Authors: Chris Jags
By way of contrast, Tiera wasn’t remotely fond of Gharletto,
repelled by his hooked vulture’s-beak nose, rotting teeth, and careless
manner. She understood his value as an icon, but when she was in charge,
by Vanyon, the man would learn to address her with the proper respect.
Behind the general knelt two quaking soldiers in chains. Both
were young men; a tow-headed lad and a larger, bearded fellow whose little pig
eyes bugged with fright.
“Princess,” Gharletto acknowledged, nodding toward Tiera as she
entered. His eyes lingered on her a moment too long.
Insolent prick,
she thought as she swept
across to her throne and seated herself with all the stiff dignity as she could
muster.
“These men,” King Minus waved a hand at the terrified prisoners as
Farrow fell in behind Tiera’s throne, a somber shadow. “Why have you
brought them before me?”
Gharletto picked at his teeth. “Well, normally, I’d see to
their punishment myself. But seeing how as yourself, Majesty, and your
daughter have a vested interest in the outcome of their failure, I thought I’d
make you a gift of them. These two halfwits lost track of their charge
not once, or even twice – damnable enough – but three times. They allowed
this lad Simon to sneak out of the inn what where we had him housed, and later
failed to apprehend him and the handmaiden as they fled into the lake.
Then, instead of turning the issue over to the nearest guardhouse, where the
officers would have been able to deploy troops to patrol the shoreline in a
timely fashion, they took it upon themselves to commandeer a fishing boat and
scour the lake on their own, in the dark.”
“Their incompetence is astonishing, a disgrace to our forces,” King
Minus commented coldly, which both hapless prisoners recognized as a death
sentence. They began to babble and bleat, eyes bulging with terror.
“Please Your Majesty…”
“…tried to correct our mistake…”
“…took it upon ourselves…”
“…have mercy, Your Majesty…”
“…a family to feed…”
The monarch raised a hand and the prisoners fell silent. Sweat
trickled down their foreheads and into their eyes. The bearded man was
shaking like a storm-tossed leaf. When he heard his sentence, Tiera
thought with a cruel smile, he would likely fill his britches.
“Execute these men however you see fit,” Minus told Gharletto.
“Quietly, though. Dispose of the bodies. We don’t need the general
public to learn of their bungling.”
“Please, Your Majesty!” the bearded soldier howled, his face pressed
to the carpet. “My mother, my sister, how will they survive?”
The king contemplated him in silence for a moment, then spoke to
Gharletto.
“Execute this man’s family as well,” he said. “He will become
an instructive example to your soldiers about what it means to make a fool of
the Cannevish Guard.”
The unfortunate soldier mouthed like a landed fish as all color
bleached from his face. “No! No, Your Majesty, no…!”
“Take them away,” Gharletto waved a hand. As his men moved to
obey, and the wailing, desperately struggling soldiers were force-marched from
the chamber, the general returned his attention to his monarch. “We’ll
have them, Majesty, the lad and the handmaiden. Men are scouring the
shores of Undinell for any trace of them, though that will take some
time. It’s likely they drowned in the crossing, but if that’s not the
case, we’ll have them soon enough. I’ll be supervising the hunt myself to
see that there are no further mistakes. I expect the lad will head home,
and we’re already making inquiries into where that home might be. It’s a
matter of time, and sooner rather than later, I should think.”
“And has the other matter been attended to?” the
king inquired.
Tiera pounced. “What other matter?”
Her father’s expression brooked no further
inquiry. “It is none of your concern.”
Tiera scowled. She loathed being shut out
of the kingdom’s affairs, affairs she would one day be called upon to manage.
As for the general, he nodded curtly.
“The wolf is sated, Majesty.”
Try as she might, Tiera couldn’t translate this,
nor was it the first time the king and his general had spoken similarly.
Her frown deepened.
“Very good, Gharletto. In regards to the peasant lad, I have
confidence that your next report will be much more satisfactory.”
