“I . . . I just don’t know, Jup. All I know is Stryke’s gone, and the stars and the tear have gone with him.” To Keppatawn she added, “Sorry. Should have said.”
The chieftain betrayed no obvious disappointment, but they all noticed his hand absently rub against the thigh of his ravaged leg. “I can’t miss what I’ve never had,” he replied stoically. “As to your Captain, we’ll scour the area.”
“The band should be doing that,” Jup said. “He’s one of our own.”
“You need rest, and we know the terrain.” He addressed his second-in-command. “Muster search parties, Gelorak, and post lookouts on higher ground.” The young centaur nodded and galloped off. Keppatawn returned his attention to Jup and Coilla. “There’s nothing more we can do at the moment. Come.”
He led them to an oak trestle-table. They slid wearily onto its bench seat. A centaur was passing, towing a small two-wheeled cart loaded with rations. Keppatawn reached out and yanked a narrow-necked stone jug from the creaking load.
“I think you could use ale,” he ventured. Sinking his teeth into the jug’s cork stopper he drew it out and spat it away, then slammed the jug on the table.
“What the hell,” Jup responded. He raised the jug two-handed and drank. It was offered to Coilla. She shook her head.
Easily hoisting the jug with one hand, Keppatawn gulped a long draft. He wiped the back of his arm across his mouth. “Now tell me what happened.”
Coilla took the lead. “Stryke wasn’t the only band member we lost. On the way back one of our grunts, Kestix, was killed by nyadd warriors in Scarrock Marsh.” She felt a stab of anguish. Kestix had died saving her.
“I’m truly sorry,” Keppatawn said. “The more so as you undertook the task for me.”
“We did it as much for ourselves. You’re not to blame.”
“Frankly, I’m surprised our casualties weren’t heavier,” Jup put in, “given the chaos down there.”
“How so?” Keppatawn asked.
“Adpar’s dead.”
“
What?
Are you sure?”
“We were there when she died,” Coilla told him. “And no, it wasn’t us.”
“You had an eventful journey indeed. How did she die?”
“It was Jennesta’s doing.”
“
She
was there?”
“Well . . . no.”
“Then how do you know it was her?”
It was a good question. Coilla hadn’t really had time to think it through. Now she realised there was a mystery. “Stryke said so,” she replied distantly. “He seemed certain of it.”
Apparently Jup hadn’t given it much thought either. “Yes, but how?”
“Must have known something we didn’t,” Coilla decided, though she couldn’t imagine how.
“Anyway, there was anarchy in the nyadd realm,” she summed up tersely. “We only got out because the merz helped us.”
Keppatawn looked reflective. He stroked his full-bearded chin with thumb and forefinger. “We’ll have to be even more alert after this. Adpar’s death changes the whole power structure in this region. And not necessarily for the better.”
“But she was a tyrant.”
“Yes. But at least we knew where we were with her. Now others will move to fill the void she leaves, and they’re an unknown quantity. It can only bring more instability, and Maras-Dantia already has plenty of that.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of a swaggering Haskeer. He had his arm in a sling and was wolfing a hunk of roast meat. His lips and cheeks shone with grease.
“Where’s Alfray?” Coilla said.
“Bimbing whoons,” Haskeer replied with a full mouth.
She nodded at his arm. “How’s yours?”
He swallowed, tossed away the stripped bone and loudly belched. “All right.” Without asking he snatched the jug and guzzled heartily, head back, ale dribbling down his face. He belched again.
“As ever, your courtly manners put us all to shame,” Jup commented.
Haskeer looked dimly baffled. “You what?”
“Forget it.”
There was a time when the dwarf’s gibe would have had the two sergeants at each other’s throats. Perhaps Haskeer was mellowing, or simply didn’t understand he was the butt of sarcasm, but in the event he just shrugged and asked, “What do we do now?”
“Try to find Stryke. Apart from that, we don’t know,” Jup confessed.
Haskeer wiped his oily fingers on his fur jerkin. “Suppose we can’t find him?”
“Don’t even
think
that,” Coilla rumbled ominously.
The truth was that she could think of nothing else herself.
Stryke watched as the behemoth sank through the air and touched down on the mountain plateau.
