an even more fearsome aspect, and at various times he claimed the crystal eye made him immune to magic, let him see when a man lied, or allowed him to see through an attractive woman’s clothes. 

But not ugly women – apparently the crystal eye had standards.

Adalar grunted. “Do you think it will work?”

“Maybe,” said Talchar. He scratched at his jaw. “Maybe. It’s a good plan. Should work. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of good plans go straight to hell.” 

“Comforting,” said Adalar, looking at the craggy shapes of the Skuldari mountains to the west. 

“I’d wager that you have, too,” said Talchar. 

“So I have,” said Adalar, thinking of Mastaria again. “Let’s find out if we’re idiots or not.”

Talchar barked his harsh laugh once more. “We’re only idiots if it doesn’t work.” 

Adalar nodded and headed towards the camp. The fighting men of the Jutai nation, such few of them that were left, had camped at the uttermost western edge of the Grim Marches, where the plains ended and the foothills of Skuldar began. The Weaver’s Pass rose up from the foothills, climbing into a narrow gap between two craggy mountains. Lord Mazael had given command of the pass to Sigaldra, along with a written warrant commanding any knights and lords who arrived to obey her instructions until he arrived himself. Some of the local lords and knights had grumbled about taking orders from the last holdmistress of the Jutai nation, but they were too frightened of Mazael’s displeasure to disobey him. 

More to the point, they were frightened of the Skuldari warbands and the valgast raiders. The camp had grown as more knights and lords received Mazael’s summons to gather at the Weaver’s Pass, and now a thousand men waited under Sigaldra’s command, defending the Weaver’s Pass against Skuldari incursions. 

The Skuldari hadn’t been a problem so far. 

The valgasts, on the other hand…

The Skuldari hadn’t yet come down in force from Weaver’s Pass. The pass was the only way large forces could move in and out of the mountains, yet it seemed there were a dozen narrow paths that let small warbands in and out of the mountains. The Skuldari, with their spider mounts, could take those paths easily. Yet those warbands were no more than a nuisance, and with the Grim Marches rousing for war, the lords and knights marching west to the Weaver’s Pass would deal with them. Likely Mazael himself had destroyed a warband or two on his way here, and when he arrived, the host of the Grim Marches would march on Skuldar. 

Then, perhaps, they would find the Prophetess and Rigoric and get Liane back. 

Assuming the valgasts did not kill them all first. 

The valgasts worshipped the spider-goddess Marazadra, the same goddess the Skuldari revered. Unlike the Skuldari, the valgasts lived in the labyrinth of dark caverns beneath the Grim Marches, and boiled out of the ground like ants to attack. According to both the Jutai and the Tervingi, the valgasts had once only attacked upon the days of midsummer and midwinter. Now they claimed that the death of the Old Demon had freed them from their constraints, and they could attack freely.

So they did. 

Adalar was not sure they could hold Weaver’s Pass against the nightly valgast raids. 

The Jutai had fought against the valgasts before, but the men of the Grim Marches had never faced them before this spring. Consequently, they did not know how to fight them. Both the Jutai and the Marcher folk knew how to fight infantry and horsemen and archers…or Malrags and runedead. They did not know how to fight creatures that tunneled up through the ground beneath their boots. Adalar supposed that in the distant past, when ancient men had first encountered foes wielding swords or bows or chariots, they had not known how to fight them, but they found a way in the end.

So it was time for a new method of fighting.

Adalar only hoped his plan worked. 

By the gods, he hoped that at least it wouldn’t get all of them killed.

The camp came into sight, and Adalar was pleased to see that his instructions had been followed. Twelve large pavilions had been raised in a wide circle around the camp, and holes had been cut in the roofs of each of the pavilions. Within each pavilion burned a half-dozen braziers, their smoke rising into the sky. At Adalar’s command, the various knights, lords, armsmen, and thains had moved their bedrolls into the center of the ring of pavilions, with no cook fires or tents. That inspired a great deal of grumbling, but Vorgaric the smith had threatened to crush the head of anyone who disobeyed Lord Adalar’s commands, and that had inspired a spirit of swift obedience. 

