Through the Wildwood (19 page)

Suddenly Vanx was at a cozy candlelit table and Duchess Gallarain was purring in his ear. She licked his cheek with a huge, sandy tongue, and Vanx rolled awake instantly.

The young haulkatten was hovering over him and purring loudly. Around him, the horrific sounds of the injured men, and others shouting and bustling, came to his ears.

“You’re alive then?” Darbon asked with relief showing in his voice. He and Matty were crouched down near where Vanx was lying in the grass.

“He’s too pretty to die,” Matty said.

Darbon smirked at her but grinned when Matty looked at Vanx.

“What happened?” Vanx managed. “Where are Trevin and Gallarael?”

“They’re on their way to Dyntalla with half of the Crown Prince’s escort, no less,” Matty snorted.

Vanx tried to sit up, but instantly regretted the attempt. His head swam and his stomach clenched into a tight knot. A hot, pulsing throb began hammering at his temple in double taps. “Where are we?” he asked weakly.

“Shhh.” Matty patted his chest. “Lie still. The goose egg on the side of your head is as big as my nub.”

Darbon offered him a waterskin. “We’re out among the crows and corpses, waiting.” Darbon’s tone showed that he wasn’t pleased about it.

Vanx took a sip and was happy that it was wine he tasted. “Waiting for what?”

“Prince Russet’s return,” Darbon answered. “He and some men have gone off to find those who were following us. We are to all travel to Dyntalla together when they get back. Take it easy, and rest while you can.”

After a few more sips of wine, Vanx fell back into his half-conscious daze. He drifted off, contemplating the fact that the wild-haired warrior was the Crown Prince. He’d pictured the Prince of the Realm as being like the pompous young noble-boys he’d come across in the past. Prince Russet, though, was as bold and dangerous as they come. He dreamt this time of the night the duke’s men had hauled him out of the Golden Griffon’s common room and put him in chains.

He’d been playing the instrumental portion of “The Ballad of Lady Zepple”. He was lost in the pain-filled melody of the diminished chords and was about to start into the final verse. The room was crowded, and thick with pipe smoke, but the smell of roast boar and spilled ale dominated the senses. It was a scent that lingered in his nostrils long into his incarceration in Highlake Stronghold’s dungeon.

Most of the people in the dimly lit common room were dreamy-eyed, or lost in the melody behind closed lids. Only the barkeep, Vargoron, and his humongously fat wife weren’t enthralled by the tune. Vargoron was filling a trio of mugs held in one expert hand, while the slab of fat hanging below his wife’s upper arm swung back and forth as she wiped up a spill further down the bar. A pair of dwarves, ore seekers from the far eastern land of Karr, were swaying and sloshing in time. They’d been rude and unruly at first, but after Vanx played a few of the ditties he knew from their homeland they became enraptured in the music with everyone else.

Vargoron’s eyes darted nervously to the door, then to Vanx. Vanx had known what was happening. He could have bolted up the stairs and leapt out of a window. Twice before he’d used that sort of escape. Both times had been on Parydon Isle where the wives of the wealthy merchants offered him gold and jewels to share his bed. There, there were always so many people about that it was easy to fade into a crowd. It wasn’t the lack of people in the street that kept him on the dais, though.

It was the song.

To stop such a powerful thing in order to flee seemed unholy. As much as his instinct told him to, Vanx couldn’t just run away.

A half-dozen of them came through the front. By the way Varogon’s eyes darted back into the kitchen, Vanx knew there were more. He didn’t hurry the song, and before the men reached the raised platform where he sat they paused long enough to listen.

As Vanx finished the tune, the heart-wrenching crescendo had him swaying. He couldn’t help but wonder who would be waiting for Gallarain when she arrived at his room later in the night, for, as the song finished, and the magic of the music was gently broken, he had no doubt that it would not be him.

The duke’s men took away the lute to an eruption of boos. They wasted no time shackling his feet and hauling him bodily to the dungeon. As the heavy iron door clanged shut behind him, he woke again.

