Samual (11 page)

“I thank you for your support good soldier.”

He thought he'd better acknowledge her defence of him as best he could. It was the only support he'd had all day. But secretly he was also curious. It sounded almost as though she knew something about him, and that could not be good.

“Save your thanks warrior wizard. You may not be so happy shortly.” The terrible thing was that she wasn't making some sort of threat. From the look in her eyes she did know something about him. Something that would cause him pain, and she sorrowed for it. He was even more certain of it when she turned her eyes from him back to the Elder so quickly.

“There are some ahead who would wish to speak with the wizard Samawain Ellosian. They say they may know him, and if he is who they think, they will explain all.” That puzzled Sam a little, until he realised it must be some of the elves from Torin Vale. Over the years some had become familiar. Some even knew a little of his life story. No more than he had told the elders, and none knew his true name. But they knew some of it, and that had to be a good thing if it supported his story.

“With your permission Elder?” She nodded to the Elder who was looking a little nonplussed, and he nodded back. The transfer of responsibility for the guest, prisoner, or wayward child had apparently been made, and in short order Sam found himself trotting beside his rescuer, as they headed closer to the front of the caravan.

Nothing was said as they made their way forward, partly because of the horses' fast paced trot which would have made it difficult not to have bitten their tongues as they spoke, but partly because of his guide's sombre mood. As they travelled, Sam paid his new – guard?, warder? – close attention, as she in turn scrutinised him. He had the feeling it was important. Also, he had the strangest feeling that he'd met her before. There was simply something familiar about her.

She was one of the border patrol from her armour, which consisted of a painted white leather breast plate over chain mail and over it all a padded jacket which fell down over leggings. It was the standard light armour for cavalry. From the twin laurels decorating her shoulders he realised she was an officer of the griffin troop. But he didn't know her from his conversations with any of the patrols.

She was tall for an elven maiden, standing probably very close to his own six foot in height at a guess, and she was more powerfully built too. Even with her long blond hair that hung in loose braids down her back, and the dark tanned skin of her people she would have stood out among them. Her face though, that was what would really have caused her to be noticed among the crowd. Not that she was blemished or in any way plain. She was every bit as beautiful as any other elven maiden he'd ever met. But she had what would politely be called a stern countenance. The severity in her eyes, the hardness of her mouth and the rigid set of her jaw line; all were far from normal, and the firelight from the torches did nothing to soften her look.

This was a woman he suspected, with a bitter past. Things had gone hard for her somewhere along the line. Perhaps she had lost family, despite her youth. Maybe she had suffered a loss of reputation or betrayal at the hands of good friends. Then again she might just have seen too much death these last few days. Whatever it might be, he knew that it was a part of her. It no doubt made her a capable soldier and he was certain she could handle her weapons with skill born of endless practice. Perhaps whatever had happened in her life was the reason why she had become a soldier in the first place.

Despite the fact that she looked so familiar, he knew he had never seen her before, even in a crowd, nor spoken with her one to one. If he had he would definitely have remembered those piercing brown eyes. They drew the watcher in like the talons of a bird of prey did a mouse. Yet still there was something familiar.

After a long, painfully silent trip they drew alongside a group of wagons loaded down with elven traders. Sam figured they were probably merchants caught out at Torin Vale. Certainly they did not appear to be wounded and the horses looked fresh. They couldn't have been in the city itself to be so fresh. But more than the wagons caught his eyes, as he soon spotted a pair of familiar faces among them.

“Alendro! Pietrel!” Without a moment's thought he kicked Tyla in the flanks and galloped towards them like a mad man, waving stupidly. In a matter of heartbeats he was with them, already clambering up the side of the wagon as he looped Tyla's reigns over the side post, his escort forgotten.

“You're here! Free!” He picked up each of them in turn in a giant bear hug, so unbelievable happy to see them. It might have been extremely unelven, though they would never have objected. But he couldn't help himself. He was simply so overjoyed. Because if they were here, it meant Ryshal was free. Her parents would never leave Fair Fields without her. After five long years she was finally free!

Perhaps his brother had finally felt secure enough in his reign that he didn't need a hostage any longer? Maybe she had somehow escaped or been rescued? Either way he didn't care. It didn't matter how. All that mattered was that she was free.

And then he saw the haunted looks in their eyes, the grief written in their faces, and saw the priestess of the Goddess standing alongside the wagon. With a sense of dread he realised he had made a terrible mistake. There was always one other reason they would leave her. If she had already left them. And this day it seemed that the priests and priestesses of the Goddess were everywhere. Bringing comfort to those whose loved ones had left them.

“No!”

But his denial was in vain, and he knew it as the darkness clutched at his heart. As they told him what they knew of Ryshal's death, he refused to believe it. To have struggled and sweated for so long with only one goal in mind. To finally have that goal within his grasp and then be told it was too late! He couldn't accept it. He could never believe that his half-brother would be so stupid as to kill her. She was his leverage against him. She kept him safe and quiet. Surely he wouldn't have done such a thing?