“Sir Wesson!” called Adalar as they approached the ring of pavilions. “How goes the work?”

A stocky knight about Adalar’s own age turned, wearing chain mail and a blue surcoat adorned with the silver greathelm sigil of Lord Gerald Roland of Knightcastle. In imitation of Lord Gerald, Wesson had started growing a mustache, and it had grown out a bit since Adalar and Wesson had arrived in the Grim Marches. Adalar had come to the Grim Marches intending to bury his father and return to Mastaria without delay, but instead he had been drawn into a war.

Yet another war…

For a moment the exhausted apathy that had haunted him since the defeat of Lucan Mandragon threatened to wash through him, but Adalar shoved it aside. Tens of thousands had fallen to the runedead, but they were dead and beyond all aid. The living still needed his help – the Marcher folk, the Jutai, Sigaldra’s sister Liane.

Sigaldra herself.

“Well enough, Lord Adalar,” said Wesson before Adalar’s thoughts could dwell further on the Jutai holdmistress. “It took some doing to get the ropes tied properly, but we did it in the end.” He scratched at his chin. “One of your armsmen used to be a Knightport sailor, and he knew some things about trick knots.” 

“Good,” said Adalar, looking at the men within the ring of pavilions. “Everyone cooperated?”

Wesson grimaced. “Yes. Mostly. Some of the knights…ah, are not pleased about following the orders of a Jutai woman.” 

“They should learn to be pleased about it,” said Adalar. “Lord Mazael gave her the command until he arrives.” 

Talchar made a displeased noise. “Too many of the lords and knights have grown friendly with the Tervingi.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” said Adalar. “Less of a chance of a civil war in the Grim Marches, and that would benefit no one.”

“The Tervingi have learned to live in peace with the Marcher folk,” said Talchar, “but the Jutai are not the Tervingi, and the Tervingi hate us.” The red crystal of his left eye flashed in the light of the setting sun. “Many of the Marcher folk have come to agree with the Tervingi.”

“They wouldn’t dare attack you,” said Adalar. “I imagine Lord Mazael takes a dim view of his vassals attacking each other.”

Wesson snorted. “Look what he did to Earnachar.” 

“And Earnachar was controlled by one of those damned heart spiders,” said Adalar. 

“Aye, lads,” said Talchar, “but there are long leagues of country between killing a woman and obeying her.” 

There were, in fact, all sorts of things one could do with a woman rather than killing her or obeying her…

Adalar grimaced and shook his head.

“What?” said Wesson. 

“Nothing,” said Adalar. “Let’s speak with Sigaldra. She ought to know that we’re ready for the valgasts.”

“Or as ready as we’ll ever be,” said Talchar. 

Adalar shrugged, adjusting the weight of his greatsword in its sheath over his shoulder. More than once other knights had tried to convince him to use a longsword and a shield, but he was used to the weapon. Besides, a greatsword had its advantages. 

“If I know much of war for a young man,” said Adalar, “then I know that something always goes wrong.” Talchar guffawed at that. “Come. We should speak with the holdmistress.” 

He led the way around the circle of pavilions, making their way to the eastern side the camp, the side facing away from the foothills and towards the Grim Marches proper. He saw a small band of horsemen there, flying a white banner with the sigil of a castle tower atop a mountain peak. If Adalar remembered rightly, that was the banner of Lord Robert Highgate. A stray bit of gossip came to the forefront of Adalar’s thoughts. Lord Robert had become betrothed to a Tervingi holdmistress for his latest wife, and might have absorbed some of the dislike of the Tervingi for the Jutai. 

Adalar spotted the young knight leading the horsemen. It was Sir Rufus Highgate, the son of Lord Robert. Like Adalar, he had once been a squire for Mazael himself, and he had only been knighted a few months earlier. Right now the expression on the young knight’s face warred between anger and uncertainty. 

Sigaldra stood facing Rufus, and there was no uncertainty on her face, only anger. 

She usually looked angry. 

