Ambition and Alavidha (23 page)

“Our size and
as supple and quick as we. Before humans arrived they were the
greatest threat to us and ours.”

“But not
now.”

“It all depends
on your point of view. Without weapons, man is no match for Lind.
With swords and arrows we even matched but what of the future?”

“Do you fear us
Vya?”

“We Lind fear
what some men may become,” she answered, “now we come to where the
fighting was, sit up straight, keep eyes open. Vada are still
searching around to find wounded gtran. A cornered, wounded gtran
is very dangerous, always remember this.”

“Right. If
that’s the case then Vya. Perhaps we should be stepping along right
smartly.” He was not too sure of his abilities of fighting a
desperate creature the size of Vya and staying on long enough to
get a chance to kill it.

“Not far now,”
she promised. “They wait in tall trees.” She picked up her
pace.

Daniel just
knew that he had never felt so glad to see anyone, or anybody else
for that matter, for a long, long time.

There were he
realised as Vya came to a stop, eight vadeln-pairs there, plus
Thalia and Josei. Someone had stuck a flame-torch into the ground,
well away from the trees and that, together with the half-moonlight
made it possible for him to distinguish faces.

One vadeln was
tending another’s arm, Daniel could see the bandage being tied and
another was dabbing smaha-root salve to the haunches of one of the
Lind. Daniel could smell the pungency.

Thalia turned
as he and Vya arrived and the uniformed man by her side turned
also. All were watching his and Vya’s entrance.

“There you are
at last,” Thalia greeted them. “Good. Now me and Josei would like
you to meet our rescuers. This is Vadryzka Dorin of the Sixteenth
Ryzck and his Lind Olyei.”

The tall fair
man smiled as he spoke, “pleased to meet you Kellen Daniel and you
too Vya.” He executed a half bow in their direction and Vya
graciously inclined her head in reply. “Sorry it took so long. We
had to position ourselves downwind. It was a large pride, over
twenty of them. Hope you weren’t too frightened.”

“Quite
frankly,” Daniel answered, nodding to Dorin, “I’ve never been so
frightened in my life.”

“Even more
frightened than when your ship foundered?” teased Thalia.

“This was much
more scary,” he declared in a firm voice. “Then I might only have
drowned. A candlemark ago it occurred to me that I might be facing
the real possibility of being rent asunder and eaten whilst still
alive. Definitely scarier.”

Dorin
laughed.

“Oh, we
wouldn’t have let that happen,” he said with a slow smile as he
turned to Thalia. Daniel took the opportunity to dismount.

“Thank you,” he
whispered into Vya’s furry ear as he rubbed behind it. She leant
into his caress.

“Any time,” she
answered.

Dorin was
talking to Thalia and Daniel walked (it could only be described as
a stagger) over.

“We’ve been
looking out for you,” Dorin was saying. “Susa Malkum sent word. We
knew that you were on this trail but believed you’d be further east
by now. When you weren’t where we expected Ryzcka Jim sent us to
look out here. We didn’t expect trouble but knew that a gtran pride
was somewhere in the area. What took you so long?”

Thalia
obviously didn’t wish to admit the reason so Daniel took it upon
himself to reply.

“Thalia had
this beginner with her sir,” said Daniel with an embarrassed laugh.
“I kept falling off so Thalia and Josei had to slow down.”

Dorin and the
Vadeln of his Vadryz laughed but Daniel realised it was not
derisory laughter at his expense. Each and every one of them could
remember how difficult they had found it to keep alindback in their
first days when the said Lind was running full tilt and ducking and
weaving between trees.

“Well, no harm
done,” said Dorin. “They say a bit of excitement is good for the
blood. The digestion too.”

“I think you
did jolly well to stay on at all,” opined a jolly-looking freckled
youth. “No harness either.”

“Fear gave me
strength,” Daniel answered.

Over kala a
half bell later, Daniel and Thalia learned that the Sixteenth
Ryzck, although nearing the end of their third month of duty in the
area, had orders to stay on another two months.

“Susa Malkum
must have his reasons but if he has they haven’t permeated down to
us. He may have told Ryzcka Jim but if he has Jim’s not
saying.”

