Mask of Dragons (4 page)

Sigaldra’s eyes narrowed, and she might have ordered something she would regret, but Adalar’s voice cut into the confrontation. 

“Sir Rufus, welcome!” said Adalar, striding closer. He had a deep, hoarse voice, likely tired from years of shouting commands to his men in battle. “We are glad to have you here.” 

“Lord Adalar,” said Rufus, a relieved smile coming over his face. Likely he hoped that Adalar would deal with Sigaldra and the Jutai for him. “It is good to see that you have returned to the Grim Marches.”

“Aye,” said Adalar, Sir Wesson and Talchar One-Eye following him. “I think we last rode together at Knightcastle, in the final battle against the traitor Lucan Mandragon.” 

He stopped a few paces from Sir Rufus, and Sigaldra stared at him. Adalar was tall and long of leg and arm, lean with brown eyes and close-cropped brown hair, his face scored with deeper lines that it should have been for a man his age. He wore chain mail, as he almost always did, and a green surcoat adorned with the sigil of a stylized heart. His face was too long and dour to be handsome, but he had a vigor about him, a vitality that commanded attention. Certainly he took command of fighting men easily enough. In that he reminded her of Lord Mazael. Sigaldra knew that Adalar had once been Mazael’s squire, a position similar to a Jutai thain’s armor bearer, and likely Adalar had learned the arts of leading men from the hrould. 

“A great victory,” said Rufus. “And the battle of the Northwater before it. I was sure we would be lost at both battles.”

“As was I,” said Adalar. “But we won great victories at both battles.” He glanced at Sigaldra. “The Jutai were at both battles, fulfilling their oaths as we did.”

“Yes,” said Rufus, uncertain again. “Of course.” 

“Just as we now have come together to fulfill our oaths, to drive the valgasts and the Skuldari and the soliphages from the Grim Marches,” said Adalar. 

“Of course,” said Rufus once more. 

“So why does it look as if you are about to ride into battle here and now?” said Adalar. He glanced at the sky to the west, tracking the setting sun. She understood the need for haste. The plan that he and Talchar and Sir Wesson had devised required careful timing. “This is no time to squabble among ourselves, surely.” 

“This…ah, the holdmistress commanded us to camp in an unsuitable location,” said Rufus. “My horses require pasturage, and we need to camp away from the others.”

“I would not advise that,” said Adalar. “The valgasts are going to attack in force within the hour, and if you are outside the main camp, you will be vulnerable.”

Rufus frowned. “You know they are going to attack?”

Adalar shrugged. “They have attacked every night since we arrived, so we’ve laid a trap for them. You’re welcome to participate in the battle, sir knight. Or to camp out here, if you wish. No one here will stop you. But if you do, I fear the valgasts shall overwhelm and slay you and all your retainers.”  

Rufus shared a look with his followers. 

“Perhaps it would be best if we camped with the others,” said Rufus.

“If you wish, of course,” said Adalar. “I am not a lord of the Grim Marches and have no right to command here.” 

“No,” said Rufus. “Ah…Lady Sigaldra’s plan seems the course of wisdom.”

Lady Sigaldra? She realized the boy was trying to save face in front of his men. Her initial thought was to show him the rough side of her tongue (which, to be fair, seemed to be the only side it had). Yet something restrained her. 

Adalar, maybe. He was right. They were about to face the valgasts together. 

“Be welcome here,” said Sigaldra. “Go and camp, but make haste. Sundown comes soon.” 

Rufus offered her a courtly little bow from his saddle, and led his knights and armsmen into the camp. She watched him go, and then let out a long, irritated sigh.

“Idiot,” she muttered. 

“He was just made a knight a few months past,” said Adalar in a quiet voice. “This might be his first time commanding men in battle.” 

“He’s still an idiot,” said Sigaldra.

“He’ll learn,” said Adalar. “If he survives.” 

Sigaldra said nothing, watching as Rufus led his men within the ring of pavilions. Adalar seemed as calm as ever, ready to either fight or talk as necessary. It was a rare quality in so young of a man. Or any man, really.

“Thank you,” she said at last. “That…might have gone worse.” 

Adalar shrugged. “A gentle answer turns away wrath, or so the priests said when I was a boy.” 

Sigaldra snorted. “I’ve found a sharp sword and a strong arm are more useful than a gentle answer.” 

