Knight's Valor Read online

  Sapient Breen hesitated a moment before replying. “Alas, they were murdered.”

  Redora sat bolt upright in her chair, her mouth agape. “By whom?”

  “It was never discovered. But the sapients of the day concluded that they were poisoned, perhaps by powder of the desidum flower dissolved in their wine.”

  “But the desidum is used for healing, as it is with my father,” Redora said.

  “True, but in large enough doses it can also be used to kill,” replied Sapient Breen.

  “How awful,” said the princess.

  “Indeed it is. Shortly after their deaths, the realm was split in two, the western portion named for Prybbus and the eastern for Glyssa. But the people of southern Prybbia rebelled, and so that land was split further, giving us the Freelands.”

  Sapient Breen went on to explain the division of the lands, defining their boundaries and offering a brief lecture on the tribes and settlers that made up the peoples of the Freelands. He was interrupted by the blowing of a war horn. Thrice it blew, which signaled an enemy at the gate. Breen gently closed the book and stood up. Princess Redora, who knew what the horn signified, had gone pale as milk. Together they moved toward the window that overlooked the courtyard and looked out. Below them knights were scrambling, their leaders shouting orders. They could not see High Road and so did not see the enemy gathering. But the horn’s three blasts were proof enough.

  Fifteen minutes had passed when they heard a knight outside shout, “Men of the plain!” Another shout went up from a different knight, and then they heard a muffled clamor coming from beyond the curtain wall. Someone gave the order, “Let fly!” and they knew the fighting had commenced. Redora watched in horror as a boulder flew above the wall and sent a knight plunging to his death. Two more rocks sailed over the curtain wall and smashed the ground before rolling to the walls of a far tower, barely missing a group of men arming themselves from a stash of weapons.

  Sapient Breen had seen enough. He took the princess in hand and gently pulled her away from the window.

  “The castle is under siege,” she said. “What will we do?”

  “You’re not safe here. The first thing they’ll do is kill any royal they meet.”

  “What will we do?” she repeated.

  “Come with me,” he said, and he held out his hand. Redora took it and followed him out of the room. They ran down the steps of the solar and came to its entrance hall. Breen took Redora through a door just off to the side and down another flight of steps that took them belowground.

  “Where are we going?” Redora asked.

  “To a safe room, just along the next passage.”

  They stopped running when they heard the sound of a door opening. It had come from around the corner ahead of them. They heard the sound of heavy boots marching, and Redora smiled and made to greet her father’s men. Breen grabbed her shoulder and put a finger to his lips.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Are they not our own men?”

  “Please,” Breen whispered back. “Wait.”

  They heard someone say, “Where do you suppose them to be?”

  “One of them is in the garden,” said a second voice. “The other will be studying with Breen. You seize the elder, I’ll nab the younger brat. Take Ellyssa to the dungeon, and I’ll meet you there with Redora.”

  Sapient Breen grasped Redora at the shoulders and said, “Don’t be afraid.” Still holding her shoulders, he closed his eyes and they both began to vanish from sight, first at the feet, then up to the waist, and finally to their heads. “Keep silent,” he whispered as they disappeared. The footsteps came closer, and two men, sapients both, rounded the corner and walked past the princess and her grand tutor.

  When the two men were gone, Breen let go of Redora’s shoulders, and the two began to reappear, first their heads, then their bodies, and lastly their legs and feet. When they had returned to visibility, she was staring at him as if she had never seen him before.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I had to do something you’re not accustomed to. And, yes, I know, something that’s forbidden in this realm.”

  “What is happening?”

  “I believe a conspiracy is afoot,” Breen replied. “They mean to take you by force, I think.”

  “But they were sapients. The same as you.” As she spoke she took a step backward.

  “I assure you I am not a part of any conspiracy, except the one that involves keeping you safe.”

  She watched him closely, wary of his every movement. “That parlor trick you performed, making us invisible, where did you learn that?”

  “From teachings I read in ancient books and through much practice. Many sapients of the East apply the shadow crafts these days, despite the laws against them. But we haven’t time to stand here and debate these issues. I have to get you away from here. Far away.”

