Paladin's Prize (Age of Heroes, Book 1) (29 page)

As long as my hands don’t shake too badly.

“Be ready to fire, but only on my mark.”

“Don’t shoot him,” Jonty protested under his breath. “If he screeches, they’ll all come flapping over. Maybe I should sing to him. Music soothes the savage beast—”

“No. They’re known to be very curious birds. You’ll risk drawing the rest of the flock to come and investigate,” Thaydor muttered. “In which case, all of us will end up like that deer.”

Wrynne bit back a shriek as the roc hopped closer.

But to her relief, it seemed satisfied with backing them away.

“Why isn’t it attacking us?” Jonty whispered.

“We’re taller than him?” Thaydor suggested.

“Not by much,” Wrynne whispered. “Maybe he’s not hungry.”

“Good thing we didn’t bring the horses,” Jonty remarked.

They both looked at the bard.

He shrugged.

The roc just stood there in the middle of the road, staring broodingly at them with its malevolent crimson eyes. Thankfully, however, it made no effort to follow them any farther once they started retreating down the hill.

While Thaydor fixed his attention on the bird in case it decided to attack, and Jonty kept an eye on the road behind them, Wrynne scanned the trees as they went, worried that more members of the flock might be lurking in the forest shadows.

Suddenly, she spotted something in the woods that she had missed before, on the way up the hill. A very big something…

“Look!”

Jonty did, but only briefly.

Thaydor didn’t dare. “What is it?”

“One hell of a nest,” the bard said in amazement, then he watched the road behind them again as they continued inching back down the drive.

“It’s huge.” Wrynne estimated that the rocs’ nest was as big as the bed she had shared last night with Thaydor at the inn—and probably home to a mated pair of the birds. “I wonder if there are any eggs in it.”

“Wonderful,” Jonty mumbled. “Babies.”

“And protective mother birds,” she added.

Tucked away on the forest floor between a large boulder and a clump of trees, the nest looked empty from this distance, but its brushy walls were built up high, so it was hard to be certain. She did, however, notice a curious plant stuck to it, wedged between the side of the nest and the trunk of the massive oak that held it in place.

The plant gave her pause even more than the nest itself had. As well versed as she was in apothecary herbs and the vegetation of both woodland and field, she had never seen such a thing before. She certainly would have remembered something like that.

It looked like a giant burr, brown and dried out. No—rather, some monstrous breed of thistle, she mused.

But instead of being the normal fist-sized bloom, like a milk thistle, or even its larger cousin, the artichoke, the seed head was nearly the size of a barrel or a full-grown pig.

She stared at it in fascination. Bristling with prickles like a knight’s mace, it looked stuck to the tight, twiggy weaving of the roc’s nest. Its spiny leaves, though dead, had a reddish-orange tint. The globular seed head itself was hideous, wrapped in a white, cobweb-like layer of something resembling spider’s silk, while the dried-out plume of brushy petals sprouting from the top of it were a deep, dark red.

But the strangest part of all was the bizarre sensation that the thing was…watching them. As if each small, dark-colored seed tucked into its bristling bracts were so many beady little eyes following their every movement, tracking her and Thaydor and Jonty as they passed.

She swallowed hard. She could have sworn she sensed evil emanating from the thing. It seemed to pulsate with pure malice, aware of them somehow.

And it hated them.

Impossible
, she scoffed at herself, even as chills swept through her. There was no such thing as a sentient plant! She, of all people, should know that. This species was merely foreign to her. The rocs must have brought it down from the mountains with them, she reasoned. One of them must have eaten a seed of it in their homeland and shat it out here, where it must have taken root.

Which was a shame.

For these were beautiful gardens, and that thing looked like an invasive weed species that could be very hard to destroy. Nasty and sharp. It had all the charm of a thornbush in winter and probably no beneficent uses.

Thankfully, they regained the road without further incident and all breathed a sigh of relief.

“What are those creatures doing here?” Jonty asked as they rejoined the horses behind the sanctuary spell.

“No idea.” Thaydor sheathed his sword with a grim metallic
zing
. “We were lucky to get out of there alive.”

“Did either of you see that bizarre plant stuck to the rocs’ nest?”

