Steel and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy (12 page)

             
“Nonsense.  You just aren’t focusing.  Now, find him.  And stop dallying.”

             
“As you say,” the shadow murmured, and an instant later they were outside the palace, staring up at the palace walls. 

             
“So, he is clever.  He did not jump blindly, but somehow tracked, and followed the queen’s presence,” Harlock guessed as they jumped again, and ended up just outside the city. 

             
“I sense another trail now,” the shadow said even as the sun rose higher.  “A longer trail, but I dare not use it as the light is too bright along the way, and we might lose it do I follow too swiftly now.”

             
Harlock scowled.  “I thought you could travel by day by virtue of ambient shadow,” he scowled impatiently.

             
“I can,” he nodded somberly.  “Carrying you, I cannot.  I could either follow the trail, or protect you in the shadows between worlds.  I could not do both during sunlit hours.”

             
Harlock spat irritably.  “Then we must wait for dark,” he said, ignoring the curious gazes that were focused on them now after they seemed to appear out of nowhere just beyond the palace walls.

             
“’Twould be best,” he agreed.  “Unless you wish me to go on alone.”

             
“We shall wait,” Harlock spat, not trusting even his bonds on the shadow if he weren’t there to command his slave personally.  “Go and rest.  Come back to me just before dusk,” he spat, and headed for a nearby inn.  If he had to wait, he might as well wait in comfort.  He was, after all, deserving.

X

             
“I thought that man was going to try to collar us all,” Helena remarked as they slipped over the border just after the noon hour.  He now carried a heavy waterskin, and a small pack with a warm cloak for her, along with a few day’s provisions just to mask their apparent destination.

             
Koa smiled.  “As my friend Jengus would say, never bet if you intend to lose.  I knew I would not lose.”

             
She stared at him.  “I thought you were helpless in the daylight,” she said honestly as they moved deeper into the grass, her son staring around with wide, blue eyes as she held him, and carried her own pack with a few essentials bought for her and the boy. 

             
Koa only chortled.  “Define helpless.  I could not safely carry you through the shadow lands during sunlit hours, lady, but I am hardly helpless.  I am still untouchable by any standards, and even in daylight, there is always a shadow to be found I can exploit.  ’Tis just not safe to risk your life when I am weary, and hampered by daylight, ’tis all.”

             
“I thank you for your concern,” she told him.  “Just….warn me next time you intend to wager my collar to earn coin,” she complained somberly.

             
“There was no chance the man would have won, lady.  For one, even without my….gifts, the man simply wasn’t that good.  I could have bested him bare-handed.  I didn’t even truly need my staff.”

             
Before having watched him best five freemen, and one of their huge bully-boys when he entered that contest at the local inn, she would have called him a boastful lackwit at first.  Until his spinning shaft took down every man that stood before him, or even behind him.  It was as if he knew their moves before they did, and simply knew to be there to prevent them.

             
“Well, I daresay they might be less quick to challenge a vagabond anytime soon,” she remarked.

             
“I doubt it.  Such men rarely learn until the truth of a matter is shoved into their faces,” he told her. 

             
“You are a strange man, Sir Koa,” she told him.

             
“So I have been told.”

             
“I did not mean offense,” she said quickly as his tone changed.

             
“Nor did I take it from you, lady,” he said, glancing behind him.

             
“What is it?”

             
“I thought…..  For a moment I sensed someone following.  Only….they aren’t there any longer.”

             
“One of those slavers,” she asked uneasily.

             
“Nay.  None of that lot is coming.  Nay, this was someone else.  Someone….farther away, and yet, strangely close.  I could sense them all but bearing down on us for a moment.  Then….nothing.  Curious,” he murmured at the end.  “Very curious.”

             
“Franks,” she asked, uneasily, glancing around the high grass. 

             
“You need not fear the men of the plains.  They are friends, and my commander oft winters among them at times when we are not engaged.”

             
“Oh.”

             
“I have said I shall see you safely home, lady,” he told her.  “You may consider it a truth.  For I have never failed in my vows, and I shall not start now.”

             
“Sir Koa…..  If you can do the things you do…..?  Why do you not just slay your enemies at will.  I vow, even the assassins guild could not manage half so well as you.”

             
“Lady,” he frowned darkly now.  “’Twould not be honorable.  I’m a warrior.  Not a murderer.”

             
She stared at him, hard, then nodded.  “I am beyond grateful that you are, sir.  I am beyond fortunate that your friend found you, and showed you an honorable path,” she said, having heard much of his tale by then.  Or, as much of it as he consented to share. 

             
She already guessed there was much he did not share.  For one, she noted he seemed to leave his own heart and feelings out of his words, even when talking about his meeting, and sparing her dear, lost Lia.

             
“Truly,” he agreed.  “Even I am loathe to think of what might have become of me had I not met Sir Jengus.”

             
“He sounds like a good man,” she allowed.  “Tell me.  What of Eric?  Do you think he is as honorable a man?”

