“Truly?” asked Gwydre. “Then there is hope.”
“They are all dead,” De Guilbe stated flatly.
Gwydre arched an eyebrow. “You know this? Or you presume?”
The large monk shrugged impatiently.
Gwydre nodded and turned back to Jameston.
“Any odds for armies going against Badden aren’t good odds,” the scout reminded.
“But the Highwayman had already been up there, so he knew . . .”
Jameston’s laugh cut her short, and she stared at him, seeming less than amused.
“Your pardon,” the scout said with a low bow, even bringing his hat down to arm’s length to sweep it across the floor. “I’m always enamored of Dame Gwydre’s optimism. Sure but you are a warm ray of sunshine on a dark forest trail.”
“Take care in how you address the Dame of Vanguard,” Father Premujon warned, which only made Jameston chuckle harder.
“Then we can hope,” said Gwydre. She put her hand familiarly and warmly on the strong shoulder of tall Jameston Sequin, much to the annoyance of Premujon and every other Abellican brother in the room. “Then we can hope.”
“Always that,” Jameston replied.
They didn’t have to wait long for their hopes to be fulfilled, for word rang out later that same afternoon of more travelers coming down the northern road. The alarms sounded loud and clear long before this second group neared the town, for among its ranks were reportedly at least two powries and a tall man wearing the beret of a bloody-cap dwarf.
Many people went into the streets to await the arrival, and Dame Gwydre and her entourage moved to the front of that throng. Soldiers and scouts slipped out all about the town perimeter, watching, their elm bows drawn and ready.
The approaching band came into view at last, over a rise to the north, and many in the crowd gasped, “powries,” at the unusual sight. But Dame Gwydre was not looking at the bloody-cap dwarves. She was smiling, her eyes on Bransen the Highwayman and on Brother Jond beside him. She led the gathering right out of the gates, doing all she could to stop herself from breaking into a full run at the very welcome sight.
“We feared you dead!” she said when she stood before the band of six. Gwydre gasped then, and so did others around her, noting the garish wound on the face of the beloved Jond. Immediately a group rushed from Father Premujon’s ranks to attend to the man.
“Yach, but so did we,” said one of the dwarves, and he and his fellow laughed.
“Ancient Badden hoped that to be the case, I assure you,” said the Highwayman. He rolled his sack off his shoulder and dumped its gruesome contents—the ancient’s head—onto the ground before Dame Gwydre.
More gasps arose and several wails of protest.
“Remove that wretched thing!” one man demanded.
But Gwydre held up her hand to silence them. “Truly, I have never seen a more beautiful thing in all my life.”
“Let it thaw a bit so ye can enjoy the stink of it, as well,” advised the same powrie. Again he and his friend exploded into laughter.
Dame Gwydre looked from one to the other curiously, then stared hard at Bransen.
“We have a lot to talk about,” the Highwayman admitted sheepishly.
FOUR
Throwing Down the Torch
B
annagran stood at the top of the main keep of Castle Pryd, staring to the east. He could make out the light of some campfires, seeming to twinkle on and off as the many trees waved in the evening wind. The savvy leader had set the torch on the wall near to him so that any milling about the streets of Pryd would see him up there in his shining bronze breastplate, cut to accentuate his solid and muscular form. He wore no overcoat and his arms were bare, showing the man’s powerful muscles. Bannagran leaned forward so that his strong features reflected the torchlight. He kept his visage solid and determined, to direct the gaze of any onlookers to the plumed bronze open-faced helmet he had also set on the stone. How many times had the men and women of Pryd Town seen Bannagran adorned in that helm, his oft-broken nose crookedly protruding from the single line of bronze that ran down the front below his brow? They had seen that inspiring sight not once in the course of defeat, only in victory.
This was his role, he knew, and he had been taught well by his friend Prydae. As mighty as he was in battle, his biggest role was to serve as inspiration. “Better to kill one enemy loudly than ten silently,” Prydae once said to him. He had to look and act the part of leader. If the warriors didn’t trust in him, they could be routed and turned at the first sign of defeat, leading any one of a battle’s ebbs and flows into a self-fulfilling prophecy of disaster.
