Penny surprised me by setting her teacup down firmly. It startled me more that she didn’t break it, which was more her style when upset. Instead she was calm and composed, and when she spoke it was in a fashion I would have expected from Rose, rather than my wife. “Please forgive my husband,” she said, directing her words to the rest of the room. “He is almost certainly the most frustrating man I have ever known.” Then she set her eyes on me and continued in a fashion I was more familiar with, “I often dream of strangling him and putting myself out of my misery.”
Everyone laughed, but I had to correct her. “No, you’d have to strangle yourself to put you out of your misery.”
“You are my misery,” Penny said firmly. “It would put me out of my misery whether I was strangling you or whether I was strangling myself.”
More laughter followed, and I chuckled. “Still, it would be clearer if you said—”
“Don’t be a pedant, Mordecai,” Rose abjured me. “It isn’t very becoming of you.”
I sighed, looking around me. I couldn’t win. “Fine, you’re all right. It was stupid of me to go out there today,” I admitted. “However, I reserve the right to be stupid in the future. There’s no help for it.”
“How so?” asked Ariadne innocently.
“Well, I wouldn’t expect any of you to understand, not being wizards, but my magic is founded on stupidity. If I tried to change that, I would lose my powers,” I told them grandiosely.
“Oh, is that so?” asked Penny incredulously.
I nodded. “I’m pretty sure it is. In fact, I am pretty sure that the motto of the Illeniel line of wizards is ‘stupid never dies.’”
There was more laughter, and Rose snorted in decidedly unladylike fashion before speaking up, “What a bold liar you are! The wizardly lineages don’t have any mottos, not that I’ve ever heard of.”
“Well they do now,” I declared. “I’ll just need to add it to the banners.”
The mood had lightened, but after a minute Sir Egan brought us all back to the seriousness of the present. “Your news regarding this attack is disturbing, and unfortunately it seems it may connect with what the Queen has to share.”
“Have there been other attacks?” asked Penny.
“We aren’t sure,” said Ariadne. “In Albamarl we have several reports of small villages being attacked by strange creatures. While most of them aren’t enough for me to fear some sinister plot, there have been several deaths. What concerned me most is a report from the Duke of Cantley, stating that the entire populace of the market town, Brodinton, has vanished.”
“Vanished? Like Lancaster?” I asked worriedly.
Ariadne shook her head. “No, the place is still there, but the inhabitants are missing. Being a market town, this was noticed almost immediately, as people go there to trade daily. Our best guess is that this happened some three nights ago and was discovered the following morning. Duke Cantley sent a force of men to investigate, and they reported signs of a struggle, but no bodies were found.”
“Where is Brodinton?” Penny questioned.
“A day and a half east north east of Cantley, on the northern bank of the Surrey River,” I answered. Geography was an important subject of study for the nobility, but I had the advantage of my near perfect memory.
Rose broke in, “Now I understand why Egan is here. You sent Harold to Cantley?”
Ariadne nodded. “I dispatched two units of the royal guard. Sir Harold is in command, and his fellow knights, Sir William and Sir Thomas, are with him.”
“I drew the short straw,” said Egan sourly. Then he glanced at the Queen and his cheeks colored. “Forgive me, I meant no disrespect.”
The Queen laughed. “I know guarding me is a boring task, but maybe you drew the lucky straw. You never know. I could be attacked at any time.”
“You shouldn’t say such things, Your Majesty,” protested Egan, “not even in jest.”
Ariadne frowned at him. “Egan…”
“Ariadne,” he said, correcting himself. “Forgive me. I can’t get used to addressing you like this. It isn’t right.”
“How many men were in these units?” I asked suddenly.
“It was two companies,” answered Egan immediately, clarifying the Queen’s earlier remark.
So, three hundred men, assuming the two companies were at full strength. It wasn’t enough, not if they encountered a force the size of the one that had attacked us today. “They need more support,” I announced.
