The Skeleth (20 page)

Lord Wolland turned to Wulfric. “What do you think of such a ploy, my son?”

Wulfric's face turned sour. “I do not like it, Father. It was unmanly. There was no honor in such a victory.”

“It was war, sir knight.” Aelfric shot a hard look at Wulfric. “Honor lies with the innocent. Those men fought and died to keep their homeland free of pillage and ruin.”

Lord Wolland laughed. “Oh, now, that is unfair, my lord!” He swept out a hand to the line of Moorvale men. “My great-uncle would have used these people well enough. Indeed, by now they would think themselves Wollanders, and all would be well with the north after all. But for my part, I call it well played, one for the histories. You have inherited quite an asset in these levies of peasant archers, and you are wise to keep with the tradition.”

“I thank you,” said Aelfric. “Your great-uncle did not live to know of it, but his campaign had pushed my grandfather to his last strength. Those archers swung the battle and the war, and their children's children practice at the targets once a week because I know it full well.”

“You see, Wulfric?” said Wolland. “Useful stuff, archery. We must train up a company or two. Oh, don't pull a face, I won't make you do it. Perhaps good Lord Aelfric would be so kind as to lend us a troop of his best peasant bowmen to help us get things under way.”

He turned his smile back on Aelfric. Hatred crackled between the two lords, in silence but with such force that Edmund felt the urge to slip away out of sword distance.

“My lord, I fear that I must deny your request.” Lord Aelfric did not sound as though he regretted refusing Wolland in the least. “The men of Elverain train at the targets to defend their homes and families. That is the only right use of war.”

“I would have thought you above such a trite and commonplace idea, my lord.” Wolland's deep eyes glittered. “In all my years of life, I have discovered but one useful truth: Bold action in war sets a new order for the ages. In battle, in war, in daring attempt, is the life of a man exalted. Fortune, yes, but moreover fame, glory, a hand in the shaping of the world. Through deeds in war a man lays the path on which the future wanders. His children rule, while the children of other men bow and serve. The king upon his golden throne: What is he but the echo of a better man who drew up his plans at a rough-hewn table? Through deeds in war, a man carves himself into the memory of the world.”

“It is not for us to decide who is to be remembered and why, my lord,” said Aelfric. “My archers will defend their homes as their forefathers have done, against any who come to challenge them.”

Lord Wolland's smile only grew. He took a small but deliberate step toward Aelfric. “There are forces against which a storm of arrows are but a gently falling rain.”

Lord Aelfric was the taller man; he drew himself up into the image of what he must have been like in his youth. He loomed over Wolland. “Show them to us, my lord, and we shall put that to the test.”

The hands of knights and men-at-arms drifted toward the hilts of their swords. Edmund glanced along the row of archers.
Not a few of the village men had nocked an arrow to the string and stood tensed, ready for anything.

A muffled groan from along the row broke the silent tension. Edmund turned to find his father stumbling up to the mark beside him with his bow and quiver.

Harman Bale puffed, red at the cheeks, one hand held over his side. “Am I late?” He dumped his bow and quiver on the grass, spilling out his arrows. “Not late, am I?”

“Here, Harman, have a sit down for a while.” Martin Upfield took Edmund's father by the elbow and tried to guide him away from the archery range and over to a seat in the grass. “You look half done in.”

Edmund's father pushed Martin away with his free hand. “Curse it all, I'm not an old man yet!” He stumbled and seized his side again.

“Not yet, Harman Bale.” Old Robert Windlee eyed him up and down. “And maybe not ever if you prance about with a half-healed belly wound.”

“Father?” Edmund moved to brace up Harman's other side. “Are you sure you should be out here?”

Harman grabbed for his longbow. “Don't you start with me, boy.” He lowered his voice. “Those are nobles over there, Edmund, almost every man of substance from here to Paladon, and our lord Aelfric's showing off our skill for them. I'll be tied and tossed in the river if I let that Henry Twintree hog all the credit for every bull's-eye we hit.”

He stepped into his bow, straining to bring the string up to the nock—then he groaned and let go.

“Look out!” Edmund leapt from the path of the whippy
bowshaft as it sprang across the grass, striking Sir Richard Redhands square in the face.