The dragon’s sinewy wings crackled as they folded in on themselves. Its great head slowly turned to regard him, slitty yellow eyes unblinking, milky smoke curling from cavernous nostrils. The creature was panting, dog fashion, a glistening tongue the size of a horse blanket lolling from its massive jaws. It brought with it a smell of raw fish, halitosis and broken wind.
Stryke retreated a few steps.
The beast’s handler disengaged herself and slid from its scaly back.
Almost everything she wore comprised shades of brown, from jerkin and trews to high boots and thin-brimmed hat. The hat’s white and grey decorative feather, and simple gold strands at her wrists and neck, were the only departure.
It was an enigma that brownies, a hybrid race born of elves and goblins, neither of which excelled in height, should be so lanky. She was even taller than the norm, and her height was more striking because she held herself totally erect. Her frame looked deceptively delicate and she was overly thin. As with all brownies her proud expression could be mistaken for conceit.
“
Glozellan!
What the
hell’s
going on?” Stryke demanded.
She seemed unfazed. “I’m sorry to have left you so long. I couldn’t avoid it.”
“Am I a prisoner here?” He still clutched his sword.
She arched her almost non-existent brown eyebrows. Otherwise she stayed glacial. “No, you’re not a prisoner;
I’m
hardly capable of holding you captive. And there are no dragon squadrons on their way, loaded with Jennesta’s troops, if that’s what you think.” Her voice took on an even more caustic edge. “It looks like you’ve not fully understood that I was trying to help you. Perhaps I didn’t make that clear.”
“You didn’t make
anything
clear.”
“I thought rescuing you from those humans was clear enough.”
“Yes . . . Yes, it should have been. Thank you for that.”
She gave an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgement, then said, “Now put that sword away.” He lingered and she added in a mocking tone, “You’re quite safe.”
Contritely he sheathed his blade. “But you can’t blame me, you being the Queen’s Dragon Mistress and —”
“No longer.” Her face was unreadable.
“Explain yourself.”
“Too many slights, too many blows. I’ve had enough, Stryke. I’ve left her. As a member of a race that prides itself on its loyalty, it wasn’t an easy decision. But Jennesta’s cruelty and misrule have overridden that. So, I’m a deserter. Like you.”
“These really are strange days.”
“Two other dragon handlers and their beasts deserted with me. I left you here to go and aid them.”
“That’ll be a blow to Jennesta.”
“Others are deserting too, Stryke. Not in hordes, but there’s a steady bleed.” She paused. “Many would rally to you.”
“They don’t
know
me, I’m no saviour. I didn’t even
mean
to desert.”
“But you’re a leader. You’ve proved that commanding the Wolverines.”
“Heading a warband isn’t the same as running an army or a realm. Most who do are false, wicked. Jennesta, Adpar, Kimball Hobrow . . . I don’t want to be like them.”
“You wouldn’t. You’d be helping to remove their kind.”
“The elder races shouldn’t be fighting amongst themselves. It’s the humans we have to stand against. Or at least the Unis.”
“Exactly. And to do that the races have to be united.”
“Well, let somebody else do the uniting. I’m just a simple soldier.” He looked to the advancing ice sheet and the unnatural glow suffusing the gloomy sky above it. As though on cue, a few flakes of snow began falling. The dragon gave a rumbling snort.
“Humans are mad, irrational, needlessly destructive. They eat the magic. But they aren’t alone in destroying Maras-Dantia. Other races —”
“
I know
. You’re not going to change me on this, Glozellan, so don’t try.”
“As you wish. Though it could be that you’ll have no choice in the matter.”
He let that go and changed the subject. “Talking of humans, do you know the name Serapheim?”
There was no hint of recognition. “I’ve known few humans, and certainly none called that.”
“You didn’t bring anybody else here last night, before or after me?”
“No. Why should I? You mean a human?”
Half suspecting the story-weaver’s appearance had been some kind of delusion, he backed off. “I expect I . . . A dream. Forget it.”
She stared at him curiously. The snow swirled thicker. After a moment she said, “The rumours are that you have something Jennesta wants.”
He weighed his response before deciding she could be trusted. After all, she’d likely saved his life. “It’s more than one thing,” he said, digging into his belt satchel.
The three stars filled his cupped palm. Glozellan gazed at the strange objects.
