Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (30 page)

The gate! N
ever mind the treacherous deceit of the two hundred hostile humans he had just let into the fortress, the gate was still open and in a matter of seconds a horde of orcs would pour through it outnumbering Kircadden’s men by two to one.  A cry, of anguish more than warning, flew from the Constable’s mouth.  Rage fuelled his sword arm and he hurried down the steps, seeking out the tall female figure, leader of these turncoat humans who had so neatly wrought his ruin.

Niarmit’s mind returned to consciousness before her body, leaving her with the unnerving paralysis of the just awakened.  She sensed but she could not respond.  The wet sand beneath her cheek, the wash of the waves breaking over her legs, tugging at her feet as though the sea were trying to reclaim its lost prize. All this she could feel, and yet not one finger could she stir, barely bat an eyelid against the intrusive salty spray. And all the while the echo of a dream rang around her skull.

She had been floating, at peace as she had never been before. 
But it had been a lonely peace. A dark isolation that threatened to extend into eternity.  Then a shimmering cloud of light had split the thick black darkness, advanced on her, seized her and dragged her away.  Even now the jangle of bells that had accompanied the light seemed to beat out a tattoo on her eardrums.

Slowly the sound resolved itself into the distant crash of the waves on the rocks, feeling and movement
returned to her extremities and, coughing and wheezing, she rolled into a sitting position.

The storm still raged.  Of the ship, only the last few feet of the stern section were visible, wedge
d in some submerged cleft of rock.  Of the crew there was no sign, only an arc of white crested waves thrashing themselves against the serried ring of razor sharp rocks.

She
could not have survived that. There was no way through the white water from the wreck to the gently shelving beach on which she had found herself.  Even had there been a route the distance was too great, the raging storm too severe.  Impossible.

Her first thought
was that she must be dead, that this just the afterlife, her spirit walking the shore by her body’s last resting place. However, patting down her bruised and sodden body, seeing the entirely physical dent it had made in the sand, sniffing the air and scent of the Petred Isle convinced her she was entirely corporeal and certainly not in heaven.

Her second thought, to her own surprise, was of disappointment.  She had eluded death and felt no triumph only anger.  She rose to her feet screaming at the waves, at the sky, at the Goddess she had denied but could not entirely disbelieve.  She railed at the conspiracy of fate, circumstance and divine intervention which had kept her trapped in this isle of disappointment and sorrow. 

Kimbolt gl
anced breathlessly around him. All was pandemonium.  He sat astride a borrowed horse, his hands bound to the pommel of the saddle infront of him, nothing but a would-be spectator locked in the centre of the action.  Other soldiers were rushing from the battlements into the courtyard desparate to stem the tide of invaders and to them one scruffy rider on horseback looked just as much an enemy as any other.  He was surrounded by apparent allies he knew to be foes, and by friends he was sure would mistake him for an enemy.  As if to underline the dire peril of his situation a wailing guardsman ran at him, sword swinging high.  With his knees, Kimbolt turned his steed to the side and dodged so the horse not his body took the blow.  He rolled clear of the saddle as the wounded animal lurched and fell, but now he had lost all mobility, tied to half a ton of horse carcass in the midst of a ferocious melee.

Another sword whistled through the
air, once, twice and Kimblet was free, the severed rope dangling from his wrists the only slight encumbrance on his movement.  He looked up into Dema’s grinning face.  “Why?”

The M
edusa shrugged.  “It is time to choose, but choose wisely, Captain.”

Then she was gone and Kimbolt was alone in the midst of battle.  He ducked as one guardsman lunged for him, kicked him away as the man turned for another blow, and then a
n orcish scimitar scythed the man from shoulder to navel.  There were few of the guardsmen left, the swarming orcs and outlanders making swift work of the unprepared garrison.  Kimbolt seized a sword from a fallen guardsman and loped after the stream of soldiers fleeing for the safety of the fortress’s central keep. 

The wind flung Niarmit’s intemperate words back in her face as she paced the shoreline, lost in her tirade until a line of rocks forced her to turn and traverse back across the beach.  Then she saw him, standing barely a hundred yards away, stock still as he must have been standing from the moment she washed up on the shore.

“Feyril!” her mood turned the greeting into an accus
ation, but as she drew near her pace slowed.  Even through the thick storm clouds there was light enough to see the river of red that ran down the elf’s armour from armpit to ankle, soaking into the sand.  And all the while he made no move, as still as a statue.  The only sign of life was the weak irregular pulse to the flow of blood from his re-opened wound, a flow which had slowed to a trickle not through any healing process, but simply because there was so little left within him.

She lowered him gently to the ground
and his eyes scanned slowly across her face.  “You safe?” he murmured.

She nodded and the gesture seemed to please him.  “Was harder, harder than I thought.  Not as young as I used to be.”

“Don’t talk,” she wept. “Save your strength.  Hold on.  I’ll get you to a priest. Make you well.”

He shook his head, eyes ha
lf closing.  “No priest.  Home. Illana.”

Usually the collapse of a fortress’s curtain wall is an anticipated event for which a disciplined withdrawal to the next line of defence can be planned.  However, the surprise wrought by Dema’s subterfuge was absolute and now there was a pell mell dash of a handful of survivors towards the square keep.

It was itself a formidable building, its gate house halfway up the wall and approachable only by a dog leg staircase upon which the defenders inside could rain missile after missile on any close attackers.

Less than half a dozen guardsmen had remained inside the keep as Dema’s attack had been launched, and now these few stood at the top of the stair case urging their comrades to join them, in safety. 