So Bannagran wore his decorated bronze breastplate on the tower top that night. He was too far up for any below to make out the details of that crafted suit, of course, but just seeing the shine would remind them of the craftsmanship, of the line of carved silver wolves running across the chest and the multitude of jewels inlaid above and below that bas-relief. Bannagran was a simple man and had never been overly fond of such finery but, again, he knew his role. He hadn’t come up here simply for appearance, however.
“What are you doing, Ethelbert?” he asked quietly, for something here was not quite right. Laird Delaval’s forces were gathering around Bannagran in Pryd Town, with more streaming in every day. Surely Ethelbert knew that. No scout could miss it.
Milwellis had won in the north and was in position to swing to the south and press Ethelbert hard. Surely Ethelbert knew that.
So why hadn’t he attacked Pryd a week before, as soon as Milwellis had handed his Northern forces the defeat at Pollcree?
Pryd Town swelled with soldiers. Even now Bannagran had at his command more men than Ethelbert could put on the field. That number only grew in Bannagran’s favor with more of Delaval’s warriors streaming in every day.
Bannagran looked past Ethelbert’s distant camp then swung his gaze to the south, looking for some hint that Ethelbert had another force moving in to support him. The night was dark, unbroken by fires beyond the known encampments. Bannagran had scouts wide and far south and east of Ethelbert. There seemed no reinforcements on the horizon.
So, with the balance obviously shifting day by day to Pryd’s favor, why hadn’t Ethelbert already attacked?
And now, with the full weight of Delaval congealing around Pryd Town, why hadn’t Ethelbert turned and flown the field, back to the east and the south where he could rally more allies?
Bannagran knew Ethelbert and had seen him in battle years before against the powries. He was a capable commander, a fine tactician who knew when to strike.
“A fine night,” came a voice behind Bannagran. He couldn’t stop his reflexive wince at the familiar nasal whine of Prince Yeslnik. Bannagran leaned more heavily on his hands, his fingers pressing tightly against the stone of the tower crenellations.
Yeslnik walked up beside him and followed his stare to Ethelbert’s campfires.
“They are many,” Yeslnik said.
“Not so many. Not nearly enough.”
“I will defeat them,” Yeslnik said, and by “I” he meant “Bannagran.”
“If we can catch them and engage them, then we—you—will prove victorious, yes,” Bannagran promised. “More so if Prince Milwellis pivots his force to the south.”
“I prefer to let Milwellis run to the coast to put those wretched lairds of the Mantis Arm to the fire.”
A tactical blunder, both militarily and politically, Bannagran knew, but he also knew that voicing such a concern wouldn’t do much to dissuade the stubborn Yeslnik and, indeed, might prompt an even more stupid response from the impetuous and spoiled young man. Let the lairds of the Mantis Arm hold their loyalties to Ethelbert for now, Bannagran silently reasoned, for once this fight was decided and Ethelbert routed, those lairds would quickly realign behind the victor. They had no ideological and deep-felt belief in this war, after all, and were simply trying to figure out which laird’s victory—Delaval or E
thelbert—would benefit their respective holdings the most.
“Do I need Milwellis?” Yeslnik asked. “Have I not given you enough to properly deal with this old sot from the south?”
“Yes, my laird, I mean, no, you do not need Milwellis, and, yes, you have more than enough men already gathered in Pryd Town to destroy Ethelbert’s force.”
“Then why are they not yet destroyed?”
Bannagran summoned his patience. “Because time works against Ethelbert. He is ill-supplied, and our numbers grow daily.”
“But I can beat him now.”
“A difficult fight.”
“So?”
The callousness of that remark was not unexpected by Bannagran. Yeslnik didn’t care how many men and women, his own as well as Ethelbert’s, he sent to the grave as long as he achieved his victory.