Vanx felt a sudden lurching motion and was jostled onto his side. Matty was there, and Darbon too. But something was wrong. They were in the back of a supply wagon and they were all in chains.

A crisp, cold burst of laughter came from somewhere nearby. The voice was unmistakable and it sent icy chills down Vanx’s spine. He fought the wrist manacles and peered up over the side of the wagon to see with his own eyes, hoping desperately that his ears were deceiving him.

“I didn’t have enough reason to take his head off before,” Duke Martin joked with the young Prince of the Realm. “But the mandatory penalty for escaping a sentence of slavery is death.”

“It is,” Russet Oakarm replied. “Yes, it is.”

I’m off to make a fool of a fool,

and a fool of a king as well.

Only a fool can fool a fool,

But with a king’s wits who can tell?

– The King of Fools

“T
he coldhearted bastard hasn’t said one whit about Gallarael,” Matty whispered. She was leaning against Darbon on the other side of the wagon cage. “He’s not even asked a question about her.”

Vanx was momentarily frozen in place by the look the dark-clad man riding behind Duke Martin gave him. The man’s eyes were empty and black, and something told Vanx that he was very dangerous. Vanx felt as if his soul were laid open by that dark, menacing gaze. Finally, a sinister grin twitched across the man’s hawkish, goateed face. The level of comfort returning to him made Vanx wonder if he had just been released from a spell.

“If the prince is siding with the duke, then I’m done.” Vanx twisted back to face his friends. “Didn’t Trevin or the old wizard speak for us?”

“It’s not what it seems, Vanx,” Matty said cryptically. “That princeling gave me a bawdy wink and told me and Darby to hold our tongues and watch over you.”

“’Tis true,” Darbon agreed. “There’s something going on here. The prince’s guards were told not to say a word to the duke and his company. All that happened while the duke rode out of the Wildwood.” Darbon’s expression changed and he indicated with a pointed finger one of the riders. “That—that hairy-looking mountain man is Bear Fang Karcher. Just like them Kobalts said, they were hunting us. He is an ogre hunter.”

“The prince knows as much,” Matty added. “I think we might be alright as long as we do what the princeling says; he seems to be a crafty one.”

“If you say so,” Vanx grumbled. He held up his wrist manacles, letting the footlong chain between them dangle. “It’s not like we have much choice in the matter.”

Matty held up her arms. She had no arm manacles. There was no way to keep one on her handless wrist. “You’d be surprised what I could get done with this lot of soldiers.” Her expression was jovial as she reached up under her pullover top and produced Vanx’s dagger from between her breasts. She showed it for only half a heartbeat before snugging it back into place. Both Vanx and Darbon considered her cleavage with only mildly surprised looks on their faces.

They rode on through the day, bouncing and bumping along on the hard-planked wagon bed. They crossed the Kimber River at a wide, pebbly shallow. Vanx kept expecting the wagon to start floating, but the water never made it over the axel shafts and the horses didn’t even have to slow.

Just before sunset Vanx began to smell wood smoke. Soon after, he saw the tiny speck of an open fire ahead in the dusky distance. Their procession headed directly toward it, following two horsemen who went galloping ahead in a rush. The landscape was mostly flat here. A few clusters of pines and wild oaks thrust up out of the sea of knee-high grass, as did a few lonely knuckles of grey stone.

Right before they gained the encampment, the smell of venison roasting on open flames came to Vanx’s nose. His mouth began to salivate and his stomach rumbled aloud. He hadn’t eaten at all that day. The sensation kept him distracted as he took the place in.

It appeared to be a temporary set up — several tents around a central pavilion. Since it was about half a day’s ride from the edge of the Wildwood, Vanx figured it was some sort of base camp for Quazar’s rescue party. Thinking of the old wizard raised a hundred questions that he doubted he could get answered any time soon.

There weren’t many men. With those from the prince’s escort who had ridden in with them, Vanx guessed there were around half a hundred in all. He also noticed that there were more horses and empty saddles than there were bodies. He didn’t want to think about the numerous corpses who met their end battling the ogres at the edge of the Wildwood.