“No. What about it?”

“I could’ve sworn… Oh, never mind,” Wrynne mumbled, shaking off her silly imaginings. “What do we do now?”

“Good question,” said Thaydor.

“I want to know why both of you were sensing evil,” said the bard, untying his horse. “This is quite a mystery. Rocs are dangerous, of course, but can mere animals ever truly qualify as evil?”

“A few.” Thaydor shrugged. “Most dragons.”

“I’ve seen an evil dog or two in my day,” Wrynne added. But Jonty had a point. She glanced at her husband. “Maybe the evil we were sensing was simply coming from the Harmonist cult itself.”

He considered this. “You’re probably right.”

The idle flick of Jonty’s dark eyebrows told them he had no desire to get into a philosophical discussion with a pair of the Ilian faithful. He let out a sigh and leaned against his horse. “Well? I’m not sure we accomplished anything at all here.”

Wrynne frowned. “Maybe the oracle was wrong.”

“Maybe
I
was wrong and we’ve wasted our time coming here,” Jonty answered, then frowned. “Maybe it’s some other knowledge in my head that’s of importance…”

“No, this is all very strange,” Thaydor said. “You would think that if the Harmonists knew the rocs were here, they’d send men to kill them.”

Wrynne shrugged. “Maybe they don’t know.”

“But they have to. They put the sign up warning people away,” Jonty pointed out. “Maybe they just decided to leave them be for a while.”

Thaydor snorted. “Sounds like something the Harmonists would do. Whatever’s easiest.”

“Now, now,” Wrynne scolded with a smile. “I will say one thing, though. The overall experience here does seem related to the general unpleasantness surrounding Lord Eudo.”

Thaydor scowled and looked away. “If only there was some way I could get in to meet privately with the king and warn him not to trust that blackguard.”

“No!” the other two said in unison.

“Don’t even think about it,” Wrynne added. “You’ll be arrested on sight. As your wife, I forbid it. One dungeon rescue was enough, thank you very much.”

“I’ll second that,” Jonty said. “Besides, His Majesty won’t listen to you, anyway. You and I both know from firsthand experience that the king no longer tolerates those who speak anything other than what His Majesty wishes to hear.”

Thaydor’s frown deepened. “I suppose you’re right. But if I can’t speak to Baynard myself to warn him to be wary of Lord Eudo, at least my brother knights will listen to me, surely. We need to go to the barracks.”

“That’s awfully close to the palace,” Wrynne said with a worried glance at him.

“It’s actually attached,” he admitted. “But don’t worry. We knights have our own private entrance on the side. We’ll go in that way.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Jonty admitted. “That way, Thaydor can warn the knights to watch out for Eudo. If they keep their eyes open around the palace, maybe someone will see something to help us figure out what he’s up to. Before it’s too late.”

Thaydor’s face was etched with more than its usual resolve as he nodded toward the road. “Let’s go.”

They led their horses back through the woods, pausing at the roadside to glance around at the treetops and the skies. When they were certain no rocs were circling above, Thaydor helped Wrynne into the saddle. Then both men swung up onto their horses’ backs, and Polly fell into line behind Avalanche.

Ahead of her, Thaydor urged his steed into motion.

Before Wrynne could think of a way to dissuade her overly brave husband from walking into the lion’s den, they were already galloping down the hill away from Silvermount, heading for the capital.

Where all three of them were wanted by the law.

* * *

An hour and a half later, they paused in the foothills and looked down on the plain below, considering their approach to Pleiburg.

The kingdom’s capital city had been founded centuries ago at the confluence of the wide, placid River Sevock and the narrower but faster-running Drard to form Veraidel’s principle waterway, the mighty River Keo. The Keo, in turn, ran another sixty miles through the green, fertile lowlands of the south, watering the country’s richest farmlands on its way to flow into the Dragon Sea at the rowdy—and pirate-ridden—port town of Keomouth.

One of Father’s companies had helped to build the docks and the customs house there, not to mention several chief buildings in the capital.