“That’s a
strange one,” commented Thalia, “I’ve never heard of that happening
before.”

“Not these
days,” agreed Dorin, “we’ve all wondered but no-lind or no-one has
come up with a reason.”

“I have,” said
the freckled-faced youth by Daniel’s side.

“A sensible
reason Trevor.”

The Vadeln
laughed and Daniel joined in.

“I’m sure it
will become clear in time,” soothed Thalia, “is the extension of
the duty months all over or is it just the Sixteenth?”

“All over,”
Dorin answered, “and between you, me and the gatepost, everyone is
questioning but never an answer.”

“Perhaps Susa
Malkum is experimenting with a new rota system,” postulated Thalia,
“we all know how long it can take to journey from Vada at the
beginning and end of duty stints. It does eat into leave-time.”

“Perhaps that’s
it,” agreed Dorin but he didn’t sound as if he believed it. He
tipped what was left in his mug. “So let’s be about it shall we?
Back to your dom first to pick up your traps. It’s a relatively
short ride to our dom. We can be there at first light.”

Daniel groaned.
He wasn’t best pleased at the prospect of riding all night after
everything he had gone through but when he thought about it, he was
even less enthusiastic about the concept of remaining in the area.
The gtran might just gather up their courage again and
re-attack.

During their
ride he voiced this thought to Dorin and the young Vadryzka
laughed.

“Be at least a
day, more likely far more,” he informed his travelling companion.
“First they’ll lick their wounds then will come the quest for
dominance of the pride among the previously subservient males. We
killed the leader. The dominant, strongest and wiliest will win and
then the pride with gather round him. Only then will they hunt once
more. Ryzcka Jim and Wsya will probably bring us back here in the
next tenday or so and the Ryzck will chase the whole galloping lot
of them back into the mountains where they belong.”

“Sounds
dangerous.”

“It’s our job,
to keep the land free, safe and to protect. We all took the
oath.”

“What is the
oath?” asked Daniel. “Ours is the Fealtatis Ceremony when we swear
to obey and protect or king and overlord and he swears to protect
us.”

“That sounds
more like allegiance to one man,” said Dorin, “no matter what kind
of man he is, or woman.”

“I suppose it
is,” said Daniel, “I’ve never really thought about it all that much
if I’m honest.”

“Ours is more
like a promise,” said Dorin, “it goes like this,

‘
For and by
the Honour of the Vada, we do solemnly swear that we will support
and defend the rtathlians, lands and the inhabitants of Lind,
Vadath and Argyll against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that
we will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that we
will obey the orders of the Susyc of the Armies of the North and
the orders of the Susas, Ryzckas and Vadryzas appointed over us,
according to regulations. So help me the Lai.’
”

“I like it,”
said Daniel, “especially that part about supporting and defending.
It seems so real, somehow. ‘I'm afraid I’m not putting this too
well.”

“It is the code
by which we live, human and Lind. A lifelong promise to live up
to.” Daniel intercepted the look he gave his Lind, Olyei, one both
affectionate and loving. “It would be catastrophic if it comes
about how some of us fear,” Dorin continued, referring to recent
tensions between Vadath and Argyll, “we might have to …”

“Fight them?”
asked Daniel.

“Yes. We are
worried but hope that it will never come to pass, that a solution
may be found so let’s change the subject. What is happening in the
southern continent?”

“Our tensions
remain as always internal,” Daniel answered. “Murdoch is, I
believe, no longer threatened by the Larg, they too are far more
interested in internal squabbles. Strange thing though, my cousin,
he’s an officer in one of the regiments, the Second Foot, he was
saying recently that he and his men haven’t been seeing many
sniffing around our borders for a while. I agree with what he is
saying too. I was out at the borders myself last year. Definitely
an odd situation is brewing but not dangerous to us I believe.”

“What, none at
all? For how long?” asked Dorin, referring to the lack of Larg
sightings.

“Not even a paw
print, which is, as everyone tells me, more than a little odd,
quite out of character. They were expecting trouble when the two
new duchies were founded but nothing came of it.”

Dorin nodded,
“no reaction at all?”

“Only a verbal
complaint. Course, they were founded a number of years ago now, but
it
is
strange.”