“Ow!” Richard Redhands grabbed for his nose. “By all thunder—ow!”

Lord Wolland stared at his knight, then burst out laughing long and loud, slapping his thigh in noisy mirth. Wulfric took it up in his father's echo, and then a few chuckles sounded up and down along the line of archers. Richard Redhands turned in a fury and charged straight for Harman Bale.

Edmund had time for a single thought—if a blow should land, it must not strike his father. He threw down his bow and arrows and stepped out in front Richard Redhands. “Please, sir knight, my father's wound is still fresh. He received it defending my mother's life from a cowardly attack. Surely a gallant and honorable knight such as yourself would understand, and forgive.”

“Boy—out of my way.” Richard Redhands stepped sideways, making to go around Edmund and get to his father.

Edmund blocked his path. “You must not strike him, sir knight. His wound has not yet healed.”

The knight set his teeth. “I said
out of my way
!”

Edmund braced himself. “No.”

The force of the blow sent him spinning, then falling. He landed hard upon the earth.

“Son.” Edmund's father shook his shoulder. “Edmund?”

Edmund rubbed at his jaw. His vision blurred and doubled. He reached out his other hand to push himself up; Richard Redhands trod on it, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Lord Wolland stepped between Richard and Edmund. “Not
now.” His smile remained fixed, but his eyes bored deep. He dropped his voice low, low enough that Edmund, who lay at his feet, could only barely catch the words: “Not yet.” He turned his back on Aelfric, leading his knights away across the green. It was only after his party had gone out of bowshot that Edmund felt safe enough to get to his feet.

T
om put his hands on the chill stone of the battlements. The sun stood high over the pass, casting white-gold in the valley. The many chances he had taken came back to him in twinges, in bursts of belated fear at all that he had risked, and images of all the ways things could have gone so very wrong. They seized at him but found no purchase. Nothing had gone wrong—not yet, at least.

“Here, my lord.” He reached back for Tristan's arm and led him to the edge of the wall. He leaned out to look down—the drop fell sheer into the dry scrub of the moat far below. The horses abandoned by the brigands wandered in a pack, grazing on the green outside the castle with their leads trailing behind them.

“You must travel with the greatest caution.” Tristan felt out for the top of the wall before him. “You will be riding down the very road the Skeleth took out of this valley, and there is no telling where they will strike first.”

Tom reached back to haul the carven box up onto the battlements. He fumbled it and dropped it onto the flagstones of the walk behind the wall. It swung open, revealing the plain smoothness of its interior, a box like any other, save for what it had once held.

“It's all so very dark to me still, my lord.” Tom righted the box and latched it shut. “I don't understand war, or politics, or anything lords and wizards might plot or do.”

Tristan drew in a long breath, then puffed it out white into the chilly air. “Whenever we felt lost, in the old days, John would give me this advice. Number the points of your confusion—it will at least show you that they are not numberless.”

“What little I know, my lord, amounts to a bundle of sticks without the twine to bind them.” Tom joined Tristan at the battlements. He looked off amongst the trees that ringed the green, as though he might find his answers lurking in between the trunks. “I know that the brigands who seized your castle were hired by the lord of Wolland. I know that Lord Wolland is working with the wizard woman who opened this box, letting out creatures who took over the bodies of John Marshal and the men from your village. Those creatures can't be killed, for if you stab one, you only slay the man inside, and then the creature takes you, instead. The wizard woman led the creatures east, back up the road to settled country, but for what purpose? And why would a man, a mortal lord, want to loose such an evil on the world?”

“Here I can be of some help,” said Tristan. “When old king Bregisel won the war to claim the kingdom thirty years ago, he saw fit to create me a lord of the realm. He granted me dominion
over Harthingdale—but Harthingdale had long fallen into disuse, its castle abandoned and its people fled. When I arrived, I found that casket you hold buried deep within the dungeons below. It was Vithric who explained to me what I had found, and the terrible danger it portended.”

Tom flinched. To him, the name of Vithric had taken on the meaning of a curse. “But, my lord, what makes you so sure Vithric was telling you the truth? He drained the life out of two children, right before my eyes, and he would have done that same to me if Edmund had not stopped him. Why would you trust what he said?”