“If Laird Ethelbert comes at us, we hold a defensive posture and he will be utterly destroyed,” Bannagran tried to explain. “That would be the sweetest victory for you of all. If we must fight him in the open, then we will still win, though I fear that Ethelbert himself and many of his warriors will escape. If we must find him, we will win more decisively with every passing day. It is not just the victory, Laird, but the extent of the win that is important.”
“I grow tired of the waiting,” Yeslnik sighed. “March tomorrow morning.”
Bannagran managed to avoid Yeslnik’s gaze as he rolled his eyes.
“What will Ethelbert do in that event?” Yeslnik pressed. “He will see my strength and know his doom.”
“He will likely flee the field,” Bannagran replied, thinking it through as he spoke. He started to explain to Yeslnik that Ethelbert assuredly already knew of their strength, but the words caught in his throat and he stared back to the east more intently and with obvious alarm.
“What?” Yeslnik demanded anxiously, and he, too, looked that way. “What do you see?”
“Ethelbert is a shrewd commander. He knows he cannot win this fight,” Bannagran pondered, more to himself than to Yeslnik. “He will flee. He seeks no more, perhaps, than to draw us out or to keep us occu—” Bannagran cut himself off and shook his head with slowly blossoming concern.
“That is a good thing, is it not?” the confused Prince Yeslnik asked as Bannagran wheeled away from the wall and started for the ladder leading back into the keep.
“How protected does Delaval City remain?” Bannagran asked.
“Behind her high walls?” the oblivious Prince replied.
“You have emptied her guard?”
“To fight Ethelbert,” Yeslnik said, somewhat defensively, without knowing why.
“It is a ruse,” Bannagran explained. “A feint of the highest order. He does not sit there intending to fight but only to keep us occupied, to keep us gathering our forces for a decisive battle that will not commence, not here, not soon.”
“Then go and get him!” Prince Yeslnik cried, not catching on to the cause of Bannagran’s alarm.
“Why is he here?” Bannagran asked.
“What puzzles are these?”
“To bring us here,” the general from Pryd answered his own question. “Why does Ethelbert wish us here? Why does a swordsman invite a parry?”
Yeslnik stared at him blankly.
“Because such a parry will not defeat his true intended attack,” Bannagran explained, and when Yeslnik at last seemed to be catching on, he repeated, more grimly, “How protected does Delaval City remain?”
Yeslnik’s wail confirmed Bannagran’s fears. The seasoned soldier rushed into the keep, Yeslnik dithering in his wake.
G
uard Captain Rubert was widely considered the toughest man in the service of Laird Delaval. He had grown up on the streets of Delaval City, literally fighting for his every meal. His knuckles carried the scars of a hundred fights, a hundred crushed faces, and he wore a necklace of teeth he had knocked from the mouths of his opponents.
His reputation served him well, with an appointment to Delaval’s own elite guards and a climb to the rank of captain, and in this latest adventure, where most of the soldiers had been sent from the city on the miserable hike to Pryd Holding, Rubert had escaped the call.
He was too tough, too valuable to Laird Delaval, the would-be King of Honce.
“Ah, but there’s a cold wind coming down the masur this night,” he lamented, tightening his cloak against the frigid breeze rushing down the great river, a harbinger of the approaching wintry season. “And I’m out o’ weed for me pipe and got not a striker pad to light it up. Be a good sport,” he called to his fellow sentry atop the wall encircling Laird Delaval’s main keep. “Put a light up and a pinch.”
As he neared, the man stood up and shrugged off the guard cloak. Even in the dim light of the quarter moon Rubert knew at once that this was not his companion. For that moonlight shined off a bald head, where his companion wore a thick mop of black hair, much like Rubert’s own.
“Who are you?” Rubert called, his hand going to his finely crafted sword.
The imposter strode calmly toward Rubert. He carried no weapon that Rubert could see, and he was not a large man, certainly not near to Rubert’s two-hundred-fifty-pound muscular frame.
“Far enough!” Rubert warned, drawing forth his sword, its dull metal gleaming in the moonlight.
The stranger continued toward him.
“You have been warned!” said Rubert. Heart pounding, he retracted his arm and thrust his blade at the man’s chest.
