The Lady's Man (6 page)

Five seconds later, the glowing ball had become the size of a man's smallest finger nail, when suddenly it vanished with a popping sound, and the screaming stopped as though a door had been closed somewhere. The demon he guessed, had been banished back to whatever underworld it had come from, and there was a feeling of deep satisfaction within him. But it wasn't his. It was the Lady's, pleased with her handiwork, and he knew that if she was pleased then he should be as well. As should all men.

A breath he hadn't known he'd been holding was suddenly released, and a sense of relief overcame him – until his years of training returned to him and he remembered that there was still a wizard to deal with.

Except that there wasn't.

As he looked at where Mayfall had lain, he could see no sign of him. Plenty of blood on the ground where he had been, but no body. Had he escaped somehow? Or had he somehow been drawn into the banishment with the demon he'd summoned? There was of course no answer, and right then he was already too drained to care. Not far behind that tiredness was complete exhaustion and that he knew he couldn't fight off for much longer.

Already he felt the fatigue settling over him as never before. The lessons had told him of this, the withdrawal as the writers called it, and yet all the words in the world couldn't have truly described it. He was emptying in some way. The Lady he realised, was leaving him, her work done, and his body was simply reacting to the loss. It was expected if difficult to accept, but he knew he had no choice. He only hoped she didn't leave him forever. He would have deserved that, having failed her so badly, but he didn't want it. For life without her guidance would be unbearable.

“Blessed Lady. Stay a while with your unworthy servant.”

Sir Kepples the First had uttered those same words the first time he had been filled by the Lady, and they had been written down in every book of the Order ever since. It was only then though, as Yorik intoned those same words, that he truly understood their meaning. For until then he'd never asked more of the Lady than the most basic of her gifts as he carried out her duty. He'd never known such power, or such loss.

Happily she blessed him with her presence for a little longer, telling him that she wasn't yet finished with him. She told him that even as he begged her not to leave him forever. As he apologised for his failure. As she heard his plea and forgave him. Forgiveness was another of the Lady's great blessings, and he felt it wash over him with relief greater than any he had ever known. The Order might soon have excommunicated him for his giving in to vengeance, but the Lady still loved him. She owned him, body and soul and though he might not be her best, brightest or most obedient servant, she wasn't going to discard him. Instead she had work for him to do.

Just before she left, or before he fainted, she told him that he was being given a mission to carry out. That he had to find a man and deliver a message to him. Not that she told him who the man was, where to find him or even what the message was. All she gave him was the direction to travel. But that was enough. He was a lowly paladin who had nearly failed his duty completely. The duty was in part a test of his faith and obedience. Even then Yorik suspected it would not be as easy a mission as it might seem, nothing worth doing ever was, but he also knew he would do it. It wasn't just that the Lady had asked it of him and her will had to be obeyed, it was that it was right that he did so. He was her servant and it was his most sacred duty.

Yet it was more than that still. As he felt the last of his strength leaving him, and the darkness begin closing in on his eyesight, he knew one thing more about the Lady; he loved her. Without question, without reservation, without doubt. He couldn't not love her. She was his mother whispering her love in his ears at night as he slept, holding him when he felt pain. She was his friends giving of their friendship, his father protecting him and even his animals giving of their service faithfully. She was his entire world, and he would do her task for love alone. He had no choice, and he wanted none.

Then finally the darkness was complete and his thoughts left the world to travel among the stars above for a time, and he knew no more. But to anyone lucky enough to have been watching, they would have seen his form being picked up and carried by an ethereal light shaped almost like a woman that emerged from his own body, to be laid down to rest on the deep soft grass near where his horses stood cropping contentedly.

They might also have seen, had they truly been lucky, that before she left the woman of light gently kissed him on the forehead before she left. A mother's kiss of undying love and gratitude as her son had returned home from the dark places where evil wandered.

Then they would have no doubt gone running to their priests, as they told tall tales of ghosts wandering among the hills. The people of Crossroads Shire were not a very accepting bunch, least of all of things they didn't understand.

Chapter Four.

“Respected Elders, old friends, good elves; my mother comes before you today with a warning.”

Lady Ammelia held the floor in the place of her mother; a place she had had long practice in holding. Being a foreteller and a spirit magic user, her mother could not enter the Council Chambers while the elders were in session. It was one of the elves' most ancient rules, stemming from the time of the first saplings, three or more thousand years before. A time when foretellers and other spirit magic users had been allowed to enter the debates, and the debates had been regularly confused by their spells.