Tristan's sword hand clenched in, then released, settling back onto the battlement. “I do not doubt what you told me about Vithric, even though it wounds me to the heart.” He turned back to Tom. “But even if my old friend has fallen into evil, he was not always so. You must believe me, Tom, Vithric was once my most trusted companion and adviser. He had a hundred chances to bring the whole world to ruin in the old days, but he fought with all he had to save it instead. How he turned from that into the man who wished to murder you is a riddle I have yet to solve.”

Tom hitched his belt, making sure that the gear he carried would not get in his way on the descent. “Yes, my lord.” He could hear the pain in Tristan's voice and did not press the matter further.

Tristan shrugged the heavy coil of rope from his shoulder. “Vithric told me that the tall tower of this castle was once known, in the tongue of the ancient people who threw off the yoke of the Nethergrim, as the Tower of the Queen of
the Heart. Those folk had done a great service to the world by overthrowing the Nethergrim and her servants, but in the chaos that followed they were too weak to resist invasion from a vigorous folk coming over the mountains from the west, the people from whom we take our name and language—the Pael.”

He looped one end of the rope around his waist. “This queen had two sisters, and each of the three practiced a different form of the secret art that folk call magic—
Ahidhan
,
Eredh
, and
Dhrakal
, to use their words. Each sister married herself to a conquering king of the Pael, so that the two peoples might share the land without strife. The brother kings, though, could not keep peace between themselves—ever did two turn upon one, only for their alliance to weaken and break, an endless turn and turn of feud and retribution. At last, one of the kings, pressed to the last throw by his brothers, forced his queen to do what all of her people had sworn never to do—make contact with the Nethergrim once more.

“She was of the
Eredh
—a seer, a speaker of dooms and a maker of pacts.” Tristan tied his end of the rope into a knot. “It was said that she alone of all the queens truly loved her husband, and perhaps that is meant to excuse her part in what followed. She brought the voice of the Nethergrim back into the north, and into the thought of her king. A price was paid, a bargain struck, and the creatures named the Skeleth came forth into the world. What folk had sought to build upon the ruins of the Nethergrim's dominion washed away like sand at a riverbend. Conqueror and conquered became one people in shared suffering, as the Skeleth ravaged, ruined and despoiled their homes.”

“Then—how?” said Tom. “How are we even here to speak of it? The Skeleth must have been stopped, somehow.”

“It fell to the other two sisters,” said Tristan. “Here my knowledge fails, for I am no wizard, and Vithric told me that this part of the account is out of all record. Somehow, though, the two surviving queens trapped the Skeleth with a spell, sealing them within the very casket you hold. They feared to hide or bury it anywhere, lest someone find and open it, so instead they chose to keep it safe within this stronghold. Here it sat, undisturbed for centuries, until I found it. I swore to keep it safe and told only those I trusted most with the secret of its existence—John Marshal, of course, and also Vithric.”

Tom shouldered up a pack stuffed to bursting with all the food and supplies Rahilda and the village women could cram into it. “And now those creatures are loose again upon the world, a force that can kill without end.”

“A mighty spell was once cast to seal these creatures away,” said Tristan. “To trap them, to save the north, it must be done again. We need both
Dhrakal
and
Ahidhan
, both the paths of magic that trapped the Skeleth. With the help of one of each kind, we might learn how the Skeleth were sealed away and find a way to repeat the deed.”

“My friend Edmund won't be hard to find,” said Tom. “He broke the spell of the Nethergrim. I'm sure he can help us.”

“From all you that have told me, your friend follows the path of
Dhrakal
.” Tristan held out the free end of the rope. “You remember how to find the other, the Revered Elder of the
Ahidhan
?”

“South at the junction on the other side of the pass, then
two bridges and east to the Harrowell.” Tom wrapped the rope around his waist and legs, then tied a knot at his middle. “If I get lost, ask a farmer or a boatsman.”

Tristan took up the slack. “I wish that I could be of more aid to you than serving as an adviser and a lowering winch.”

“Lowering me here will get me on my way much faster than using the postern gate and rowing around the castle.” Tom looped the dangling end of the rope through the handles of the carven box and tied it tight. “For my part, I wish I understood what Lord Wolland wanted out of all of this.”