“We only have three more companies in Albamarl,” Egan informed us.
Penny leaned forward. “Why so few?”
“We’ve had peace for many years now. A standing army is expensive,” said Ariadne. “Given a few weeks, we can raise many times that number, but I can’t justify keeping thousands of men in arms when there are no threats to the kingdom.”
“You need to put out the call to arms,” I said suddenly. “We have an unknown enemy in Lothion. Have the lords prepare for war.”
Ariadne focused on me. “You think I should call for levies as well?”
For thirty seconds or so I was silent, thinking hard. “No, but make sure they’re ready to do so if needed. Don’t have your vassals rally at the capital either. Tell them to activate their reserves but keep them in the major cities. We don’t know yet where the enemy is, but if there’s a force the size of the one we faced today, they could overwhelm even a city the size of Cantley if they aren’t prepared.”
“How strong were the ones you faced today?” asked Egan.
“They were tough, not superhuman, but they were seasoned fighters, well equipped and fierce. If I had to guess I would say they were veterans. A force like that could handle many times its own numbers in peasant levies and would be difficult even for professional soldiers. Individually they were more like our knights, but they worked together as a unit,” I explained.
“You’re saying you were faced with the equivalent of seven hundred knights today?” asked Egan incredulously. “Yet you destroyed them with relative ease.”
“I didn’t say it was easy,” I replied. “They were resistant to magic, and they had some magic-users of their own. I can’t be everywhere. If your two companies meet a similar force near Cantley, they won’t stand a chance.”
Ariadne rose to her feet. “It appears we will need to return to Albamarl then, since there’s more work to do.”
“I’ll come with you. Whatever force you send will need magical aid,” I told her.
The Queen glared at me. “Absolutely not. You’ve already fought one battle today. Do you even remember the conversation we just had?”
Everyone stared at me, agreement on their faces. I sighed. “Fine, but let me send Sir Gram and another wizard in my place.”
Rose blanched almost imperceptibly at my suggestion, but she held her tongue. I had just offered to send her son into harm’s way. Penny’s reaction was less restrained. “Wizard? Which one? Elaine?”
Elaine was still recovering from her ordeal and the loss of her father. There was no way I would send her, and it surprised me that Penny would even suggest it. Of course, our children constituted all the other available wizards. “Matthew,” I told them. “He and Gram will take their dragons along as well.”
Penny’s face paled slightly, but she merely clenched her jaw. She clearly wanted to argue, but when she saw Rose’s quiet fortitude she kept her silence. I had a feeling I would be hearing about it later, however, once we were behind closed doors.
Ariadne nodded, but before she and Egan could leave, I caught Egan’s arm. “Once this issue is resolved, tell Harold to select suitable candidates. The Order of the Thorn will need to grow. You, Harold, William, and Thomas will be dragon-bonded, along with another ten according to the Queen’s choosing.”
Egan was momentarily stunned, but he recovered quickly. “Shouldn’t that be the Queen’s decision? The Order of the Thorn answers to her.”
I turned to Ariadne. “Do you agree?”
>
She nodded. “It will be as you say.”
“What about armor and weapons?” asked Egan. “We still have the sun-swords, but it took you months to produce the enchanted armor we once wore.”
He was referring to the fact that the old armor couldn’t be worn by new knights. While Egan, Harold, and William still had theirs, any new knights would need armor made to fit them. Even the remaining pieces we had from their deceased brothers couldn’t be used, since the enchantment made it impossible to re-forge them to fit new wearers.
“We can work out those details later, but I will trust the Queen’s armorers to handle the task. They can produce armor to match yours for the new men and I will enchant it afterward,” I told him.
Ariadne and Egan left after that, and less than a half an hour later, Matthew, Gram, and their dragons followed.