“Majesty. Princess.” The Guard Captain nodded at each of
them and stumped back the way he’d come, out of the hall. Tiera’s eyes
followed him in narrowed dislike. She turned impulsively to her father.
“I wish he’d show me a little more respect, father.”
“That man has done more for the security of this kingdom than any
other man alive,” her father returned, his usual song. “We must make
allowances for exceptional service.”
Not when I rule,
Tiera promised herself
again.
There will be no allowances. The people will understand
the value of royal blood, from the lowest to the greatest. Those who will
not bow will be hacked off at the knees.
“If there is nothing more which requires my attention,” she said
coldly, rising, “I will be in my chambers.”
Minus held up a hand. “There is one thing.”
Tiera paused, curious.
“I would speak with my daughter alone.”
Resentfully, the nobles in attendance bowed and filed out of the
chamber. Few of them bothered to wait until they were out of sight to
start whispering behind their fans. When the doors closed behind the last
of them, Tiera’s father beckoned to one of his servants, who hurried forward
with a cushion draped in burlap, atop which lay a sword… or what remained of
one. The metal looked to have been corroded, burned, and melted
simultaneously; Tiera couldn’t see how it could be of any use or interest to her.
“What is that ludicrous thing?” she snapped.
“That,” her father returned, with the faintest echo of a smile, “Is
the sword which slew the dragon.”
Tiera wasn’t enjoying the continual reminders of the humiliating
moment when a peasant had scorned her. “So?”
“The man who wielded it had earned your hand in marriage.”
Resisting the urge to stamp her foot, Tiera was unable to keep the
asperity from her voice. “Yes. Well, we know how that went.”
“Indeed. But think, daughter.
The man who wields it
has earned your hand in marriage
.”
Tiera paused. Immediately she understood the
possibilities. “But were there not witnesses when Si… the peasant
returned from the mountain?”
Minus chuckled. “You underestimate my foresight,
daughter. Your hopeful, would-be suitors are still being held at the
camp, in the event that I was forced to manipulate events. They will be
eliminated. We kept the lad’s victory a secret. Those soldiers whom
Gharletto is even now disposing of were to have been murdered when our agents,
in the guise of bandits, stormed the inn where we were housing our guest and
put him to death. His escape threw my plans into some confusion, but most
of the loose ends have been tied up all the same.”
“The innkeeper?”
“Had no idea who his guest was, only that he was a person of
interest to the throne. I have used his services in the past. He
takes no interest in his guests’ comings, goings, or disappearances.”
“And you trust the nobles…” she sneered, “to hold their tongues?”
“I have taken precautions,” the king returned.
“Then I could choose anyone I fancied.”
“Within reason, provided they benefit the throne, now and in the
future. Prince Anton Stallix of Quell is visiting us imminently to
discuss a new trade agreement. You might find him an agreeable match, if
it can be arranged.”
Possibly
, Tiera conceded with a
dispassionate shrug, thinking of Quell’s magnificent diamond mines.
But
not because
you
say so
. She reached out to touch the sword.
“No, daughter. I would not touch the blade.” Her father lifted
his hand. “Even Lieutenant Thornton had the sense not to touch it without
gloves. The dragon’s blood may still be active…”
Don’t tell me what to do
. Ignoring
him, Tiera lifted the sword, turning it this way and that. It was heavy
and she replaced it quickly, though not before experiencing a small thrill of
power. “Very interesting. I will think on Prince Anton.” Her eyes
dropped to a diamond bracelet which encircled her thin wrist. “I
will hang onto the sword for now, then.” She took the cushion from the
servant.
“That would be entirely unnecessary…”
“I will hang onto it,” she repeated sweetly, inclining her head and
retreating from her father. Farrow hurried along behind her as she swept
from the room and out into the hall. The notion of using the sword to
secure a respectable marriage of her choosing had its merits. She knew
she didn’t have long to make such a decision, as the body of the dragon would
have to be put on display before it rotted. But she had another use for
the sword, and no matter what her father said, she was determined not to be
denied. There was one way, one poetic way to soothe her ruffled feathers
and make this whole fiasco right; more than one
wolf
to be
sated
.