“I don’t really know what they are or what they’re for,” he confessed, “except they’re called instrumentalities. My band calls them stars.”
“These are instrumentalities.
Really?
”
He nodded. It was the first time he’d seen her express anything approaching awe. No mean achievement with a brownie.
“You’ve heard of them?” he asked.
She gathered herself. “The legend of the instrumentalities is known to my folk.”
“What can you tell me about them?”
“In truth, not much. I know there are supposed to be five, and that they’re very old. There is one story connecting them with my race. We have a famous ancestor, Prillenda, though little is known about him either. He was . . . well, a kind of philosopherseer, and it’s said he was inspired to make prophecies by one of these things.”
“Prophecies? About what?”
“If they were predictions, they were lost long ago. But they were supposed to have something to do with the End Days, the time when the gods roll up this world and play another game.”
“We orcs have a similar myth.”
“Anyway, how the instrumentality came to him or where it went isn’t recorded. Some say it led to his death in some way. I always thought the whole thing was a tale told by pollen-crazed fairies, to be honest.” She stared at the stars. “But now you have three of the things. Are you sure they’re genuine?”
“I’m sure.” He put them away.
“I have no better idea of what they’re capable of doing than you, Stryke, but whoever possesses them commands power. The stories always made that plain if nothing else.”
After his latest dream, if it was a dream, he reckoned that power was greater than either of them could guess. But he didn’t mention that to her. Nor did he say anything about the stars “singing” to him.
“I can see why Jennesta thinks them such a prize,” Glozellan said. “Even if they have no magic they have power as totems. They could restore her crumbling authority. If
you
were to use them to muster opposition —”
“Enough.” His tone invited no further comment. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m not sure. I’d like to return to my kith for a spell of contemplation. But we brownies are southerners, and as you know there are more humans in the south than anywhere else. My folk have scattered long since. So perhaps I’ll go to a dragon fastness, stick to high-up places.” She turned and gave her charge an affectionate pat. With drooping eyes the slumbering dragon accepted it passively. “Brownies and dragons have always had a kind of understanding. They’re the only other race we really trust, and they seem to feel the same way about us. Perhaps we see each other as allies in adversity.”
Stryke realised she was as much an outcast as the orcs had become, and felt a pang of sympathy for her.
“Will you keep on opposing the Queen?” Glozellan said.
“When I have to, and I’ll fight humans and any other race that gets in my path. But I’m not going out of my way to do it. All I’m really trying to do is keep my band alive.”
“The gods might have other ideas.”
He laughed. It was a little sour. “Whatever. But first things first. I have to get back to the Wolverines.”
“Then we should leave before the weather gets too bad. Come, I’ll take you.”
Now she rode a black chariot embellished with arcane symbols in silver and gold. It was pulled by a pair of sable horses, leather face masks smothered with pyramid barbs, iron studs peppering their leggings. Burnished scythes jutted from the chariot’s wheels.
At Jennesta’s back marched an army above ten thousand strong, comprising orcs, dwarves and a goodly smattering of humans dedicated to the Mani cause. The horde bristled with standards and spears. White-canvassed ox-drawn wagons swayed in the flow. Regiments of cavalry shepherded the flanks.
They had skirted Taklakameer, the vast inland sea, and crossed most of the upper Great Plains, keeping Drogan well to their south and Bevis to the north. Soon she would lead them to the shores of Norantellia and the Scarrock peninsula. In that marshy realm of the nyadds, so recently governed by Adpar, the sister she killed with sorcery, Jennesta would hunt the Wolverines and her prize.
She knew they were there, or at least had been. Adpar’s dying psychic burst revealed it.
Jennesta’s Dragon Dam, Glozellan, had been sent on ahead with three of her beasts to spy out the land. Reinforcements had been summoned and would swell Jennesta’s army. Elite war-bands were on their way from Cairnbarrow, her seat of power. All was in hand. Contingencies had been planned for. She was as near as she had ever been to revenge and advancement. The army she headed was testament to her authority.
Yet she was not content.
The butt of her displeasure rode alongside the chariot. General Mersadion, horde Commander, was in his prime but serving a mistress so demanding had made him careworn. More than the usual number of lines creased his forehead and he was hollow-eyed. If male orcs had hair, his would be greying.