  “What about the safe room?” Redora asked.

  “Considering the conversation we just overhead, that would be anything but safe,” Breen said. “You shouldn’t remain within the castle walls.”

  Redora looked as if she might cry. “But this is my home.”

  “You must trust me,” Breen said. “And we must leave here. Now.”

  “All right,” she said. “Show me the way.”

  Sapient Lejrik found Princess Ellyssa in the royal gardens with her aunt, Se’Vienne. They had been tending a bed of cissuphras bulbs when the clamor of battle began and had remained there, each sitting on a stone bench, waiting for someone to come and tell them what was happening. When Sapient Lejrik arrived, Se’Vienne rose from her bench to greet him. “What were those dreadful sounds we heard?”

  “The castle is under siege, my lady,” replied Lejrik, his voice too composed to match the message he brought.

  “By whom?” asked the princess, as she rose and took a step toward him. Soil stained her field dress where she had knelt.

  “By men of the plain, your grace,” said Lejrik. “A terrible lot. Quite brutal.” He stiffened his body and pointed his chin at the princess, an act meant to assert his authority in the present situation. “You must come with me. For your own safety.”

  “What of my safety?” Se’Vienne asked.

  “The Daughters of the Realm take precedence, my lady, as you well know. They are most valuable as regards the future of the kingdom, and therefore are of greater concern. Doubtful that you will be harmed.” His eyes wandered back to the princess. “Please do come along now.” The sapient left the garden with the princess in tow, leaving Se’Vienne to stand among the cissuphras bulbs.

  “Where are you taking me, sapient?” Ellyssa asked after they walked through the entrance of the great hall and stood before the door of its underground dungeon.

  “The time for questions is not now, girl,” Sapient Lejrik replied.

  “I am a woman, twenty-two annos since the turn of the annum and no girl. What’s more, you will address me as your grace.”

  The sapient pushed open the iron doors that led to the dungeon steps and grabbed the princess by the arm. She screamed and struggled as he dragged her down the steps, but she was helpless against his greater strength. When they came to the dungeon doors, they squeaked opened without a hand touching them and clanged as they slammed into the stone walls on either side of the entrance.

  Primus Vayjun stood inside the dungeon, his hands poised toward its doors. Nine men, all of them members of the Council of Elders, stood behind the primus, who gave the princess a sinister smile. “Let us trade places, shall we, your grace?”

  “Should we wait for the spice wagon to catch up?” asked Sendin, as the four riders crested another hill along the narrow back road that led to Eastern Plain.

  “No. We can’t afford to,” replied Jerreb. “And I care not for the boy’s company, nor his mindspeak.”

  They had been riding much of the day and were sore in their saddles, stiff of muscle, and weary of journeying and battling. They had passed from lush countrysi
de with green hills that rolled toward the sea, to a small hollow, and now to woodland, whose sunbirks, iron sennas, and towering spinwoods provided welcome shade from the unrelenting sun. They wanted nothing more than to see the banners of Storms Reach waving from the pinnacle of the castle, but they were yet many miles from achieving that end.

  When they came to Dunnuth Bridge, a small waterfall emptied into a river whose bank could be accessed by the horses. Ellerick insisted that they stop to rest and to give the horses drink.

  “A fine idea this time round,” said Jerreb, who was first to lead his horse down the slope.

  Sendin and Ghendris led their horses down in turn, and Ellerick walked his horse to the far right of the others, where the leaves of an outstretched branch of a nearby birk tree offered abundant shade.

  “The Dremsan, you never did tell me what he said,” Jerreb said to Sendin as he looked across at him.

  The horses were eagerly lapping up river water, snorting and whickering. Sendin fixed his eyes on his courser’s head as he spoke. “We have Ghendris to thank for interpreting his strange tongue. The boy spoke of queer things, omens and prophecies and superstitious babble. He said they had visitors from the northwest in the night, direct from the Dread Lord himself, come to show them what was to be if they failed to choose sides in a coming war between the great realms. Their lord, or mer, Mer Truvah, fell to his knees when the Dread Riders touched his head, and his eyes went blank while he stared up into the heavens. The Dremsa boy claimed they all looked up at that point and saw the war play out across the sky. He said Storms Reach fell into the hands of the Prybbian realm, according to the vision, and the men of the plain will have no small hand in that outcome.”