She was going to ram the damn thing straight through Simon
Dragonslayer’s insolent head.
For all the trauma of the preceding twenty-four hours, morning would
have dawned magically for Simon had he not been so concerned about his future
as a fugitive. He was awake with the sun’s first tentative rays, his eyes
drifting immediately to the peacefully breathing, naked young woman in his
arms.
Niu had chosen the islet. Her night vision was vastly superior
to Simon’s. Following an exhausting swim, they’d hauled themselves ashore
and secreted themselves in a small, fern-shrouded hollow. Ever pragmatic,
Niu had stripped off and demanded that he follow suit, with the object of
huddling together for warmth. Simon had peeled off his sodden attire –
mostly. Try as he might to conquer his bashfulness, he’d been unable to justify
the removal of his breeches. This was in part due to anxiety, in part
because – exposed to such temptation - he hadn’t trusted his body to react in
an appropriately gentlemanly fashion.
“Have you never seen a woman naked before?” Niu had inquired, in her
dry, precise way as he wrung out her cloak and draped it over a low-hanging
branch.
“Of course I have,” Simon had blustered, unable to meet her
questioning gaze. Rolling her eyes, though her lips curved with the
slightest hint of a smile, Niu snuggled up to him regardless.
Trying as the day had been, Simon had never felt so rewarded.
Niu had drifted into slumber swiftly and easily, but sleep had eluded Simon for
a time, hyper-aware as he was of her body pressed to his own. For the
first time, he began to believe that the whole fiasco with the dragon had been
worthwhile. He’d fought his exhaustion for a time, just to relish the
moment, but eventually succumbed to his fatigue. Throughout the night,
he’d twitched in and out of sleep, but nothing sinister had disturbed
them. Once, Niu had slipped away, and his mind instantly began to
churn.
Had something, some noise, startled her? Had the guards
located them?
W
as she abandoning him?
His momentary alarm
began to lapse as he realized she was probably just attending to bodily needs,
but he was unable to relax until she’d returned and nestled beside him once
more.
Gently disentangling himself from the handmaiden, Simon stood and
gazed down at her sun-dappled body, committing the moment to memory. He
wondered if all the women of Jynn were so willowy. By comparison, the
average Cannevish woman was positively robust. Daylight revealed a secret
he hadn’t noticed during the night: the tattoo of a small, unfamiliar
bird adorning her lower back. Its diamond tail directly overlapped her own
tailbone, while colorfully inked wings arched invitingly wide, framing her trim
hindquarters. Simon wondered for whose pleasure such a private thing had
been intended, and experienced an electric pang of jealousy.
Giving his head a shake to clear it, he turned to examine his tunic,
which was still uninvitingly damp. Cautiously, he parted the canopy of
ferns and looked out over the lake.
No visible guard boats patrolled the waters, and to Simon’s surprise
the heavily-forested shore was much closer than he’d imagined. Within
wading distance, he judged. Most patrols would assume that, had they swum
this far, they would have continued on to the shore. No doubt that had
been Niu’s line of thought when she’d chosen it. Simon had been
half-drowned when he’d crawled ashore last night, paying scant attention to the
specifics of his location. He really wasn’t doing a very good job of
saving the two of them.
Chancing detection, he clambered out of the hollow and down onto the
shore. As he’d suspected, the water separating the islet from the
mainland was no more than waist deep. He saw no sign of human habitation,
not even a trail, which was encouraging. Still, who knew where a patrol
might show up, particularly now that the alarm had been sounded? Simon
was anxious to get moving. Crouching at the water’s edge, he splashed his
face; cupping his hands, he drank. The water was cold and bitter with the
taste of the red kellweed which clung to the plain of submerged rocks, waving
listlessly.
Some minutes later, he heard rustling beyond the curtain of ferns
and Niu joined him. She was wrapped in her traveling cloak and offered
Simon his own clothes.
