The Lady's Man (14 page)

The battle was over.

“We should regroup.”

Ascollia was right and together they trotted back to Genivere, who was still sitting there on her horse, longbow drawn and arrow notched, looking for more enemies. But there were no more. Still as they rode to her Yorik's thoughts were in turmoil. The battle might be won, but as Genivere had said after they'd battled the wolves, it was only the start of something more. A far greater war.

And even their victory hadn't come without cost. Aphallia was badly injured and she would no longer be able to carry their packs. That would slow them down as they rode back to Ender's Fall. Ascollia was carrying a few scratches as well, and there was a trail of blood running down his left arm. There was blood in Yorik's eyes as well and he guessed he'd taken a cut too somewhere. Genivere too had taken an injury and he could see a small rivulet of blood running down one foot though no sign of the cause. Hopefully they weren't deep wounds and Ascollia still seemed to have free movement of his arm, but they would still need tending. They would also have to spend their evenings fletching new arrows as both his companions had nearly emptied their quivers.

But by far the greatest cost was nothing to do with any of that. It was to their confidence. They were in New Vineland, or at least on the periphery of the realm, and this was no wild forest where bands of brigands and parties of undead could wander unseen. This was an open land of fields and farms. It was patrolled regularly by the king's riders. And these were well travelled roads used by people everywhere, any of whom should have carried word of the undead's presence.

If this was what they had run into here what else lay ahead of them?

Chapter Ten.

Yorik's return to the Order was anything but the joy he would have wished for, but then he hadn't expected it to be enjoyable. No more than a condemned man enjoyed the walk to the headsman's axe. Being accompanied by the elves though made it that much more difficult. And that was after the attack.

They had scraped their way through that battle, due to Yorik's skill with the great sword, their flaming arrows, the surprisingly effective nature magic of Genivere, and Ascollia's skill with his blades. But all had taken injuries.

Aphallia was hurt worst of all, and while the horse recovered slowly, Genivere rode Smilla, and her horse's pack was distributed among the rest. Yorik still wasn't sure that the horse would recover fully. The arrow she had taken had dug deep, and the wound still festered though they cleaned it every day, but he didn't tell Genivere of his concerns. It wouldn't have helped. In any event, now that they had reached the city his brothers in the Order could tend to the animal properly. Paladins and knights always knew the worth of a good horse and normally they had the best care around for their animals.

The horse was lucky to have made it here. They all were. The attack had very nearly killed them and had it been better planned it would have. As it was it had slowed them down enormously, something that Ascollia had clearly found frustrating. He was in a hurry to deliver his message. But the part that really troubled Yorik was the size and tactics of the party.

Fully twenty undead foot soldiers had attacked, while another twenty some archers had lent them covering fire from a small rise. While not as powerful individually as the wolves, as a group they were deadly, and worse still, they still had some of the training they would have had in life, something that wasn't supposed to be possible. Undead from what little he knew, were supposed to be little more than animals. But these ones could use a bow as well as swing an axe. Without the Lady's aid and plenty of luck, the three of them would have been slaughtered like sheep.

The undead necromancer hadn't been prepared for them. But had he had more time he surely would have had enough strength to raise a lot more dead soldiers to his cause. And had he used them better, had the archers struck first and without warning, or had the army been better trained to fight, they would have been in serious trouble. Maybe there had been a limit to the number he could raise and control?

The other thing that troubled Yorik was the question of how many others must have fallen to the undead? For he knew that there must have been others. He couldn't imagine that this troop had been raised specifically to attack them after all. There would have been no way for anyone to know where they'd be or when. Undead weren't supposed to have the ability to do magic. And necromancers weren't usually also foretellers. So the likelihood was that they had been raised to attack anyone in the area. And as most people travelling the trails and roads weren't trained soldiers with magic on their side they would have been quickly overwhelmed by the war party. Farmers with wagons, wandering bards, traders and more – all had likely fallen prey. The undead could have killed hundreds before the three of them had come across them.

He still wasn't quite sure why the elves were even with him as he made his painful return. Despite their confident words, he had little hope of them achieving their goals, and for some reason he was mortified by the thought of them witnessing his trial. But he had no choice in the matter.

The elder had asked for his service and he was bound by honour to perform it, just as he was honour bound to escort a brother and an unaccompanied maiden travelling on the business of his Order. And no matter how many times he asked himself how it could be, their business was the business of the Order of the Lady. If a brother of the Order was travelling to meet with the heads of his chapter, it could be nothing else.

Yorik would have denied that as an impossibility the instant he was told of it – he'd wanted to – but then he had seen the golden armour and known its truth. Ascollia was an elf, a member of a people who didn't have knights and paladins, and who as far as he knew, didn't follow the Lady or any other human deities, but rather the Goddess or the Mother as they called her. But his armour carried the same spells, the same touch, and the same feel as his own, and that could not be denied. Yorik wouldn't deny him anything he claimed.

No more would he deny him his request that he no longer wear his wild heart furs, even outside of the elven lands, and instead he had worn the woodsman’s cloak and leggings that Ascollia had brought him without protest. He still would have preferred to wear nought but his armour, it felt cleaner that way for what he knew would be his last ride, but at least these new clothes didn't threaten or frighten.

It was his permanent scowl that did that.

As they rode the last of the way to the city however, Yorik's dark thoughts lifted a little. He couldn't help it when he could see the giant white stone walls of the city in front of them. When he could see home.

Their destination was the city of Ender's Fall; a few week’s ride north of Hammeral, his home for as long as he could remember, and the site of the nearest chapter house of the Order of the Lady. His chapter.

