The Lady's Man (24 page)

From a soldier's perspective, what they had was inefficient and it would make it difficult for the elves to rearm themselves quickly. However, as a member of the Order of the Lady Yorik found it pleasing, as did his comrades. Already the commanders had sent off their best smiths to learn from and teach the elven smiths at the nearer towns. Neither of their people he guessed, would ever match the dwarves for their incredible ability to forge mighty weapons, but together it was hoped they might come close, and without the cost to the world around them. Also, while the Order had brought with them enough gold to purchase more dwarven goods than they could use in the short term, dwarven weapons were usually designed for dwarven arms. The dwarves would only craft weapons for humans when sufficient coin had crossed the table, and they would never knowingly craft weapons for elves. Besides, the Lady's servants had the most powerful magic to impart to their weapons, and that might make all the difference in a war.

War though, was the dominant thought on everyone's mind lately. Be they elves or humans, everyone was readying themselves for a war with an enemy they still couldn't be sure of.

Yorik had thought, or perhaps just hoped, that after their battle with the undead dwarven army of Stonebow, the enemy would be weakened. But whoever was behind this hadn't seemed to be. Instead his attacks were growing in number.

There were reports of attacks on all of the major cities of the human and elven realms. The towns and cities of the Saravaile Forests hundreds of leagues to the east had been repeatedly assaulted, and the elves there were fighting day and night. Two hundred and fifty leagues to the North the human city of Haggard Keep had been surrounded by the undead. For the moment they were holding their own thanks to their extensive fortifications and their neighbours in Helmsford.

According to the traders, the dwarves had been hit particularly hard, though of course none had come from further afield than Deep Scarp. Because the dwarves’ custom was to lay their dead to rest in great catacombs without sufficient prayers and blessings they were quickly taken over as fodder for their enemy. It had no doubt come as a shock to the dwarves to discover that their revered dead whom they had thought were securely locked away in their fortified underground catacombs had in fact become the enemy and were suddenly turning around and attacking them within their own underground cities.

As for the other races, there were reports that they too were being hit. The satyrs had suffered losses in many of their villages, though since they were a naturally fast running people, probably less than they could have. Many of the gnomish villages and towns had been overrun as well. How many Yorik had no idea. He doubted anyone did. In the end the Order of the Lady was a human one – or had been as far as he had known until he had met the rangers – so their contacts were mainly those living within the various human realms. And as Hammeral was an elven city the elders likewise received word mostly from the different elven realms.

But however many it was that had been killed, and whether they were satyrs, dwarves or any of the other races, it was too many. And it wasn't ending.

Was it the Dark One truly? Yorik still didn't know and he doubted anyone else did either. None of the commanders or clerics had bothered to return after their interrogation of him in the wagon to tell him of their thoughts on the matter. They were too busy talking among themselves as they prepared their plans. But he wasn't alone in being forgotten by them. For three long weeks after the battle they had all kept to themselves in a tight bunch at the head of the column as they returned to Hammeral, leaving the others to follow them and guess what was being discussed.

Gossip had been rife after the battle. Once the initial elation at having survived and won a major battle had worn off, the next obvious question was what next? Where was the next battle going to be? And when? And with no leaders to advise them, an elven city set as their destination and the undead their foe, the speculation had grown increasingly wild over the weeks.

Once they had arrived at Hammeral many if not all had thought that they would be told of the expected course of the war, or at least be given their instructions, but again nothing of the sort had happened. Instead the commanders, lead clerics, head rangers and master wizards had all gathered together in a group and gone off to visit with the town's elders. It was a meeting that even weeks later was still going on as far as any could tell, with the occasional directive arriving by messenger from the council chambers. Usually it was just the instructions for the day. The expected training, the chores for each chapter to carry out and so forth. But occasionally it was more as for example when the Ender's Fall chapter was told to start training in the longbow, with the Hammeral Rangers’ chapter.

It wasn't an easy weapon to master, and with a wounded shoulder, Yorik’s progress in the long bow had been hampered to say the least, which was why he was still trying to put the arrow into the centre of a target a hundred yards away, after everyone else had left for lunch. But he did fancy he was making progress. After a solid week of training with the instructors, he was becoming reasonably accurate so long as he only used perhaps half his strength. However half wasn't good enough. Not for a paladin. And until full strength had returned to his shoulder he knew his ability would always be limited. Unfortunately due to his nature, he could never accept any type of limitation, which was why he always tried to draw the string back to its very end and then cursed the pain and his failure as his aim quickly deteriorated.

The real frustration that had dominated Yorik's thoughts during the month on the trail to Hammeral, and then the next three weeks in the city, had nothing to do with the city or its people, the long bow, the pain of his injuries or even the war. Rather it was Genivere.

After waking up in the wagon and then being ministered to by her, he had begun to see her in a whole new light. Or rather, he had been unable to continue seeing her only as a companion no matter how he tried. She was far more than that. She was warm and fun. Beautiful and intelligent. Compassionate yet both strong and wise. In fact she was everything a man could dream of. And he did dream of her, literally.

Perhaps he had been cold inside for too long. Hurt by the death of his family, so filled with first rage as he sought his revenge and then later fear and shame as the Order marched off to war, that he had somehow overlooked all that she was, though how that could be he didn't know. What he did know however, was that he could no longer see past her. Whenever she was near he had eyes for no one and nothing else, and when she was away his world was somehow a little dimmer as if the sun had passed behind a cloud. The problem was what to do about it.