“Well.” Adalar gazed at the camp for a moment. “I suppose the sharp sword and the strong arm make the gentle answer more compelling.” He looked at Talchar and Wesson and Vorgaric and the others. “We had best get back to camp. We don’t want to keep the valgasts waiting.”

“Well spoken,” said Vorgaric.

The others headed towards the camp. Sigaldra hesitated for a moment, and then touched Adalar’s arm.

He blinked in surprise and turned to look at her. Part of her mind noted that the arm felt hard and heavy with muscle. She didn’t know what to make of that, so she put the thought aside.

“Thank you again,” she said in quiet voice. “I…did not want to say anything in front of the others. But I did not handle that well.”

Adalar shrugged. “You’ve had a lot on your mind.” 

“Yes. But I am the last holdmistress of the Jutai people. I cannot make mistakes or let my anger get the better of me,” said Sigaldra. “Thank you for…keeping me in check.”

“No thanks are required. I said I would help rescue your sister, and I shall,” said Adalar. Very gently he reached up and lifted her hand off his arm, his fingers callused from sword work. “We should go back to the camp.”

“Of course,” said Sigaldra, and she walked side-by-side with Adalar to the camp.

He was a useful man to have around. She suspected her father Theodoric and her brothers would have approved of him.

###

Adalar waited, his greatsword in hand, dozens of armsmen and militiamen standing near him. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains of Skuldar to the west, and utter darkness had fallen, save for the blaze of the stars overhead. The darkness was enhanced further when Adalar ordered every campfire put out, plunging the area within the ring of pavilions into blackness. 

Save for the pavilions themselves, of course. 

They glowed in the night like giant lanterns. When Adalar had commanded the campfires to be quenched, he had also sent men to light the braziers inside the pavilions. Jutai bondsmen had hastened from pavilion to pavilion, lighting the braziers. Then they had withdrawn through the maze of ropes holding up the pavilions to join the men huddled in the center of camp.

Now they waited. 

Adalar suspected they would not wait for very long.

Sigaldra and Talchar One-Eye stood next to him, silent in the gloom. 

He was a little surprised at that. Sigaldra had been fierce about maintaining her independence and asserting her authority. Adalar could understand that. The Jutai were a tiny minority within the Grim Marches. The Marcher folk were indifferent to the Jutai, and in truth, often confused them with the Tervingi, but the bulk of the Tervingi detested the Jutai. Not a few of the Tervingi thains and headmen, Adalar suspected, would have cheered if Earnachar had wiped out the Jutai. Mazael’s utter refusal to allow warfare among his vassals was the only defense of the Jutai, which Earnachar had found out the hard way. 

Yet Sigaldra refused to yield.

She was surrounded by enemies, and the Prophetess had taken her sister. Yet the woman absolutely refused to give up. She was as implacable as a glacier. If the Prophetess and Rigoric had taken Liane to the other side of the world, Sigaldra would have followed, whatever the cost, whatever the danger, whatever the risk. Adalar thought he understood, perhaps a little. He had no living family left in the world, and his father’s bones now rested in the crypt below Greatheart Keep. Yet if Adalar had a sister or a brother, he might have done the same. 

Of course, the valgasts would try to stop them. 

But if all went well, Adalar would teach them a stern lesson. 

He waited in the gloomy silence, the pavilion flaps rippling in the wind, light from the braziers within leaking into the night. Sometimes the waiting was the worst part of all. He remembered the long campaigns against the runedead horde in Mastaria, watching thousands of the animated corpses march out of the darkness, their foreheads shining with symbols of green fire like a field of macabre candles…

“Lord Adalar?” whispered Sigaldra. 

Adalar hadn’t realized that he had raised his greatsword to guard, that the others men around him had lifted their weapons. He rebuked himself, realizing that his dark memories had overwhelmed him.

Then he realized that the men had responded to something else. 

Dark shapes moved through the pavilions, creeping along in perfect silence, their shadows illuminated by the flickering light of the braziers. More of the shapes skittered forward, dozens of them, gathering around the entrances to the pavilions. 

One of them moved into the glow from a pavilion’s flap, and Adalar glimpsed a valgast. 