Leading the pursuit went Dema.  She charged through the fleeing garrison not even pausing for the easy kills offered by their unprotected backs.  The orcs and outlanders following behind were less hasty and stopped to engage and despatch their hapless prey.   So it was that De
ma reached the stairway first, leaping over fleeing defenders in her haste to get to the upper gatehouse.  She still wore the mask, but the hood had long since fallen back to reveal the squirling mass of serpents atop her head yet even the snakes had no time to strike as she charged past crouching tremulous defenders.

Kimbolt some twenty yards away had to admire as well as understand her single minded purpose.  If even a dozen men could get inside the keep and shut its gates they could hold that part of the fortress for an eternity.  The taking of the outer bailey, while still a victory of consequence, would be greatly compromised if they did not also capture the keep.

And now she was there, on the narrow drawbridge across the ten foot gap between the top of the staircase and the opening to the keep’s gatehouse.  She faced six men, last defenders of the keep. Kimbolt saw her hand fly up, knew the mask was off before he even saw the first victim turn to stone.

Behind her the rest of the outlander humans and orcs had reached the foot of the staircase but they met more resistance as the guardsmen turned to fight them at every step rather than tackle the snake topped she devil who had hopped so lightly past them.
  Dema was alone and would win, or lose, her battle alone.

Kimbolt saw the danger. T
he fat man in fine armour crawling up the steps.  The orcs had not noticed him, all their attention focussed on the bitter step by step struggle below, and so the knight reached the top unmarked and unnoticed.  Even Dema, her opponents whittled or petrified down to three, gave all her attention to the foes before her.  The snakes hissed and spat in the same direction and so the knight may as well have been invisible as he raised his sword to strike two handed and cleave the Medusa from head to toe.

“Dema, behind you!”  Kimbolt heard himsel
f shout, just once.  That was all she needed.  She ducked and spun and swung, all in the blinking of an eye.  The fat knight’s sword fell from unfeeling fingers.  His head fell back as blood spurted from a wound that had opened his neck quite literally from ear to ear.  Then the body toppled from the steps and before it even reached the ground another of Dema’s opponents had been petrified.

“We are ready to march on Morwencairn, Master,” Haselrig made the evening report with some hope of plaudits from his hard task master.  “The wizards have worked their magic and the legion will leave this battlefield much stronger than it arrived.”

“Wizardsss will do what wizardsss do, little one, there isss nothing wondrousss in that,” Maelgrum rebuked him.  “But what newsss of the pursssuit of my old friend Feyril?”

Haselrig squirmed uncomfortably. “The trail went cold after the river, we assumed he had headed back to Hershwood. That is where Grundurg is sent to stand guard.”

“Ah yesss, chief Grundurg doesss ssso like to play with elvesss.  My own plansss for Feyril are more sssubtle than the orcsss though Grundurg might yet provide sssome entertainment with hisss
ssspecial talentsss.  Ssstill, firssst we mussst find the elf.”

“Of course
Master.”

“It might be of interssst to you, little one, to hear that one of Odestus’sss patrolsss has been destroyed by a
sssingle great elf.”

“A single elf?
but Odestus is in the Saeth levels, not Hershwood.”

“Yesss,” the atmosphere cooled around the undead wizard
as he exuded a long exhale. “Ssstill, if  Dema’sss associate can but track down Feyril he may yet have redeemed hisss earlier failuresss.  I have given him new ordersss thisss evening.”

“But what of Li
stcairn? Who will besiege that?”

Malegrum’s eyes flared bright at the antiquary’s unwise query.  “Lissstcairn hasss already fallen to the lady.”

Stupefaction overwhelmed Haselrig.  “to the Lady?  Listcairn?  fallen? already?”

“Little one if you think that all I require from you isss to repeat back my own wordsss in a different order, then our assssociation may be nearing itsss end,” Malegrum admonished.  “Asss we have dissscusssed before, your value to me isss in the information that you can provide about happenningsss and eventsss sssince lassst I walked thisss island.  Certainly you are no wizzzard or warrior.”

“Of course Master,” Haselrig bowed low.  “I exist only to serve.  Please forgive my surprise, but Dema has done well. Hetwith and Listcairn secured with barely a company of soldiers.”

“Isss it the plansss, or Dema’s
ss abilitiesss that you doubted?”

Painful years had armoured Haselrig against the trick questions and their follow up which passed for Maelgru
m’s sense of humour.  “Neither Master, for both originated with you and neither your plans nor your selection of the instruments to execute them could ever be doubted.”

Maelgrum nodded,
content to accept the flattery in place of the opportunity to inflict some painful sanction for perceived impudence.  “You are wissse, Hassselrig.  Now let usss prepare to bring the legionsss to thisss boil which Eadran built upon my palace.”

“Morwencairn will tremble at your coming
, Master.”

Kimbolt looked down from the arrow-slit of the constable’s quarters within the keep.  The corral in the courtyard was crowded with trembling children, the first born child of every family in Listcairn was crammed into the tiny pen watched over by foul mannered orcs.  The sniffs and sobs of supressed weeping drifted even as high as the Captain’s vantage point within the tower.

There was a slight rustle of clothing beh
ind him.  He knew it was Dema, knew she had meant him to hear her for she could move incredibly softly when needed.  She moved again and coughed. At last he turned to face her.

“So, you made your choice then
?”   There was an uncharacteristic edge to her voice.

“What choice
?”

“You called to me. Y
ou warned me of the danger at my back.”

He shrugged and then turned away to survey the whimpering children and their watchful guards.   “Those children, must you keep them there.”

“I need their parents’ obedience. They are my hostages.”

“But to keep them so, cramped, cold and in the open,
watched over by orcs not even humans.  Can you not know how it must terrify them?”

“It troubles you
?”

“Do you not remember being a human child
, or did you assume this monstrous form in the cradle?”