The thought of the big, loud, crude Building Baron made Wrynne’s heart clench with missing him—missing
all
of them, maddening as they were. Staring down at the city where she had been born—and where her family still resided, no doubt wondering what had become of her—she felt her heart lifting with a blend of fear and excitement.

She had lived in sleepy, rural Mistwood for so long now, it seemed ages since she had walked the busy avenues of the capital or browsed the shops with her sister, Juliana. As much as she loved the quiet of the North, she supposed Pleiburg would always be home.

Torn between fond nostalgia and the dread of being arrested, she let her gaze travel over the familiar, hazy outline of the city. It was jagged with palace turrets, and the bell towers and clock towers of hulking stone cathedrals and fancy guildhalls. The wizards’ spire jutted up amid various temple domes and aristocratic mansions; near it, the crown of philosopher statues posed along the edges of the Great Library’s roof. The round theater beckoned from beside the Sevock River, where innumerable ships’ masts bristled.

Jammed into all the nooks and crannies in between lay the endless hodgepodge of timber-framed houses and shops of the ordinary folk, countless chimney pots smoking. There were scores of inns and almshouses, schools and training halls, market squares, livery stables, animal pens. Plazas and monuments, graveyards and parks. Roads of all sizes, from the wide Royal Boulevard to a labyrinth of back alleys with sorry names like Dead Man’s Jaunt and All-For-Naught Row.

From this distance, they could just catch a whiff of the city’s many smells on the breeze and hear the Ilian cathedral’s carillon intricately ringing in the noon.

She turned to Thaydor. “Do you think we’ll have time to visit my family? I so want them to meet you. And you, too, Jonty,” she added.

Thaydor frowned in apology. “As much as I want that, too, I do not think it’s safe yet—for them or for us. Reynulf will have figured out by now who you are. Your family’s home and your father’s offices are probably being watched.”

She stared at him, paling a little. “You don’t think they’re in any danger, do you?”

“As long as we stay away from them, probably not. Your father is an important man, after all. That helps him.”

“I see.” She swallowed hard.

Thaydor reached over and squeezed her arm gently. “We won’t let anything happen to them, demoiselle.”

She tried to smile. “Well, my mother would probably make a scene if I went home, anyway. I can’t even think what she’s going to say when I see her. Getting married without even telling her? She’s going to wring my neck.”

“It couldn’t be helped,” Thaydor reminded her.

“Ah, nonsense,” Jonty interjected, lightening the mood with his droll tone. “What mother wouldn’t be delighted to learn that her daughter had just married the chief outlaw of the land?”

He flashed a grin at Thaydor, whose answer was a leonine stare. He then looked away with a low huff.

“Shall we?” Thaydor drawled, urging Avalanche ahead, as before.

“You shouldn’t taunt him,” Wrynne scolded the bard with a smile.

Jonty sniggered, pleased. “Eh, he’s a big boy. He can take it.”

“It’s you I’m worried about!” she retorted, trying not to chuckle.

Before crossing the bridge across the Sevock into the city’s triangular central district between the rivers, they pulled up the hoods of their cloaks.

The soldiers stationed by the city gates only looked on idly while the milling crowd came and went. Still, they weren’t taking any chances. Wrynne smuggled Thaydor into Pleiburg with a
hasten
spell, whisking him to safety.

Once inside the city walls, the two of them waited nervously, watching around the corner of a nearby alley while Jonty rode in, leading Avalanche and Polly. They had covered Thaydor’s warhorse with Polly’s plain blanket in an effort to conceal the white stallion’s magnificence.

To their relief, the bard got into the city without incident. Nobody recognized Avalanche or the famous bard without his distinctive Highland plaid.

Reunited, they hurried through the back streets, doing all they could to avoid calling attention to themselves.

“Are you sure about this?” Wrynne asked Thaydor when they arrived at the stone archway outside the knights’ barracks and training yard.

He nodded. There was a gleam in his eyes at being back at his old quarters. “Follow me. And, er, if anything should happen to go horribly wrong, you and Jonty
hasten
out of here. And don’t go to your family. You will only lead the danger to them.”

“I understand, b-but I’m sure we won’t need to. Right?” she demanded, grabbing hold of his sleeve.

“Right,” he said in a tentative tone that gave her no comfort at all.