“It would be best to carry them to shore,” she said. She
looked bright and alert, leading Simon to wonder if she’d truly been asleep
when he’d been studying her earlier. “We do not wish to get soaked once
more.”
Simon nodded. The water was uninviting, and he felt he would
have been better prepared to face the day on a full stomach. Still,
breakfast wasn’t just going to serve itself, and the more distance he put
between himself and Vingate the better.
“Go on,” Niu urged. Simon smiled tightly and waded into the
lake, hugging his damp clothes to his chest. The weed-smothered rocks
were slick and treacherous beneath his bare feet. Niu hitched her cloak
up to her waist and followed.
At any moment, Simon expected the shrubs lining the shore to come
alive with guardsmen. He wondered if they would fill him full of arrows
where he stood, or haul him back to Vingate for execution. Step by step,
as he drew near the bank, his anxiety mounted. Nothing stirred. The
lazy hum of early-rising insects competed with waves lapping lightly at the shoreline
to be the only sounds to break the stillness. Heart in mouth, he waded
ashore.
Niu joined him shortly thereafter, allowing her cloak to fall back
into place. Simon thought wistfully of their little cocoon on the
offshore islet and what might it be like to wake next to Niu every
morning. The warmth of that thought was driven from his mind by the
shuddering chill which shivered through his body. The lake had frosted
his very bones. At least the sun’s rays would warm him; the nearly
cloudless sky predicted a fine, clear day.
He and Niu dried off on a large, flat rock, obscured from sight by a
ring of bushes. Simon considered the journey ahead – wherever they were
headed – and thought wistfully of his abandoned boots. Niu, brushing
debris from the soles of her feet, seemed to be thinking along similar lines.
“We will need to find supplies,” she said, scanning the lake for
boats. “Where is the nearest village?”
Simon wracked his brains for a moment. “Saber Bend, a little to the
northwest. But if the King’s men are looking for us, they’ll have reached
it by now. And I have no coin.”
“Well, we are not going to
buy
the supplies,” Niu’s crisp
voice was lightly colored with exasperation. Simon wasn’t sure how he’d
annoyed her this time. So his mind hadn’t immediately jumped to theft;
why should that irritate her? Being a fugitive was entirely new to
him. He’d originally embarked upon this nightmare quest to become a hero,
not a criminal.
“Where will we go after that?”
Her eyes rolled skyward. “I was hoping that
you
would
tell
me
. This land is strange to me. I know little of it
outside the palace.” Brow furrowed, she considered him darkly. “Remember,
I came to find
you
for
your
assistance.”
“Sorry,” Simon said automatically. “Well… we could go to
Brand. My father’s village where I live.”
Frustrated, Niu kicked the rock with her heel. “Right.
The king will never think to look for you in your home village.”
Simon fell silent. The wheels in his head turned, his father
had once told him, just a bit more slowly than they did with other folk.
You’re
not a simpleton
, Simon, he would say,
but you can on occasion be a fool.
One day your thoughtlessness will get you killed. Or worse, me
.
He sat bolt upright. “Father!” he gasped.
“What now?” Niu asked. She was examining her fingernails with
a deep frown.
“The King’s men! They may punish him for what I’ve done.”
Niu shrugged. “It is likely.”
“I have to go to him.” Simon sprang up and began to pull on his
clothes, damp pants over wet britches. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but
Simon’s mind was far away.
“So that the King may capture you, as well?” Niu’s tongue
practically dripped acid.
“It doesn’t matter!” Simon gasped as he dragged his tunic down over
his disheveled mop of hair. “I caused this. I have to fix it.”
Niu smiled slightly. “Well,” she said at length. “At
least you are showing some resolve at last. But you cannot blunder head
first into your hometown, as the King and his men will expect. You must
show some…” She struggled for a word in his language. “Strategy.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“You will not.”
“It’s my business.”
“You made it
mine
,” Niu reminded him forcefully, “When you
dragged me into it.”