Chapter 27
The next morning found me up and moving before the sun rose. ‘Bright eyed and bushy tailed,’ as my mother was fond of saying. It wasn’t my usual mode of operation, but I was still brimming with energy from the battle the previous day. I probably could have foregone sleep altogether, but I knew from long experience that the mind doesn’t work properly without rest, no matter how much energy you have.
I spent the hours before dawn in my private workshop, which was down the hill from my home in the mountains. There, I worked on a new set of armor for Penny. It was an old project, and one that had long been put aside. It had never seemed urgent enough when we had no enemies to fight. Most of the major pieces had already been formed and shaped, but a lot of finishing work remained, and there would need to be some modifications since she had lost her arm. I called up a brisk wind to blow away the dust and set to work.
Much of the work was rote, allowing my mind to wander freely while my hands and my power performed the necessary tasks. Mentally, I took notes on the enchantments that would be laid down at the end, considering how I would make the process neater and more efficient. Once the Queen had set her armorers to work, I might potentially have more than a dozen suits to enchant in a relatively short period of time. With proper planning and a standard design for the enchantment, I should be able to do the work much more quickly than I had in the past.
I also thought about some of the things Matthew had done. He had been extremely clever over the past few years, and I was immensely proud of that. Most importantly, he’d taught me a lesson: I shouldn’t limit the scope of my ideas to only include my own capabilities. Some of the enchantments he had crafted for his journey to an alternate reality had included special additions from both Moira and Elaine.
Thinking along those lines, I thought I should plan on using some aspects of my son’s special ‘translation’ magic in both Penny’s armor and the armor I enchanted for the new knights. Producing something like what he had done with Thorn wasn’t practical—that had been a work of art requiring vast amounts of time—but some of the ideas could easily be adapted to make the new works more practical.
As the sun began to peek over the horizon, I sighed and put down my work. It was time to eat. I still wasn’t hungry, but some tea might be welcome.
Alyssa was in the kitchen when I arrived, a knife in her hand as she cut bacon for breakfast. A sudden thought struck me. “Come here,” I told her.
Frowning, she set down the knife and moved to stand before me. I studied her up and down for a moment, but the dress she wore was too bulky for me to measure her properly with my eyes. “Take off the dress,” I ordered.
“Sir?” she answered in surprise.
“Hurry up and take it off, but keep your nightclothes on. I want to examine your figure,” I explained.
Her cheeks colored slightly, but Alyssa was no shrinking violet. She was a fighter with skills to match Gram and her father, Cyhan. She began shucking the heavy wool while I searched in my pouch to find what I needed. Once I had it, I began issuing orders. “Lift your arms straight up.” Standing behind her, I reached around with my hands and pulled my measuring tape snug around her waist, noting the number. Then I repeated the action, measuring her bosom, the breadth of her shoulders, and her hips.
Alyssa’s body was smooth and curved, but beneath her deceptively feminine figure was a lot of muscle, the product of a lifetime of training and exercise. On her physical merits alone, it was easy to see why Gram was attracted to her, but her body was probably the least of it for him. The mental training she had undergone was what made her such a deadly warrior. That was probably also a plus in Gram’s mind, though to me, her intelligence and other talents were equally impressive. Alyssa had infiltrated our household originally on the strength of her acting ability, serving as a spy for her uncle.
I measured her upper arm, the length of her elbow to the wrist, and the circumference of her wrist, and then I moved to her ankles. “Stand with your feet apart a little bit,” I told her.
“What are you measuring me for?” she asked finally.
“What every knight needs,” I responded vaguely.
It was about then when my daughter, Irene, wandered in. “Dad?” she said querulously.
“Oh good, you’re just in time,” I responded. “Come here, Irene. I need your help. This part would have been a little embarrassing.”
My youngest daughter understood my meaning pretty quickly when I asked her to take Alyssa’s inseam and thigh measurements for me. That done, I told Alyssa to put her dress back on and get back to work.
“You should measure me too,” suggested Irene.
