Steel and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy (15 page)

             
“Go and find Sir Koa Darke,” Eric told another of his men as he led the families into the parlor where the governor’s wife and family already sat, unable to decide what they should do, or if they should just flee, or sit and wait judgment.  “I have a matter to put before him ere Hastings arrives.”

             
The man saluted, and turned to go without argument.

             
“Why do you need Koa,” Lia asked him solemnly, and he couldn’t help but hear the concern in her tone.

             
“I wish his input on a certain matter,” her brother told her with a faint smile.  “If possible, I wish his involvement in the winning of the peace here, just as he helped us win the war,” he concluded.

             
Lia smiled.

             
“I am sure he will do all he can to help…..”

             
“My lord,” a warrior burst into the chamber just then.  “We have a problem.”
             

X

             
King Eric stood by Jengus’ bedside when Koa entered the room at a near run.

             
“What happened,” he demanded, having been outside the city when the mercenary commander had been attacked.

             
“Koa,” the bearded warrior rasped, looking his way with a faint smile. 

             
Then the light in those pain-bright eyes faded, and with it, the smile. 

             
Jengus Sanz, survivor of countless battles, was dead.

             
“What happened,” Koa hissed, turning to Samuel Winters, knowing the old man was close enough to both of them to be honest as Lia just stared mournfully his way.

             
“Galdynian assassins,” Samuel spat.  “Someone had the idea that he was holding you to this world, and so they tried to undo our victory by killing him.  We got that out of the survivor.  The other four assassins were slain resisting our….inquiries.”

             
Koa’s lips thinned as his fists clenched at his sides. 

             
“Many thought you were the Wolf’s fang,” Eric told him quietly. 

             
“But only a handful know of the old ways.  Only a very few would know that particular lore.  Who,” he demanded of Samuel.  “Who hired them?”

             
“Amar Simms.  The king’s commander,” Samuel told him.

             
Koa did not curse.

             
He only gave a low hiss, and vanished like a shadow exposed to light.

             
“Nay,” Lia shouted when he disappeared. 

             
“Bloody hell,” Eric swore.

             
“We have to stop him.”

             
“M’lady,” Samuel told her.  “When Koa is this furious, only the commander had the power, or will to stop him.  And he…..”

             
His eyes went to the bed where the healer was covering the rugged, old mercenary’s face.

             
“I can stop him.  I must stop him.”

             
“Winters.  Take all the men you need, and get my sister to him.  I fear if she doesn’t stop him, we might all be at war anew ere this day is out.”

             
“Nay,” Samuel shook his head.  “But Galdyn itself may be awash in blood if the lad isn’t calmed.  The commander meant all to him.  He may well decide all of Galdyn must pay for his life.  Come, lady.  Best we hurry, for the Galdyn curs already have nigh two hours on us.”

X

             
“Merciful God,” Lia rasped as she rode up to the retreating legion escorting the king and his son even as scores of arrows flew toward the single, armored mercenary standing in virtually the center of the ring formed around him.

             
For every arrow that struck him, a Galdynian archer fell screaming.

             
He was already surrounded by dozens of dead or dying men.

             
Four robed priests were on the ground near him, screaming in agony as they fought against things only they could see.

             
The king himself was not present. 

             
Samuel had the feeling the fat man had fled as fast as his horse could carry him the moment he had seen the furious shade.

             
“Koa,” Lia shouted, galloping fearlessly toward the young shadow who threw up both arms, and send out black arrows born only of shadow and will in the forested glen where he faced the men.  A glen with plenty of shadow all around for him to exploit.

             
Men screamed, and fell every time those shadow bolts struck them.

             
“Koa,” she shouted, and reined in directly in front of him.

             
It spoke to their fear that not one man present tried to exploit his distraction when he focused on the young woman.

             
“You should not be here,” he said in a cold, utterly ruthless tone.

             
“Neither should you,” she said, and all but leapt from her saddle to rush over to stand before him.

             
“I….”

             
“Sir Jengus would want justice, Koa.  Not….  Not murder.  This isn’t you.  Don’t let them make a monster of you.  Show them all you are better than they.  Please.  Don’t do this.”

             
Koa simply glared.

             
“For my sake,” she finally asked, and put both hands on his shoulders, staring in to his rage-dark eyes.  “If not your own?”

             
Koa shuddered visibly, and let his arms drop.

             
All the shadows around him faded even as he drew a deep breath, and gave a long sigh.

             
“Go,” Samuel barked at the uncertain men staring anxiously their way. 

             
Only a few men hesitated.  Most of the warriors simply leapt into saddles, and fled.  Those that had lost their horses, or had none, simply ran.  Even those few hesitant men turned and ran at the end.  None looked back. 