Because of it Annalisse sat in the guest chairs outside the chambers with an honour guard, listening to her daughter's words and the elders' answers through the gaps in the double doors, while trying not to gnaw at her lip. It was a bad habit, very unelven, and one she had picked up more than seven decades before, but she couldn't seem to overcome it. Not since she had first become recognised as a foreteller, and from then on had had to listen to others speak for her. But Ammelia, her eldest daughter, not yet fifty, was a good speaker and quite capable of getting her words across. Given that, the lip gnawing was usually quite minor. But not this day.

This day Annalisse had to motivate an entire Council to prepare for war in a time of continuing peace. A war that would consume whole realms. This day she had to make them see the wisdom of letting humans and others and perhaps even dwarves enter their lands to stand and fight by their sides. And above all, this day she had to explain that an ancient enemy, long thought eternally banished, had returned to wreak havoc.

And all without even being able to speak a single word of it to the Council herself. By the time the meeting was over she knew her lips would be bloody strips.

“You have all seen the records of my mother's visions over the past few years. All elders across all elven lands have. You know that she has foreseen a time of great trouble ahead. A time when terrible wars will engulf the lands, elven, human, dwarven and others, like a great forest fire. A time when an enemy will rise up from nowhere and lay claim to the world as his own.”

“You also know that my mother is not alone in seeing this. All across the lands, foretellers have been reporting the same for three or more years. The Lady Mordice in the Haldorn Glades. The Master Bron Flaile of Whitestone Gorge, and many others.

“Though you may not yet know it, they too are on their way here even now, in the hope that once together, all the foretellers may act as one to pierce the veil of what has not yet happened and see the true nature of what lies ahead.”

That stirred a few heads among the Council elders as they looked at one another. Annalisse couldn't see it from where she sat outside, but she could imagine it. To suddenly realise that a number of the most illustrious elves in all the lands were coming to their small city must have come as a shock. To have the Prophetess Annalisse Brial Lon among them was a rare and special event so she kept discovering. One which would normally have the whole town turning out to see her – even though she hated it and always instructed that it not happen. This though was something more than a short visit by one foreteller.

“What you don't know is that seven weeks ago, my mother had another vision. One that was so vivid and powerful that it nearly killed her. The healers had to attend to her night and day for three long days after, and even now her health is not what it should be. She is barely a hundred and ten, but at times she looks like an old woman.”

“Daughter!”

Annalisse dropped her head into her hands in embarrassment at her daughter’s words, but only for a moment. She knew that she could not afford to be distracted. She had to hear what her daughter said, and more importantly, how the elders answered her. And though it was tempting to cry out and deny what her daughter had said, she would not do that either. Ammelia could not be distracted from her task. Besides, she knew her daughter was only giving voice to her fears though it was both painful and frustrating to hear.

Especially so when it was true. Ammelia took her role as her speaker to include protecting her mother, and she took it seriously. Thus any threat, any risk was unacceptable to her, and any injury or illness she regarded as a personal failure and something that could not be allowed.

When Annalisse had told her daughter and the rest of her family that she had to come to Hammeral, Ammelia had argued strenuously that she was too ill to travel so far. But once she had conceded defeat she had been the one to pack up the entire family including all her children and their husbands, and their children as well, to come with her. For company she said, but Annalisse knew the truth. It was for protection. The men were all capable soldiers in their own right, as was the body guard she had hand-picked to escort them all. Sadly they had never bargained on meeting three dozen bandits in a single gang, with a minor mage among them as well. But then neither had they expected to meet the strange human, Yorik.

But someone had.

Dressed like a wild heart and carrying a world of rage, pain and suffering on his shoulders, yet still a most noble creature, he was able to overcome even the most terrible burden of darkness to do his duty. He had been immune to magic and more dangerous with a sword than any other she had ever seen. He could move like the wind, and that sword of his was as invisible with speed as it was deadly, while all who attacked him were shown to be weak and slow. He was a true warrior.

He had come out of nowhere, and left for the same place immediately on fulfilment of his duty without ever having truly spoken with them in the three long days he had escorted them to safety. But even though he had revealed little Annalisse knew him in a way she didn't know others.

She felt him. She still had the conviction that his being there was not an accident. Whoever guided him – and he was guided even in his pain, of that much she was certain – had made sure that he was where he had to be when he was needed.

Annalisse sensed that his role in this matter had not ended and that she would see him again. And if he truly was a paladin as she believed, then perhaps the others of his Order might ally with the elves in the coming days. Certainly they would need that help, They would need all the help they could get as without it all would die. Elves, humans, the other races and even dwarves.

Against that her daughter's concern for her well-being, while both embarrassing and inappropriate was as nothing. All that mattered was finding the help they needed, preparing for the battles ahead, and trying to keep both kith and kin alive. And the first step in that long journey was to convince these elders of what was coming. Ammelia's telling them of her infirmity didn't help as far as she could see. But arguing about it would simply make things harder.