“That is no great mystery,” said Tristan. “Wolland is a lord, and lords want land. If he and Warbur Drake are indeed in alliance, all that he must do is move his own army across the river to claim what Drake has cleared. It is a monstrous thought, a betrayal of everything right and noble, and yet I can believe him guilty of the act. By treachery he struck in the old wars, changing sides without warning and taking our former king hostage. For his service, he was scorned as a faithless scoundrel and given nothing in reward—and ever since, a dark fire has blazed behind those deep eyes of his.”

Tom shook his head. “But if anyone makes war, will not the king punish him? Lords and knights all swear oaths to serve the king, so they cannot fight one another.”

Tristan sighed, then almost laughed. “How I wish it were that simple. Oaths bind only those who think them sacred. It is a sorrowful truth that many men have spoken oaths they do not mean to keep.”

Tom liked the world of lords and kings less and less, the more he knew of it. “It seems foolish for men to make war
upon one another, when there are things in the world that threaten them all in common.”

A wistful smile worked the corners of Tristan's mouth. “Why those who think as you do never seem to sit on thrones is a question that grieves me more and more as I get older.”

Tom stepped to the battlements. “Thank you, my lord. At least I know enough to tell friend from foe.”

Tristan followed him to the edge. “I do not suppose I can prevail upon you to take my sword.”

“It's too heavy, my lord.” Tom lowered the box to dangle it over the edge.

“Very well.” Tristan looped the rope in his hand. “Take a good grip, now.”

“I'll ride one of the horses those brigands left behind out there.” Tom hooked a heel over the wall. “I promise I'll turn and run if I see trouble.” His hands met Tristan's on the rope.

“Often have I wished for children of my own.” Tristan braced his feet on the wall. “But never so much as today. Return to us safe, Tom, and soon.”

“I will.”

Tristan took up the weight on the rope without the slightest strain. “Over you go, now. Set your feet on the wall so that you do not spin.”

Tom scrabbled out under the overhang and braced his feet on the wall. The rope played out in sure and steady measures from above, lowering Tom to the earth as though he were as light as a dandelion seed.

“I'm down, my lord!” Tom let go in the scrub at the bottom of the moat.

Tristan leaned out from far above. “The wind grant you speed, Tom.” He waved a hand. “We will hold for your return.”

Tom untied the rope and picked up the box, then climbed onto the rise across the moat. The brigands clustered at the gate, their hands at the iron bars holding them inside. Aldred Shakesby stood among them, his hood thrown back from his bald pate. The scar on his face made his snarl all the uglier. He raised a finger and pointed; Tom could not catch his words but had no trouble understanding what he meant by them.

Sacks of hasty plunder lay in piles on the road. Tom could still smell the ashes from the burned-out barn—no one had told him if only that building had gone up in flames, as he had planned and hoped, or if some of the women were now homeless, amongst their other sorrows. He could not see the village through the trees, and that was not the way he was going, so he stopped wondering. He had too many things to mourn for already, and too much to fear.

“Here, now.” He found what he had hoped to find, half a mile up the road toward the pass out of the valley. One of the horses stolen by the brigands, a bay gelding with the gait of a draft horse, ran skittish through the scrub along the road, trailing his lead out behind him and nearly stepping on it in his wanderings.

Tom set down the box and held forth an open palm. “Is the rope bothering you? Here, I can help.” He got the horse in hand with much less trouble than he had feared. The horse was big, a bulky giant, but like many massive beasts had a gentle eye and a trusting nature. He doubted that Katherine would have approved of his wild leap onto the horse's back
with the box under one arm, but what mattered was that after some scrambling he sat astride.

“Come on, then.” Tom tried to remember what Katherine did to speed horses up. “Let's try a trot.” He squeezed his knees, then tapped his ankles in. The horse raised his head, turned an eye on Tom, then trudged on at the same speed as before. Tom decided to take his gift just as it was offered.

The road leveled out before him and began to rise toward the pass. Tom let one more wave of relief come and go—if nothing else, there were people safe in a castle who had felt no safety at all the day before. Whatever else might be so, there was that. He cast a look back at the castle, then the tower, and urged the horse to greater speed, again without success. He let his guard relax—and if not for the utter silence of the valley, he might never have heard it.