“Other fish to
fry?” hazarded Dorin.

“Can’t imagine
what,” answered Daniel, wondering again what was happening at
home.

* * * * *

-25-

WEST OF THE
GTRATHLIN’S DOMTA - THE RTATHLIANS OF THE LIND

One night by
the fireside a couple of nights later Thalia looked up. They were
on their own again, having left the dom of the Sixteenth Ryzck.

“You’re staring
at me again.”

Daniel shook
himself.

“Am I? I didn’t
notice. Sorry.”

“So what about
you? Tell me about you.”

“I’m the only
son of Kellen Philip Ross of Rothesdale in Brentwood,” Daniel
began.

“What’s a
Kellen?”

“It’s a noble
rank between a Baron and a Thane. Technically I’m a Kellen-Heir as
my father’s still alive. My sister is called Simone. She’s a year
older than me and is married to Louis, Baron Louis Senot. Both Ross
and Senot are old families. Simone has a little boy, born last
year, he’s called Louis after his father. They live at the western
edge of the Graham Dukedom so I don’t see them very often.”

“That’s a
shame.”

He nodded,
“it’s the way it is in Murdoch. She’s a Senot now, when she married
she became one.”

“Sounds
complicated.”

“It is. My Aunt
Denise made a very good match. She married the Duke of Brentwood,
one of the reasons my father sent me to keep an eye on that
Markwood idiot. The Brentwoods and especially the Markwoods are not
the brightest. I was supposed to stop them doing anything idiotic.
Anyway, that’s the family. Childhood was the same as everyone
else’s. Nursemaids, tutors, military training, there have been many
Lord Marshalls in the family’s history. We’re also noted for our
loyalty to the monarch. Our family motto is ‘Loyalty Binds
Us’.”

* * * * *

-26-

THE FAVOURITE
MANOR HOUSE OF THE DUKE OF HALLAM - DUCHY OF HALLAM - KINGDOM OF
MURDOCH

“Your drink My
Lord,” said Paul Hallam’s Seneschal, placing both glass and
decanter on the table beside him.

“Thanks
Mal.”

“I just
received a message from Kellen Crawford, he’s on his way here,
messenger said he’d be here by Tenth Candlemark.”

“Now that’s
good news,” said Paul, “see to his comfort, would you?”

“Of course My
Lord.”

Normally Mal
would have left at this point but he had something else to tell his
master.

“There is,
there’s another matter.”

“Shoot.”

“It’s Miss
Jill, My Lord.”

“So what’s she
done this time?” asked Paul, preparing for the worst. The antics of
his youngest daughter were always prone to be surprising.

“I thought you
should know My Lord though I’m not liking to tell tales but it
seems that she went out riding on her own again, after luncheon it
was. Head stableman realised pretty soon and sent out two guards to
bring her in.”

“They found her
I trust?”

“Oh yes My
Lord, I heard she wasn’t too happy about it, she won’t take a
telling that going off on her own like this isn’t safe.”

“Thanks Mal,”
said Paul, “I’ll have a word with her.”

* * * * *

“Crispin?”
answered Robert Crawford, “he’s gathering together a bunch of ne’er
do wells. Brainless fools who can’t see beyond the end of their
noses.”

“Does the Queen
know?”

“She realises
all right. I think she’s regretting not going for a home-grown
husband for her daughter.”

“Princess
Antoinette?”

“Still besotted
with him, even now. He’s got her wrapped round his well manicured
little finger. He’s taken a mistress but she still believes it’s a
passing fancy and that he remains in love with her. He’s a fast
talker, charming when he wants to be and a consummate liar. One
hundred per cent the son of his father I’d say.”

“Would you say
that the Queen and the Crown-Princess are in danger?” asked
Paul.

Robert shook
his head, “not yet awhile. An heir and one to spare, two if you can
manage it. After then, who knows but if you’re asking?”

“I am.”

“Then yes, I
think the Queen could be in real danger. Crispin can’t set aside
his wife, she’s the blood-heir but with Queen Antoinette out of the
way and his wife on the throne, he could take control. He would
take control. Send wife to convent, become regent for son, that’s
my guess. We need to be on our guard.”