To court her properly was his dream – and his nightmare. Knowing nothing of elven courtship he knew the terrible feeling that his courting her would be intolerable to the other elves, and most of all to her family. He had disgraced himself after all. His humanity would probably count against him too but on its own it would not have been a solid barrier. But his disgrace cut to the bone. To court her would be to cause her shame and he could never allow that. And if it went as far as he dreamed, what would become of their children? The offspring of a disgraced paladin who would soon be stripped of everything but his name?

The relationship had no future. The adult in him knew that, and every so often when he was starting to give in again to his childish fantasies and threatening to do something embarrassing, he pulled himself back from the edge. He wondered sometimes if Genivere was having the same struggle.

He was sure that Genivere felt something of the same for him – even if neither of them would say it – and was trying to keep a respectable distance. Certainly when she came to change his dressings and massage his aching muscles there was an awkwardness between them that neither had known before, no doubt brought on by the intimacy. He mumbled and stuttered like a tongue tied fool, while she moved so tentatively it was as if she was reaching out to pull the thorns out of a cactus.

To make it worse it seemed that neither of them knew how to broach the matter, for fear of embarrassing the other, while Yorik's pitiful language skills added an extra barrier. Genivere spoke both perfect New Vinnish and trade as well as Elvish, but to know her heart truly, he knew he'd have to speak to her in her own tongue. That day would be a long way off. After two months of struggling with the elves' musical dialect, he was almost ready to admit defeat.

“Lying down already when you should be practising! I thought you paladins were supposed to be tough. This does not fill me with confidence!”

Yorik looked up to see the face of Master Ranger Ascollia staring back down at him, a typically wry grin on his face. At least he was one elf who never seemed to have any problems with him. If anything it was the other way around as Ascollia constantly told him off for doing and saying stupid things. But Yorik welcomed that. His humour had become more obvious as time had passed, and Yorik was well on the way to considering him a good friend. The creator knew he needed one.

“I thought you knew. We paladins are so gifted we don't need to practice!”

Yorik got to his feet knowing there would be a reason why Ascollia was coming to see him, and in this city it surely involved a lot of walking.

“I've seen your skill with the longbow. Trust the Lady, you need to practice!” They both laughed.

“True. Where am I needed now brother?”

It was odd how easily the word came from his lips. Once he would have reserved ‘brother' only for his comrades in arms in the Order, and yet, when he thought about it, he still was. It was just that the Order of the Lady had suddenly grown, so that now he had elven brothers and sisters.

Sisters! That was a shock.

Many of their clerics were women but the paladins admitted no women to their ranks. Even if the women could have carried the armour and borne the weapons the thought of women in combat was an anathema. It was far from chivalrous and no order, not even the unconventional Silver Order, could have accepted it. But the rangers freely accepted women among their number and that included the rangers of the Order. So now he had sisters on the field of battle. Using the title would remain an uncomfortable utterance for some time to come.

Of course it didn't stop there. There were many other titles for them to trip over. Elven wizards used the title of master, so he was getting used to the appellation while the elves in turn were learning to use 'father' and 'mother' for the senior clerics and 'commander' for the head paladins. Brother in the end, was one title he understood.

“At the Council Chambers. I believe the elders have some more questions for you.”

That caused Yorik's eyebrows to rise, not least because he didn't quite know who these elders might be. The elves used the term almost universally for master wizards, council members, leading scholars, master artisans and so on. But none of those would surely summon him, or at least not alone, and so he had to assume a few leaders of the Order were there as well. And they had more questions for him?

They hadn't so much as gone near him in a month and a half or more, making him wonder if anything he'd said that day had been of any interest at all to them. Not that he'd minded, having spent many long days doing little more than sleeping, training and recovering his fitness. Now all of a sudden they wanted to see him.

He started across the field, heading towards what he thought was the centre of the city – he kept getting turned around in Hammeral – Ascollia by his side. And with every step he wondered what further questions they could possibly have for him. He had told them everything he knew three or four times over and he'd assumed they'd accepted his report from the fact that they hadn't returned to ask any more questions.

On the way there he took his mind off his questions by asking about Ascollia's family instead. The ranger had a wife and two very young children, both of whom were precocious even by human standards, and forever getting themselves into trouble. So much so that Ascollia swore his silver hair was already turning white. The previous day they'd managed to break a window in a neighbour's house as a result of an ill thrown ball, and so Ascollia had spent an evening apologising and arranging with the glass smiths for a replacement as soon as possible, while his wife Leanelle had tried to explain to the children yet again, about playing safely.

It made for an enjoyable trip as he listened to the rest of Ascollia's latest tale of woe. Apparently the new window hadn't been quite to size and he'd had to spend yet more time apologising as the carpenters shaped the window to fit. Reading between the lines, Yorik would have guessed his neighbours wouldn't have been that upset. They had lived nearby for years, and surely knew the children's penchant for causing trouble. But Ascollia wasn't able to accept such a thing. To him his children's actions were entirely unforgivable and he was mortified by them, as he surely had been a hundred times before and would be a hundred times more.