“I don’t think you’re done growing yet,” I clucked. “Also, this sort of armor can be something of a hindrance for a wizard.”
“Oh,” said Irene, sounding disappointed.
“What’s a hindrance for a wizard?” asked Penny, having just appeared in the doorway. She looked somewhat disheveled, but I didn’t detect the irritation I had feared after my decision to send Matthew to Cantley the night before. Sleep is a wonderful thing. Then again, she probably hadn’t had time to think through the previous day’s events yet.
“Morning, my sweet,” I responded. “Come here and take off your housecoat, and the dress too, if you don’t mind.”
Penny looked disgruntled. “It’s too early for these shenanigans. I haven’t even had my tea yet.”
“I want to remeasure your torso,” I explained, waving at her to come closer.
Irene piped up, “He just finished measuring Alyssa too.” She made sure her tone was suggestive too, the little scamp.
Luckily, Penny and I had been together for too many years for her to fall for such obvious baiting. She knew me too well. “What’s this all about?” she asked, but she was already removing her housecoat.
“I just wanted to compare your bust size to Alyssa’s,” I answered flippantly.
Penny gave me a feral look. “Careful, it’s still morning. I bite.”
I kissed her on the cheek. “I hope so.”
“Eww!” exclaimed Irene. “You’re ruining the innocence of my youth.”
Chuckling, I explained, “Actually, I decided to finish your armor, but I need to remeasure a few things due to your…”
“Disfigurement?” said Penny, trying to finish my sentence.
“I was going to say, ‘swelling bosom,’ but if you prefer disfigurement, so be it,” I replied.
My wife’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Now you’re suggesting I’ve gotten fat.”
I sighed. “There’s just no way to win.” Finishing up my measurements, I put my tape away. “Have you seen Moira this morning?”
“Not yet,” answered Penny, “but Conall tells me she ate in the main hall already. She wants you to come visit the prisoner.”
“I’ll go find her then.”
“What about breakfast?” asked Penny.
“I ate earlier,” I lied, giving her another kiss. Then I headed for the door.
***
It turned out that my daughter was already coming to find me. I ran into her as I descended the stairs of
the keep. “Dad!” she said as soon as she spied me.
I smiled. “Did you make some progress?”
“Of course,” replied Moira, seeming almost insulted. “You know me better than that.”
“Don’t get your feathers ruffled. It’s just a phrase to start a conversation,” I responded. “Let’s go see him.”
When we reached the bottom floor, I turned toward the main entrance, but my daughter stopped me. “He’s in the hall.”
“Why isn’t he locked up?”
She smirked at me. “He’s no longer a threat. He’s eating there, but I left a guard with him.”
Confused, I asked, “Not a threat, but he needs a guard?”
Moira nodded. “To make sure none of the men try to kill him. They don’t trust him yet.”
I stopped outside the door to the great hall. “Explain what you did and what you’ve learned before we go in. Are you sure he’s safe now?”
“His name is Sanger,” began Moira, “and his people are called the Ungol. He has absolutely no idea how his people got here. They think it’s probably something we did. As for where he came from—”
I interrupted, “No, explain what you did, so I’ll understand how it works, what the limits are.”
“Oh,” she said, glancing briefly at the floor. “I explored his mind first, before he woke, to see how it works and to examine some of his memories. As Elise said, it seems very human in most respects, although their language is unusual. They use two different languages, or maybe I should say it’s one language with two different modes of expression.
“One is similar to ours, in that it uses sounds for words that are much like ours. The grammar and vocabulary are different, of course, but we could learn it. The other mode of speaking uses clicks and harsh guttural sounds to convey the same meanings. They use that in business, the military, and dealing with strangers—basically everything except communicating with friends and family.
“I think it would be difficult for anyone not raised with it to emulate that way of speaking, and because of their cultural differences, it would be hard to convince one of the Ungol to learn our language, so I used a workaround,” said Moira.