Except it seemed that he had.

As they spoke, Ry's parents cried. They were clearly heartbroken and that more than anything else convinced him of the truth of their words. They wouldn't leave her for any other reason. Not unless they knew she was dead.

As he finally had to let their words in, he felt a yawning cavern of grief and bitterness opening up in his soul. One large enough to swallow him whole. And the largest part of him wanted nothing more than to jump in after. But another part, the angry part, refused to let him. As large as the cavern was, the anger was larger, and growing with every beat of his heart as he thought of what had happened to Ry. To the woman he loved. The one he was supposed to live with for the rest of his days. The one for whom he should lay down his life to protect. And that anger not only kept him from grieving, it began to take hold of his very soul.

Others could grieve; he could not. Not then, and not until he who was responsible for this evil was dealt with. Permanently.

“There will be blood!” Ry's parents looked up at him, surprised as the anger burst free from his mouth. They had obviously known of their daughter's fate for some time, and were well into their time of grieving. Besides, they were elves. Good and true elves. They hadn't expected his reaction. They probably didn't even understand it.

“But –”

Sam cut them off with a single look, and he watched them almost step back in shock as they saw it. The fury growing in his clenched jaw. The rage boiling in his eyes. The way his muscles were already rippling under his armour. They couldn't truly understand, he knew that. They never would. But one day, after he had done what had to be done, he hoped they could be friends again.

“Blood will be paid for the blood of the innocent that was spilt. My brother will burn in the Halls of the underworld for all eternity for this crime. That is my oath as Samual Hanor, son of Eric Hanor, Knight of Hanor. And none may nay say it.”

Alendro and Pietrel looked shocked at his words. The soldiers that seemed to be coming out of the very woods at him from every direction on the other hand looked determined. Apparently they had known the news before him, and had prepared for it. They were going to stop him. His sworn vengeance was unelven. He could almost see the objections on their mouths. Killing Heri would not bring Ry back. He knew that. He also knew that it would cause trouble in the land they would soon be entering. That it was wrong. But he couldn't listen to them. No more could he allow them to stop him.

With a single deft leap he was once more mounted on Tyla, a move that surely caused them some surprise, as he showed himself to be more agile than even most elves. He hadn't practised with his sword and armour every day for most of his adult life for no reason. A second command with his knees had her taking off even as they began shouting at him. Shouting at those ahead to stop him.

He couldn't let them. And despite being close to exhaustion, he still had magic to burn. Magic he hadn't told the elders about, though they should have guessed when they saw the books. A silent command sent to every horse within three hundred yards caused them all to suddenly stop. Their riders, pressing their knees into their flanks, suddenly found their mounts unwilling to obey. A ripple of Earth magic behind him opened up a ten foot wide trench parallel to the caravan. A trench that their unwilling mounts would have to jump in the dark if their riders wished to give chase.

Somehow he thought they might not, as he heard their surprised shouts behind him. Most didn't even know who he was, and those who did had thought him too weak to fight if it came to a struggle. But their surprise and even the tone of fear in their cries told him they had discovered their mistake. He had no doubt they would soon be running to the elders with the news. And all the while he would be putting the leagues between them.

It was fortunate that the caravan had stopped for the night in a region of open fields, with nearly all the horses untethered, as it allowed him to disappear quickly into the dark as he steered a path away from the elves. Somewhere up ahead he knew he would have to re-join the road, but hopefully that would be well past the front of the caravan. And with a little more magic he would be well beyond where the elves could expect him to be.

Touching his ungauntleted hand to Tyla's neck, he granted her a little of the stamina and strength of his nature magic and felt her respond, galloping even faster than before, and yet feeling nothing of strain with it. Actually she was revelling in the feeling of power that he had granted her, and he knew she wouldn't have stopped without a lot of urging on his part. And with the night vision of the owl which he was lending them both, she had no need to worry about potholes or trees. She could see as clearly at night as she could by day.

She snorted with excitement as she found the extra strength coursing through her veins, and true to her nature and his urgings, galloped even faster. Though she didn't know it, the mare had many leagues to travel and Sam was determined to cross them in as short a time as possible.

His brother could not be allowed to live one single heartbeat longer than absolutely necessary. He had already lived too long.

The keep was dark when Sam arrived, fairly much as he'd expected. His brother had a hatred for wasting anything, even paraffin, and so by the light of the stars Fall Keep was little more than a brooding mountain squatting on the land. A darkness stealing what little light there was. But here and there he could see the odd glow from a lamp as a sentry made his rounds on the battlements, and a couple of the higher windows had light coming from them.

It was a deception of course. Fall Keep was a city as well as a keep. The city was merely hidden behind the keep's massive walls along with the keep itself. It was the massive walls that someone approaching saw. Walls that in the darkness looked like a piece of the mountain that someone had simply carved into shape. That gave no hint that there was anything behind them. Or that there was any way through.