But the man was no longer standing before him, having somehow moved enough to the side so that the blade slipped harmlessly past. Rubert felt a slight thump against his throat. He fell back, slashing his sword at the stranger, who by then had retreated safely out of reach.
“What are you about?” Rubert said, or started to say, or tried futilely to say, for no sound moved past his lips, though he did hear a wheeze a hand’s width below them. He brought his free hand up to his throat and moved it before him into the moonlight, feeling the warmth of his own blood on his fingers. He started to protest, to ask the man another question, but again nothing came forth but a wheeze.
Another form scrambled over the wall behind his attacker, then more behind him. The original assailant grinned at Rubert and calmly walked by. Rubert meant to strike at him with his sword. He really did, except that his arm wouldn’t heed his command to lift the weapon; indeed, he heard the sword, as if very distantly, clang against the tower’s stone roof.
The stranger walked past, along with his companions. Rubert stood there, staring ahead, only vaguely aware that he was perched on the precipice of death’s dark pit and falling forward without reprieve.
Only vaguely did Rubert feel his nose and cheekbone shatter against the hard and cold stone of the tower roof. Only vaguely did he hear the shuffle of light footfalls go past him. He didn’t think of Laird Delaval, the would-be King of Honce, then. He didn’t think of anything at all, just the inviting, irresistible blackness.
L
aird Delaval was not a young man, and he surely felt every day of his nearly sixty years that evening. Winter was coming on in full force, with frost every morning and several snow flurries already. Delaval wasn’t looking forward to it. He had hurt his knee in battle three decades earlier, thrown from his horse when some impudent peasant had stabbed his mount in the flank. Though the laird’s wounds had healed—he was back to fighting form within a few weeks—the knee used every day of inclement weather, whether rain or the constant ache in the cold winters, to remind him of that long-ago fall.
“If my nephew can be rid of that troublesome Ethelbert in the coming battle, I just might winter in Ethelbert dos Entel this year and every year thereafter,” Delaval said to Genoffrey and Tademist, his personal attendants and generals. Genoffrey had been with him since the early days, before Delaval had even been named successor to his father, the laird. A large man, his muscles not slackened in the least by the passage of the decades, Genoffrey wielded a claymore of e
xtraordinary weight. More than once had he taken down heavy warhorses on the field of battle with a powerful swipe, and he had one time slain three men with a single swing, a feat that was still much discussed across the holdings of western and central Honce. Tademist, half the age of Delaval and twenty years Genoffrey’s junior, had only recently joined the inner circle. Tall and lanky, the young warrior had not yet thickened with age. Where Genoffrey won with sheer power, Tademist was more of a finesse fighter, wielding a short sword and a long dirk, a rare two-handed fighting style, with cunning and unmatched speed.
The two men glanced at each other with obvious skepticism.
“I know, I know!” Laird Delaval said with a wave of his hand and a snicker. “Prince Yeslnik is not known for his martial prowess.”
“But he has Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, with him, my king,” said Tademist, who, along with Genoffrey and all the others of Delaval’s inner circle, had started referring to Delaval by the title all in Castle Delaval considered inevitable.
“You know this one?” Delaval asked.
“I know that his reputation is well earned, by every account,” Tademist replied, and Genoffrey nodded. “As is his title. They call him the Bear of Honce because of his great strength and size, and when he enters the field, the enemies flee.”
“I have seen him in battle,” the elder guard said. “Both when he was beside Pryd’s son, Prydae, those many years ago, and in our most recent fighting south of Pryd Holding. If anything, his prowess in battle and in commanding his forces is greater than the whispered huzzahs. The Bear of Honce, indeed, in strength and sheer power, but he is more the fox in cleverness. Prince Yeslnik is well-served by that one and will win every day if he heeds the instincts of Bannagran of Pryd.”
“That is good to know,” Laird Delaval said, nodding. He started for his armoire, unbuckling his sword belt as he went. He knew that Genoffrey and Tademist were glancing at each other again behind his back, both of them concerned by his pained hobble. “I plan to live a hundred years, my friends.”