The city was named for the legendary explorer Ender, who according to legend had fallen from his horse there and then needed to rest for several weeks in the inn a thousand or more years before. At that time there had been little more there than an inn, a few farms and a meeting of roads and the river. Over time that had changed. The city had grown, founded first by farmers who had found the land fertile, and then by traders who'd set up market places, first to trade with the farmers, and then later with those passing through. And in time those first few farms and that inn had grown into a true city of two hundred thousand people.

Like all the six cities of New Vineland, Ender's Fall was located on the banks of the massive slow flowing river Shassa which ran through the entire province. Two hundred and fifty leagues to the west at the very beginning of the river was the capital Doverion, home to half a million souls. Another hundred and fifty leagues east at the mouth of the river where it emptied into the inland sea lay the city of Armitage. There another half million souls resided.

Between Doverion and Armitage lay four cities and nearly four hundred leagues of flat, arable farmland where the soil supported bountiful crops and big farms. It was an open land with no mountains and only gently rolling hills, and of course endless small villages and towns. And strangely – or at least none of the sages had ever been able to explain it – the same soil in the plains when it carried up the side of a gentle hill became drier and perfectly suited to growing grapes. So wine was the province's major industry. Good wine.

The cities of course then became the hubs for the sale of that wine to the rest of the world, and the Shassa River was the main route by which it was transported. The river was so slow and gentle that huge and usually heavily overloaded flat bottomed barges would sail up and down it day and night with never a hint of trouble.

Ender's Fall was one such city, and with a dock, five major market places, and roads running between the dwarven province of Deep Scarp to the north west, and the nearby human cities of Sunderland and Warmington, and of course Hammeral, all meeting there, it was a traders paradise.

Over the years it had also become a centre for many others, including the clerics from all the major religions trying to convert travellers, border patrols from the capitol who'd set up a base there, the scholars of Narn who'd established a truly magnificent school for the sons of the wealthy, and even one of the seats of the Great Council. As such its mayors who had prospered along with the city, had established powerful free trading laws to encourage growth. They'd also promoted themselves to lord mayors, something that no one seemed to object to – as long as things went well. Fearing attack by greedy rivals they'd also turned their thoughts to security centuries before and begun building an army and palisade after palisade. Over time that series of fortifications had grown to rival even that of the capitol of New Vineland, Doverion.

Now, a thousand years later, the city had five separate concentric ring walls, each built of stone blocks, twelve feet thick and thirty feet high, while dozens of towers and battlements towered over them allowing archers direct fire over any enemies that might be foolish enough to attack. Meanwhile the city guard was over three thousand strong, while another thousand knights were housed inside simply to hold the keep, as well as five chapter houses of paladins and a full battalion of border patrol soldiers. It was a well defended city, and in times of war should they come, the farmers from the surrounding region, could also take shelter within its walls.

In its thousand years of history numerous enemies had sought to attack Ender's Fall, lured by the wealth of its many traders. All however, had broken before the walls, as with them the defenders were easily able to fend off an army five or more times their size.

Normally when Yorik returned from a lengthy mission, he would see the great white stone walls of Ender's Fall and know a sense of home coming. This time was no different. Except that as they finally approached from the south and he saw the midday sun glinting off the massive white stone walls, he also knew an intense feeling of sadness. There was no loving family within, waiting for his return. They were buried in the ground. His family home was forever empty, and the city had little left for him. As for the Order it was likely that after his fate was decided he would be cast out. He had become a man without a home.

No more would there be any recognition of a job well done for that which he had done properly. Instead there was only a trial awaiting him. One for a crime he had already been found guilty of. He would be stripped of his armour, his crest and even his honour.

Meanwhile his companions being elves rather than humans, would be unlikely to receive whatever it was that they had been sent to ask for. And though Ascollia would not say why he had had been sent, nor what the message was that he had been asked to carry, Yorik was certain it could only be a request for aid of some sort. Perhaps a few paladins would be sent back with them, a show of sympathy and friendship, but there was always an unstated code within the Order that it was human kind who needed their aid first. The other races could look after themselves.

Thus, while as a paladin he had always had to be fair in his dealings with those of the other races and to sort out disputes between them and humans as if he was neither, he had never been sent into the outlanders lands to assist them in their own internal matters. No paladin ever had. Their Order remained strictly in the human lands, except when something truly extraordinary happened, such as the Lady herself guiding him into Hammeral's forests.

He'd tried to explain that to Genivere and Ascollia, but with little success. They had slowly come to understand that he was no longer in good standing with his Order, though he had not had the courage to tell them the truth of his complete failure as a paladin and likely expulsion from the Order. But that was not their concern, and they were right to believe it shouldn't have affected their mission. It wouldn't. They simply couldn't imagine that they would not receive the aid they asked for regardless of his shame, simply because the Order was human.

Not even when the undead were roaming the Hammeral Forests.

The elders had already sent messages ahead of them so he had been told. They would not be arriving completely unexpected. And Ascollia had said several times that it was something to do with a coming war and the undead they were encountering. But he had said little else, and Yorik couldn't imagine the Order getting involved in an elven war. Not even when it seemed to have spilled over a little into New Vineland.

Not even when Myral himself had returned from a five hundred year sleep to aid his people at the specific command of the Lady. All her people.

That would cause a stir and no doubt he would be questioned at length about everything that had happened and what the Lady had commanded of him. A larger stir would happen when Ascollia rode in in his golden armour. The Order would not be happy about that he suspected. Far from welcoming their elven brother, they would be horrified. To learn that even as the Lady had been guiding her human followers in creating the Order, she had also been guiding the elves to create their own Order. One of rangers and wizards, rather than paladins and clerics, but following the same tenants and the same teachings. At least so Ascollia had told him.

That would come as a shock to his fellow paladins, and some he guessed would call it outright heresy. There would be hard questions asked. For if there was one thing the Order believed it was, it was special.