             
“He and I have met but a few times over the years.  Usually as he is speaking to my friend.  He has always struck me as an honorable, and yet driven man.  I believe he has long suffered while fretting over his family’s fate, unknown to him until recently.  Learning it, however, has only increased his determination to put an end to Galdyn’s threat.”

             
“And I may be bringing him his greatest weapon yet,” she realized, and looked down at the soft bundle she carried. 

             
“Whilst even I can hardly judge his heart, lady,” he told her.  “Lord Ericson does not strike me as the sort to use a babe as a weapon of any sort.  Most especially his own kindred.”

             
“Even if ’twere his enemy’s flesh?”

             
“Ah, but is the babe not also your own?  And thus, his own?”

             
“You are a curious man for a mercenary warrior, Sir Koa.  Still, I appreciate your words all the same,” she admitted as she juggled her child, making him smile in delight as she bounced him.

             
Stopping, Koa looked around, and eyed the area before nodding.  “We shall stop here and rest.  At dusk, I shall carry you on to Lord Eric’s encampment.”

             
“We could walk….”

             
“We are still far from the Spine, lady, and ’tis little use of risking the steps, or needlessly wearying yourself when you’ve much before you as yet.  Rest.  I will keep watch, and ensure you are not disturbed.”

             
Helena, who was admittedly weary after years of uncertainty and abuse, as well as by their strange flight through the night, did not argue further.  She stretched out on the cloak he used to fashion a bed for her, and watched as he dropped the waterskin near her even as he knelt in the high grass for a moment, seeming to summon the very shadows around them in the waist high, thick grasses to gird him a moment before standing up again.  When he did, he was once more clad in his black, leathern armor, holding a sword rather than a staff. 

             
Sheathing the weapon as he rose, he ignored the child’s frank stare, and nodded at her.  “Rest, lady.  I shall be close.  None shall harm you.”

             
And he walked out into the grass to stand as a silent sentry as if carved from stone.

             
She remembered old wife’s tales, and fairy tales of his kind, and marveled that anyone had ever managed to face them and live.  Yet she recalled there were tales where his kind were fought, and slain, but she could not imagine how just then.  Still, rather than fierce, frightening demons just then, all she saw was a sad, lonely man that seemed unable or unwilling to open his own heart.

             
That, she felt, was the true tragedy.

             
Especially for a man she felt was obviously trying so hard to be a good and honorable man.

             
It was just after dark when Harlock appeared outside the border village that had been recently restored after what had been just one in a series of attacks from the look of the area.  Yet people always returned to such places, and always risked death to keep certain towns, and commerce going.  Not that he cared, or complained.  As a guild elder, his fortune was tied up in the stubbornness of such men.

             
Still….

             
“Why would he come here,” he demanded of the shadow as he eyed the small township with disdain as they approached it on foot.

             
“He is not here any longer.”

             
“Then where is he,” he scowled.

             
“Not far now.  But the path is still vague.  I was waiting for it to age, so I could sense its ending without doubts.  For the closer we travel in his wake, the more certain of his destination I am.  But first, I must let the next leap set to give us a  true destination.”

             
“Bah!  More delays!”

             
“We shall be upon them soon enough.  I am sensing him clearer than ever now.  We are close.  Very close.”

             
“This shadow must be a fool to travel so carelessly.  Leaping blindly hither and yon,” Harlock snorted as he walked toward the town.  “Attend me.  I shall have a goblet of spiced wine while we wait for you to focus on our prey.  Best you not delay us, though.  I wish to depart the moment you have a set goal again,” he instructed.

             
“Of course,” the gaunt shade intoned.

             
Harlock heard the bitterness in the tone.  The contempt.  He didn’t care.  He controlled the shade, and he had little intention of letting him go anytime soon.  Not when he was so useful in dealing with his own enemies.  Still, if this ancient shadow thought their younger prey was potentially more powerful, mayhap he would be adding a new servant to his ranks soon.  If not, it would only serve him well to be known as a shade-killer.

             
It would even ease the priestly contingent he guessed were already conspiring against him after seeing his servant.

             
“Come,” he spat, and ignored a group of sullen, battered men near one inn as he walked past them toward the local tavern.

X

             
“M-Mother,” Lia gasped, coming out of the tent even as men gave a sudden shout, and she walked out to find Koa and Jengus leading an older woman toward her as Eric emerged behind her.

             
“Aye,” Eric smiled, though his eyes were fixed on the young babe in her arms.  “But who did you bring with you, mother,” he asked as he went to greet her, kissing her on the cheek as the woman’s green eyes shone with tears.

             
“Your brother, Eric.  I named him Douglas,” she told him simply.

             
He studied the small babe who looked owlishly at him, and nodded.  Then he turned to his men, and exclaimed, “Lads!  Truly we are blessed.  First my sister is restored, and now our queen-mother!”

             
The men cheered as Helena only then realized she knew the face of a young, blonde slave that had just appeared as she approached with slumped shoulders, and a bowed head.

             
“You….took Princess Miranda,” she exclaimed.