The creature stood only four feet tall, its limbs spindly, ribs visible beneath its mottled green-and-yellow hide. Its ears were enormous, as large as a grown man’s hands, and its eyes were huge and black and unblinking. Needle-like teeth rose from its jutting jaw, and the creature’s nostrils flared. It wore a peculiar armored shirt fashioned from plates of bone, and it carried a short sword in its left hand. A wave of revulsion went through Adalar as he looked at the creature. It made him think of scavengers, of creatures that lurked in shadows and fed upon rotting flesh with needle-like teeth. The valgasts had carried off many captives to their dark tunnels.

Adalar didn’t want to think about what might have happened to them. 

“Now?” whispered Wesson.

Adalar gave a shake of his head, watching the pavilions. The timing had to be exact. If he acted too soon, most of the valgasts would be outside the pavilions. If he waited too long, the valgasts would realize the trap and escape, or find a way to turn it to their advantage. He watched as the dark, spindly forms slipped into the pavilions, dozens of them.

A screech rose up from one of the pavilions. 

The valgasts had realized the trap.

“Now!” shouted Adalar. 

Wesson barked a command, and a dozen of Adalar’s armsmen swung their axes, severing ropes tied to each of the pavilions. The ropes snapped with loud twanging noises, curling into the air as the tension left them.

And as they did, an intricate series of knots came undone, causing the pavilions to collapse on themselves. 

Trapping the valgasts within. 

As the armsmen cut the ropes, the rest of Adalar’s trap sprang into motion. Militiamen hurried forward, lighting the prepared bonfires. Soaked in oil, the wood burst into flame, throwing light across the camp. The Jutai archers and the militia bowmen were ready, and they released, sending shaft after shaft into the collapsed pavilions.

Furious screeches rose from the pavilions. Some of the collapsed piles of cloth caught flame as the braziers overturned, and the fire began to spread. Adalar gripped his greatsword and waited. Any moment now, he expected…

A mob of valgasts erupted from one of the burning pavilions and charged forward, brandishing their weapons.

“With me!” shouted Adalar. “Archers, keep on the collapsed pavilions!”

He sprinted forward, greatsword in hand, and Talchar One-eye and Vorgaric and a band of armsmen and militia came after him. The valgasts raised slender tubes to their fanged mouths and blew, sending a hail of darts whistling towards them. One struck Adalar on the arm, and another on his chest, but his armor deflected the darts. Two of the militiamen and one of the armsmen were not so lucky, the darts finding their exposed skin. At once they stumbled, falling to their knees as the potent venom coating the darts plunged them into sleep. They would sleep for some hours, and would wake up with a nasty headache but no other ill effects.

But only if Adalar and Sigaldra and the others were victorious. If they failed, the unconscious men would be dragged to the valgasts’ underground larders. 

Adalar crashed into the valgasts, and he had no more time to concern himself with anything but survival. 

A valgast lunged at him, slashing with a short sword of the hardened bone they used. Adalar didn’t know from what creatures the valgasts harvested the bones, but the material was almost as hard as steel and could hold a sharper edge. He parried with his greatsword and kicked out, his armored boot pushing the creature back a step. Before it recovered, he drew back the greatsword and swung with all his strength. The heavy blade passed through the valgast’s neck with a ragged jerk, and its head rolled away, its spindly body tumbling to the ground. Another came at him, and Adalar accepted the point of its short sword against the mail covering his right leg. His drove his greatsword down, and the sword split the valgast’s skull in half. 

Around him the men strove into the valgasts, weapons rising and falling. Talchar made his way through the enemy with methodical precision, wielding his broadsword like a man chopping wood. The sword masters at Knightcastle would have said his technique lacked grace, but it was unquestionably effective. Vorgaric smashed valgast skulls with his massive hammer, trampling the creatures’ carcasses beneath his boots. 

The valgasts were deadly foes, but only when they struck with surprise and stealth. In the open, facing prepared men, they were not nearly as effective. Adalar slew valgast after valgast, their dark blood running down his sword. Around him the other men pushed forward, driving back the valgasts that emerged from the burning pavilions. 

Then, suddenly, the battle melted away. The surviving valgasts turned and fled into the darkness, calling out to their fellows in their strange language. For a furious moment Adalar wanted to pursue the enemy, but he restrained himself. The valgasts were best when fighting from an ambush…and chasing them across the Grim Marches at night was a fine way to run right into an ambush.