  “Mer Truvah. He must be leading the horde,” Jerreb said.

  “Aye,” said Sendin.

  “Then it’s him I seek. He may have my wife.”

  “Let’s hope she’s all right, being caught in the midst of a war,” said Ghendris.

  “Indeed,” said Jerreb, and then he and the others fell silent and listened to the horses drink. When the beasts had drunk their fill, he and the other three men went to the river and drank. Then they filled their goatskins with river water and rested.

  At length, Sendin looked to the sky. “It’s getting on toward evening. We’d better move.”

  “It will be well into the night by the time we land at Storms Reach,” said Ellerick, climbing onto his horse.

  “So be it,” replied Jerreb. “We haven’t a choice, unless you have a trick up your sleeve.”

  “No tricks, just two skinny arms,” said Ellerick, and that got a laugh from the others.

  They traversed the road that skirted Eastern Plain and soon sprinted past the village of Heth before coming again to the fork in the road. This time Jerreb did not hesitate. They took High Road north and continued toward Storms Reach. Soon the Hamlet of Killik was behind them as well, but as they neared High Court, just as night descended, all four riders pulled on their reins to stop their horses. High Court Castle, which rose out of the mountainside before them, was under siege, and a larger Dremsa horde, as well as what looked like Riders of the Dread Order, could be seen atop its battlements and outer towers and beyond the raised portcullis of the gate. Many of the besiegers had torches in hand. Savages and Dread Riders alike were seen tossing male servants from the roof of the barbican, the double tower above the lowered drawbridge, and cutting down others in the courtyard. Worse yet, far along High Road, as it climbed toward the snow-covered summit from which rose Storms Reach, the rest of the horde was moving. Many rode horses, others pushed war machines. A multitude of torches were raised to light their path.

  “There’s no way us four can manage that many enemies by ourselves,” said Ellerick, his voice cracking as he looked ahead at High Road.

  “Not a crippled rabbit’s chance in a wolf’s den,” added Sendin. “Looks like they’ve rounded up a lot of commonborn folk from the villages as well.”

  “Yes, and sent their savages to plunder the lands they’ve left behind,” Jerreb said.

  “Doubtful they’re aware of that part,” Sendin replied.

  “What then?” asked Ellerick, when silence crept in.

  Ghendris pointed to the sky. “Look there.”

  The others raised their heads and were greeted by a fearful sight. Formations of winged lizards, Riders of the Dread Order saddled on their backs, were blotting out the stars. A dozen or more broke off from a formation and swooped down within the castle walls, as the others, perhaps thousands in all, continued on a straight path toward Storms Reach.

  “Are those dragons?” Ellerick asked.

  “Not by the looks of it,” Ghendris replied.

  “But they are lizard things, to be sure,” said Jerreb.

  When the other three men fell silent again, Ellerick said, “So what’s our plan?”

  “We retreat,” said Jerreb.

  “Aye,” said Sendin.

  “A fine idea,” said Ghendris. “A better one would be to seek out the boy who dreams. See what he has to say of all this.”

  All eyes turned to Jerreb as he considered Ghendris’s request. At length he said, “So much for trailing our scent with Ivull dogs. It seems they had other plans all along. Let’s be off, before we’re spotted. We’ll seek the boy.” Then he set his horse south and sprinted down High Road, the others following close behind.

  Sapient Breen and Princess Redora trudged northwest through the snow toward the dragon star cluster known to the realm as the ascended Ancient Mertrixia. The ground was dimly illuminated by the moon’s glow, but a steady wind threw up swirling curtains of loose snow in front of them, obscuring their vision. Only Mertrixia’s fixed position kept them on course. They had walked since early morning, throughout the afternoon, and into the early part of night, and still they had some miles to go before they would come to the realm’s northern edge. Redora had raised no complaints, but the night frost that settled over them was a trial difficult to bear.