It was near darkness when their wagon lurched to a halt. A quartet of soldiers came to escort them. Like Vanx, they were weary and they stunk of sweat and battle. Vanx could make out the gore still spattered on their chain and plate armor. The pitch torch one of them carried hissed and sputtered and cast a crazy, dancing orange light.

“The prince says to tell you to have faith in what is right. I have to run a chain through your legs and lock you all together, but I don’t like it none.”

“Nor I,” another of the men added softly. He met Vanx’s eyes. “You saved our chops when them big bastards had us pinned down and this is no way to give thanks.”

“We follow the prince’s orders. He is as just as they come. He is up to something that is in your favor, we think.”

They were herded over to a tiny copse at the edge of the camp. It consisted of six stunted pine trees huddled around an older, towering one. The soldier carrying the long chain looped it around the central trunk and, after running it between the three prisoners’ legs, he closed the loop with a heavy lock.

“I’ll bring the makings for a fire and set up a privy blind so that the lady can have a modicum of privacy.”

“Yes, good, Sir Earlin,” one of them agreed. “And I’ll fill my plate with those choice cutlets and some cheese and ease over after full dark.”

“And here.” The man with the torch handed the brand to Sir Earlin and fumbled at his hip. He loosed a half-full skin and passed it to Vanx. “Sir Cyle, give the lad your skin.”

“Yes, sir.” Sir Cyle did so.

“He might try to kill me in the night while I’m chained,” Vanx said after sipping from the skin. Seeing the utter confusion in the man’s eyes, he clarified. “The duke was in the forest hunting us. He wants me dead.”

“I might want you dead too, if you was pokin’ my wife,” Sir Earlin chuckled. “But not to worry. Our orders are to make sure the three of you get to Duke Elmont’s dungeon unharmed.”

Sir Cyle nodded in the darkness. “And that’s how it will happen, so at least try to enjoy our piss-poor hospitality. If it were up to us, you would be sleeping in the prince’s pavilion tonight.”

True to their words, one or more of the knights was at hand all through the evening. A privy pit was dug and a canvas screen was erected around it so that they might relieve themselves in semi-privacy. Hot food — choice cuts, not scraps — was brought on a platter of bread and cheese, and a pitcher of clean water was passed around as well.

When asked if they needed anything else, Matty requested a bucket of wash water. It came along with a bundle of clean clothes, all thin under-armor wear, most likely from the packs of the fallen men. They took turns washing while Sir Cyle answered Darbon’s myriad questions about Dyntalla. The tired knight didn’t seem to mind, and somehow managed, with broad gestures and general descriptions, to evade Darbon’s actual questions.

Soon another knight came to relieve Sir Cyle. This man either hadn’t been at the battle, or had an extra set of fully polished armor lying about. Vanx assumed the former, for this young man wasn’t battle-jaded or road weary.

It was late; the full moon was silvery pale, and stars speckled the cobalt sky. Vanx had just drifted off to sleep when a boot at his side shook him awake. It was the dark-eyed, dark-clad man who rode with Duke Martin. Feeling a chill in his blood, Vanx sat up and glanced about. There was no one around them but Matty and Darbon, and the two of them were in a tangled knot of slumber. None of the knights were anywhere to be seen and Vanx’s heart began to hammer into a panicked tattoo, for the sinister-looking man’s expression was a blood-chilling grin of triumph.

“What do you want?” Vanx asked.

“Shhhh!” The man hissed through his delight. “If I wanted to kill you, I’d not have shaken you awake, fool.”

The reality of that statement made such stark sense to Vanx that it calmed him. He struggled to gather his wits, though, because his every instinct was telling him that this man was dangerous and evil.

“What is this Blood Stone I’ve overheard the soldiers whispering about?”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew,” Vanx replied. “What are you? Where is our guard?”

“My name is Coll, and I suggested that Sir Pallance take a break and fill his skin from the keg in the cooks’ tents. He has a long day ahead of him, leading troops back to the edge of the Wildwood to fetch the bodies of the dead.”