Simon looked at his feet. That was true enough. “I’ll
help you,” he told her. “I’ll help you go wherever it is you want to go,
even if that’s back to Jynn.”
Wherever that is
. “But first I
have to be sure my father’s safe.”
Niu stood. “That is fair. Let us be on our way.
First, we will go to this village, this Saber Bend. We will get ourselves
some shoes and supplies.”
“Alright,” Simon said.
The journey was far from pleasant. Leaving beach and road
behind, they were forced to pick their way through the forest barefoot. Simon,
his soles somewhat calloused from long hours spent in hard leather boots, fared
better than Niu, whose feet were soft from palace life and, before long,
bleeding. She didn’t complain, but she wasn’t happy, especially when
Simon informed her of the jaggermunds which lurked in the depths of central
Cannevish’s forests.
Be alert,
he warned her
, for a soft
whistling sound. That’s all the indication you’ll get that you’re about
to become dinner
.
Jaggermunds aside, the forest was deeply oppressive. The trees
grew close together, their branches lacing to create a relentless, unending
canopy. Sunlight navigating the tangle of branches with enough
determination to reach the forest floor was an extreme rarity; there was simply
no break in the ocean of leaves. Even trees long dead still hung upright,
suspended by their living neighbors in a parody of life. Beneath this
vast umbrella of gloom, only fungi grew.
Simon’s already fractured mood deteriorated swiftly. His
clothes stubbornly refused to dry; he was unarmed; and he was afraid for his
father, his hometown, and his future. His woodcraft was poor; not so much
as one who’d lived all their lives in a city like Vingate, but enough so that
he couldn’t be absolutely positive that he wasn’t going in circles. More
than once, as the distant snap of a twig set his nerves on edge -
predatory
beast or guardsman?
- he cursed the impetuousness which had led him to this
moment.
While Niu didn’t grumble about their general situation, she did
occasionally unleash an impressive stream of invective in her own language
whenever she stubbed her toes or scratched her soles on some hidden
hazard. If her native tongue was at all melodious, it certainly didn’t
come across that way when the speaker was furious. Her spirits were
sinking quickly and she brushed off all attempts at conversation. Nor did
she seem encouraged when they stumbled across a narrow, heavily-rutted road,
even as a reprieve from the claustrophobic monotony of the forest.
“It’s most likely the road to Saber Bend,” Simon informed her.
“We should follow it.”
“Of course we should,” Niu responded irritably. “But we cannot
walk upon it. We cannot be seen, and must remain amongst the trees.”
Simon nodded, disheartened.
Niu’s decision proved wise. As they slipped through the trees,
keeping the road in sight, they heard distant laughter and the clopping of
hooves from the direction of Saber’s Bend. Shortly thereafter, a cart
rattled past, bearing several of the King’s soldiers.
“At least they’re leaving,” Simon noted. “Maybe they just
searched the village and told the headman about us.”
“Perhaps,” Niu conceded, “But it is likely that they stationed one
or two men there. In any event, the people will have been warned about
us, including the local lawmakers.”
Simon couldn’t gainsay her. How wondered how highwaymen and
bandits could stand their outlaw status. He hadn’t been a fugitive for a full
day yet, and already he loathed it.
They crept through the forest until the trees began to thin.
Grateful for the sun’s blessing, straggly grass began to carpet the ground in
patches. Following some hours of monotony, Simon spotted a small log
cabin through the trees, an outlier, he hoped, for the village itself. It
was a compact, comfortable looking dwelling, a home rather than a house.
The sight of it elicited a powerful wave of regret. He could imagine
raising a family in such a cabin.
Movement caused him to duck behind a tree. A young woman,
previously unseen, was returning from an overgrown well with a bucket of
water. She was what one thought of as a traditional Cannevish girl:
buxom, rosy-cheeked and well-fed, with long blonde plaits. The kind of
girl one saw in the color plates of fairy stories, very unlike Niu.
Unfortunately for her, she was also wearing fur-lined ankle boots, which the
handmaiden clearly coveted.