The last holdmistress of the Jutai was young, perhaps Adalar’s own age, and wore a tan dress and heavy boots beneath chain mail. Her great mass of blond hair had been pulled away from her lean face and into a thick braid that hung to her hips, making her stark cheekbones seem all the sharper. Her blue eyes were cold and hard and bloodshot, her mouth a thin, unsmiling line. A short sword and a quiver of arrows hung from her belt, the end of a bow rising over her shoulder. She was a beautiful woman, but it was the beauty of a flower killed by an early frost, cold and hard and dead. 

Ever since the Prophetess had taken her sister, that anger had not left her. 

Around Sigaldra stood several of her bondsmen, all armed for battle. Adalar spotted the blacksmith Vorgaric, a hulking, balding man who carried his heavy hammer as easily as if it had been made of paper. All the Jutai bondsmen were gripping weapons, and looked as if they were about to attack Sir Rufus and his party. 

“What now?” muttered Adalar. The last thing they needed was to start quarreling amongst themselves.

He hurried towards Sigaldra before the confrontation could erupt into violence. 

###

Sigaldra wanted to raise her bow and shoot someone. She would have settled for the pompous boy of a knight on his horse in front of her. 

She was so angry.

Not specifically at Sir Rufus Highgate, though he did annoy her. The anger never left her for a moment, not since she had departed Greatheart Keep with what few fighting men the remnants of the Jutai nation could muster. 

The Prophetess had taken her sister.

They had taken Liane, scatter-brained, solemn Liane. Liane, who had the power of the Sight, which was the reason why the wretched sorceress who called herself the Prophetess had taken her. 

Liane, who was the only family Sigaldra had left in the world. 

They were all dead, all the others. Her mother, dead of exhaustion long before the Jutai had left the middle lands with the Tervingi. Her brothers, slain in battle against the Malrag hordes that had slaughtered the holds of the Jutai one by one. Her father Theodoric, the last hrould of the Jutai, killed battling a balekhan of the Malrags. Their ashes rested in her family’s ancestral urn in Greatheart Keep. 

One day, Sigaldra had thought that Liane would add her ashes to that urn. She had thought that Liane, or maybe Liane’s children, would place Sigaldra’s body upon the pyre and add her ashes to her family urn, mingled with the rest of her ancestors. 

Instead, Liane was gone, taken by the Prophetess and her champion, and Sigaldra would die alone and forgotten…

The rage blazed through her. 

No. She would get Liane back. Sigaldra would find the Prophetess and kill her. She would save Liane from whatever miserable fate the Prophetess intended for her, and bring her back safely to Greatheart Keep. Sigaldra would save her sister, no matter what she had to do, no matter who she had to kill.

And right now, this idiot boy of a knight was in her way. 

“Are you deaf?” said Sigaldra. 

“I assure you, madam, that my hearing is quite sound,” said Rufus. 

“Splendid,” said Sigaldra. “Then you know that you cannot camp out here. We are laying an ambush for the valgasts. If you camp outside of the ring, you will be alone and vulnerable when the valgasts strike.”

Rufus shook his head. He was handsome enough for a boy, but she wanted to smack that look of annoyance right off his face. “I will not.” 

“Why not?” said Sigaldra, trying not to grind her teeth. 

“My baggage contains many valuable items,” said Rufus. “I will not camp amidst the others, where thievery is likely rife. For that matter,” he waved a hand at the mounted men behind him, who looked at Sigaldra with thinly-veiled contempt, “my men require pasturage for their horses, who need to graze. We will camp some distance from your…arrangement,” he glanced at the ring of pavilions, “while we await Lord Mazael.” 

“Lord Mazael left me in command here until his arrival,” said Sigaldra, “and I say that you shall camp in the ring with the others.”

Rufus hesitated, glanced at his followers, and then looked back at her. “When Lord Mazael arrives, he can make his wishes in the matter clear. Until then, woman, I advise you to mind your own concerns.” 

“Woman?” said Vorgaric, tapping the scarred steel head of his hammer against his callused palm. “You had best speak to the holdmistress of the Jutai with a bit more respect, boy.”

Rufus hesitated, and one of the knights behind him scowled.

“Boy?” said the knight. “The son and heir of Lord Robert Highgate will not endure such impudence from a barbarian wild woman and her collection of elderly cripples.”