             
“I know you’re hurting, lad,” Samuel came up beside him now, nodding at him when Koa simply ignored him.  Staring only at Lia.

             
He sighed again.

             
“I have to take him home.  The commander always wished to be buried….in his native mountains.”

             
“He’d like that,” Lia murmured. 

             
“Did you get the cowardly commander,” Samuel finally asked when Lia simply hugged him, and leaned against him, obviously relieved he had not resisted.  Or kept slaughtering.

             
“Aye.  He was the first to fall.  He, at least, had courage.”

             
“Yet you kept….killing,” Lia mourned.

             
“They attacked me,” he spat, sounding angry now.  “I told them I came only for that master of assassins, and they still tried to stop me.  They have none to blame but themselves for this slaughter,” he spat.

             
Samuel, knowing how easily Koa could sometimes lose control of his own temper when fighting, said nothing.

             
“If a man draws steel, lady,” Samuel told Lia.  “He must expect to occasionally be cut.  ’Tis a fact of life.”

             
“I….  I know.  But…  Koa, you could have more to life than just battle.  Much more.  Eric wishes to speak to you.  He has a plan….”

             
“I know his plan.  Go home.  I will take the commander’s body north.”

             
“And then,” she asked quietly.

             
He sighed again, his body already turning a soft gray as he began to fade away.

             
“I will know when I do it,” he said, sounding much like that distant, melancholy man she had first seen on the wall back in Galdyn.

             
“Koa,” she cried out, but he had already vanished.

             
“Sir Winters,” she asked.

             
“I don’t know,” he told her.  “The lad has never truly fit in with anyone save the commander.  I confess I don’t have the slightest notion what he might be thinking now if the commander is gone.”

             
“If you see him….  Please, tell him to remember what his….brother said.  That he is a man now.  He is a good man,” she said with a quiet sniff as she turned for her horse.

             
Samuel said nothing, heading for his own weary horse.  They had ridden hard to get here, and been just short of too late.  Only the fates could say what the Galdynian lord would make of this attack.  If he was wise, though, he would stay behind his borders, and never even look their way again. 

             
Because he had seen that look in Koa’s eyes before Lia reached him.

             
He really had been ready to start wiping Galdyn off the map.  Whatever else he had said, Samuel knew that lad well enough to know that when he started, he rarely stopped until not one enemy was left alive on his field. 

             
Galdyn had but a respite just now.

             
What they did next could well determine what would occur in the days to come.

             
He forced Lia to walk her horse, as he did his, knowing they couldn’t take another hard ride.  Like it or not, they had to take their time.  Both of them knowing that Koa was likely going to be gone anyway by the time they got there. 

             
After all, how did you keep up with someone that could cross miles in minutes, or walk between worlds?

X

             
“Lady,” Squire Samuel Winters, landed for his service to the Valdoran king nodded as the young redhead rode up to him as he stepped out of his modest manor house.  “What brings you back to Kanlys in this late season?”

             
She smiled as she dropped from her horse, ignoring her escort’s sour looks as the men rode up behind her, along with a carriage she obviously didn’t care to use.

             
Samuel didn’t even bat an eye at the short, but likely lethal sword she wore at her side.

             
In truth, he understood completely.

             
In the two years since the war was won, and Galdyn slinked off to hide behind walls that grew daily from the gossip he overheard, times had not been easy for anyone.  Princess Lia had fought off her own assassins, ignored the rumors she was ‘tainted’ by darkness by petty men she spurned, and ruled in her own right as the new overlord of Kanlys after she all but demanded her brother treat her like a comrade.  Not a bauble.

             
Gossip also claimed the siblings had come to blows on occasion over some of their…disagreements.

             
The lady, as Koa had claimed all along, had spirit.

             
“I heard a rather interesting rumor, Sir Winters,” the woman smiled as she embraced him as if he were a true peer.  “Tell me, have you heard of a somewhat mysterious homesteader who set up his estate just south of the borderlands?”

             
“In truth, I have.  Still, many freemen have dared the Franks of late as your brother’s taxes grew too heavy for them to bear.”

             
“Never mind Eric’s folly.  Tell me if you know if ’tis him?”

             
“Koa?  Lady, I can honestly say none have seen the lad since he took Sir Jengus’ body home.”

             
“I’m riding south, to investigate this rumor, Samuel,” she called him easily.  “Mayhap you’d like to ride along?”

             
He chuckled at the expressions on her escort’s faces.

             
“I take it your lads are less than eager to test Frankish hospitality?”

             
“They don’t like my errand, or my independence.  You know how some men are, Samuel.  They feel all woman little better than slaves they think should be chained to their beds.  Or stoves.  All depending upon their needs.”