“In her vision my mother saw Hammeral and knew she must come despite the risk. For this is the place where the defence of all our people will begin. It is here that allies will meet, that councils will come together, and plans will be laid. And it is here that the final battle will be waged. A battle such as none of us will ever see again.”

“This will be a battle not between elves and dwarves as many of our younger warriors might dream of. Nor between the humans and any of the monstrous races they seem to regularly annoy. It will be a battle between whole realms. The realm of the living, and the realm of the dead. For the enemy is of the dead.”

“What!”

A dozen elders all began speaking at once, demanding an explanation for the impossibility they were being told, and even breaking Council protocols to do it. They had reason. Necromancy in all its forms was forbidden in all elven, human and even dwarven lands. One and all knew the cost of such evil magic and how it fed on the souls of the living and even the land itself. To hear that an entire realm of the dead was to be their enemy was almost too much to take in. Ammelia silenced the elders quickly with the raise of her hand.

“It is without question. The Dark One has finally given in to his own demons, and has started uttering the spells even he should know better than to let loose. His frustration at his long imprisonment has finally caused him to go mad, and there is now nothing he will not do to be free. To rule the entire world, or to destroy it.”

That though, was the part that Annalisse didn't understand. It was the only thing that made sense when she considered what she had seen in her visions. But it was a guess at best. She also wondered if their enemy might be something other than the Dark One? Someone hiding behind his name perhaps? But she couldn't see through that deception if it was one. And she couldn't imagine who or what could be so powerful as to do such a thing.

That was the trouble with her visions. What she saw always came true. But often it didn't happen in the way she thought it would, nor for the reasons she assumed. In the end she was mortal, and whoever sent her these visions, allowed for that weakness. She – and Annalisse was usually persuaded that it was the Mother herself – showed her the parts of the future she needed to see in order to bring about the desired end. But she sent with those visions little in the way of understanding. Annalisse had to work that out for herself.

But for the moment, whether it was the great demon or not, it was enough to use his name – which was why she had told her daughter to do so. Everyone feared the Dark One, even though no one knew anything about him save a few sensitives. After all, he had been locked away in his other worldly prison long before history had begun to be written. Some claimed that it was even before any of the peoples of the world had begun to walk it. That the dragons had sealed him away. None knew. But everyone knew that whatever the Dark One was, he was to be feared.

“To this end he has started drawing dark wizards and spellcasters of all races to him, bringing them into his prison at Haldesfort, and with them any demons they can summon. But even their great power is less important to him than their knowledge of necromancy. For with it he hopes to reach through fully to the greater world, raise an army of the undead, and use it to unlock his prison gates.”

“Is that possible?”

Elder Goril asked the question that they all should have wondered about, for the whole point of Haldesfort was that it was permanently locked from both sides. Created and warded by the dragons themselves, no mortal had the keys, or even knew where the locks were. How would the undead know?

“We do not know. But in the end it matters not whether he can free himself, at least to us. It matters only that he can raise such an army in our world to try it. That he will do this, is already a fact.”

“The first reports of the undead walking have begun to trickle in. It is only the beginning of a flood.”

“All of us – elves, dwarves, humans, the lessor races, even trolls and orcs – will have to fight as one against the army of the dead that our enemy is raising. An army that will only grow larger and more powerful as we grow weaker. An army that seeks not our conquest but our death.”

“And this will be the city where that battle begins.”

Ammelia fell silent for a moment, her words spoken. No doubt she was wondering whether to tell them the rest. She didn't want to Annalisse knew. But the silence gave the elders in the room a chance to discuss what they had been told and her daughter time to consider. But in the end they had to know it all. Annalisse knew it, she had persuaded her daughter of it, and eventually the chamber fell silent. She guessed Ammelia had raised her hand to call for it. She was good at getting others to respond to her gestures.

“There is one thing more you need to hear Elders. My mother has had one more vision. One both terrible and frightening. Hammeral will be the place where the fight back begins. It will be where the final battle is fought. But it will not survive the battles. At some point the dead will overrun it and the bodies of the fallen will feed the vultures.”

After that it was chaos, something Annalisse wouldn't have needed to be a foreteller to predict. The elders started panicking, talking among themselves in inappropriately raised voices, some even shouting, while Ammelia stood there in their midst, likely completely forgotten. It was likely the end of the meeting. After this would come the questions and the doubts. Could she be right? Was their fine city doomed? Or was it all some terrible jest? That was why she had wondered if she should have had her daughter speak the last. But in the end her daughter had said what had to be said. If they were to save the people the elders had to know what was to come.

And what was coming was death.