  “I’m freezing,” she said, her lips quivering. She had her arms wrapped over her chest, but it did nothing to stave off the cold. “Is there nothing you can do?”

  Sapient Breen had been lost in thought, his mind filled with scenes of battle and contemplation of the conspiracy against the crown, and he had not noticed the chill until Redora broke into his deep reverie. He stopped walking, cleared his mind, and turned to face her. “My apologies, your grace. Such is the way of treachery. It leaves no time to prepare, elst we would have dressed for the weather and packed a nighttime snack.”

  “So then, there is, indeed, nothing you can do.”

  “There is, perhaps, one thing,” he said.

  Redora eyed him warily. “Shadow crafts,” she whispered.

  “Indeed,” replied Sapient Breen. He reached out a hand and beckoned her forward. She hesitated a moment, but when a gust of wind sent fresh shivers down her spine, she nodded and stepped toward him. He set his hand on her back, and they began to walk. He waved his free hand, and a translucent bubble enveloped them. The atmosphere inside was warm and quiet, and it kept out the wind.

  “It may be that I will become used to your shadow crafts, Sapient Breen,” Redora said. “I wonder if you might whisk us to the wharf with a conjured spell.”

  “Up to now, I’ve only dabbled in shadow crafts,” he replied. “I don’t possess the knowledge of the full extent of the dark arts, so I’m afraid your legs will have to do for now.”

  “A shame,” said Redora, sighing. “But I thank you for the warmth. Now if you could only conjure a hot rabbit pie or some salted cod or a cluster of ripe grapes …”

  It took them another two hours to reach the edge of the promontory that overlooked the wharf that was their destination. Their protective bubble dissolved as they approached the edge, walking one behind the other, with Breen in front. The wind whipped Redora’s hair about and sent the hem of her dress billowing out around her. Steep stone steps were carved into the mount
ainside, and they snaked a winding path down to the wharf. But when Breen peeked over the edge of the bluff, he saw that the single-masted sailing vessel that was usually moored there was gone. His face paled.

  Redora, who stood behind him on the bluff, took note of his long silence. “What’s the matter?”

  “Someone has taken the boat.”

  “Shame,” said Redora, sighing. “What will we do now?”

  Breen turned around and looked south into the darkness of the vast snowy field beyond. “We’ve a long walk back.”

  “Surely we’re not going back to the castle,” Redora protested.

  “We’re going to sneak past it and make for the nearest town. We need provisions”—he turned to face her—“and a disguise for you. Anyone who has been to court will recognize you. Given what has happened, that could put us both in peril.”

  “Indeed,” said Redora. “We had better get moving.”

  Breen nodded and they started walking. He placed his hand to her back and, with another wave of his free hand, conjured the protective bubble about them.

  Redora looked at him and smiled. “I do so love these shadow crafts.”

  Primus Vayjun stood atop a makeshift dais in the courtyard of Storms Reach castle, gazing at the throng of Dremsa plainsmen pressing in around him. Others of the Dremsa men looked down from the roofs of surrounding towers or from positions atop the curtain wall. The Dremsa horde had stormed the castle following Vayjun’s order to lower the drawbridge, and their battle blood was still hot within them.

  Peppered among the plainsmen were Riders of the Dread Order, clad in black, who had flown in from Aklon on dread reptilian beasts—the unnatural handiwork of the sapients of the West. Also in the crowd were servants, a few visiting nobles, and the remaining knights of the Inner Guard, whom the horde had kept alive.

  Kneeling next to Primus Vayjun on the makeshift dais was the king himself, Hertrigan Vame, his head flopped to the side like a scarecrow’s while Vayjun’s hand gripped his neck. The king might have been dead but for the movement of his eyes, which were filled with dread as they scanned the roiling crowd. Members of the Dremsa horde were shouting battle cries and stamping their feet, even those on the towers and wall. The Riders of the Dread Order, disciplined soldiers all, stood like sentries among the crowd, silent, their eyes fixed on the two men atop the dais. High above them their winged lizards wheeled in the sky like vultures awaiting a fresh death.