The original keep had been built maybe a thousand years before. It was a massive, hulking structure that sat between two hills. From the front it looked like nothing more than a giant wall of stone blocks. The keep itself lay behind the walls, concealed though it was really a true castle in its own right. It had been added to over the centuries, the keep growing ever larger and more intimidating as time had passed. Meanwhile behind it, sitting on top of the plateau between the hills was the city. It was home to anywhere from fifty to seventy thousand souls – no one had actually ever counted them. But none of that was visible from the front.

It was well built in truth, with its walls ten foot thick and made of solid blocks of stone which were held together by steel pins as well as mortar.  It had been designed to take the fury of enemy war machines with impunity. And it was more than just a wall; it was also a battlement.

From the battlements atop the walls archers could rain down arrows all day and all night on anyone foolish enough to attack it. Cannon based in the buttresses that dotted the wall could do the same, and level an attacking army. Fall Keep was a true citadel and considered nearly impregnable by any army. But then it had never been attacked by a wizard. Least of all a master of fire. The rarest and most dangerous of all masters.

And why would it have to defend against such a wizard? After all, there were no such people among the humans. And those found among the magical races didn't much care for either war or the human realms.

Soon, Sam promised himself, the vaunted strength of the keep and its assumed invulnerability was about to be shown lacking. Walls would crumble and light would shine in the darkest parts of the keep itself, before it burned to the ground. Those who survived would speak of this night forever. They would curse Heri's name for eternity. Heri himself though would not survive. He would burn. He would scream for what he had done, and then he would burn until nothing of his evil remained.

Sam felt the fire raging in him as never before and knew it was simply echoing the anger burning in his soul. Anger that had only grown hotter with every hour and every day as he'd raced to Fall Keep. The darkness within his soul that had scared him in Shavarra no longer frightened him. He welcomed it, and it in turn powered him as never before.

His tiredness after that first battle had gone away as if it had never been the moment he had been given the black news, and his magic had returned with every hour as he rode, until he felt stronger now than he ever had before. Much stronger. Yet even his strength caused him pain, as he cursed himself for having only become strong enough to rescue her once Ryshal was finally beyond his reach. The self-hatred and anger fed each other until all that was left was a terrible, aching need for vengeance.

It was time to use a little of that strength. It might have been smarter to try and creep in. To use his skills and his magic to enter unobserved and make his way to his brother's bed chamber as he'd secretly hoped to do before. But that was when he had had to worry about the risk of Ryshal being harmed if he was seen. But she was beyond either harm or further pain now, and he wasn't feeling very smart right then. He was simply too angry, and had nothing left to lose. He was more angry and hurt than he'd ever been in his life, and nothing was going to come between him and his vengeance. Nothing!

Without a second thought he raised his left hand and sent a fireball flying toward the main gate. A blast of fiery fury that screamed with rage as it flew. When it hit it was as though the underworld had ripped its way through to the citadel.

It wasn't even a powerful blast compared to what he could have cast, and yet it did everything he'd dreamed of and much more, as it ripped the gate house apart and tore the draw bridge and portcullis behind it into shattered fragments of wood and steel. The force of the blast blew the foundations under the gate walls into stone powder and smashed a hole in the ten foot thick front stone wall wide enough to march an army through, all while shaking the entire castle and town behind it. Anyone who had been asleep before this had been suddenly and satisfactorily wakened. It was a good satisfying blast, and he'd barely even begun.

Heartbeats later Tyla hurdled the twenty foot wide moat as if it was just a puddle. She was naturally a powerful horse, and he was enhancing her strength and stamina with his own magic. He had been for the six long days and nights that they'd raced here. But far from minding the running, she enjoyed it. If he had never felt so strong, neither had she, and the chance to hurdle a small river was not so much a challenge for her as a joy.

They touched down well inside the gate and then galloped madly across the courtyard, heading directly for the stairs leading to the main halls of the castle.

All around Sam could see the soldiers from the barracks running for their armour and weapons, shouting at each other in confusion even as they tried to work out what had happened. A few were already dressed. They were the sentries on night duty. Some of them even managed to point at him and start running for him weapons in hand. But they were far too slow, and a simple ripple of earth magic turned the ground under their feet into six foot high waves which knocked them back on their butts. A second made the stone fully liquid and they sank into it up to their knees, before it reset around them. They would be no threat until the masons had chipped them out of the floor.

He launched two more fireballs at the side walls of the keep as a distraction, each more than three hundred yards away from him. But distance was no problem for him any longer. They could have been leagues away and he would not have been troubled. Each blast opened up a gap in the ten foot thick stone walls nearly fifty feet across. It would stop the archers reaching the courtyard battlements. It would also leave the keep relatively defenceless for months to come, and the simple power of the explosions as they rippled through the ground was enough to throw people from their feet again even as they tried to dress, gather their weapons, and work out what was going on.

By the time he'd crossed the courtyard, he was surrounded by confusion and chaos. Ironically it rendered him almost completely safe in its midst, as no one knew what was happening and they never connected it with him.

The stairs leading up to the first floor terrace were a little more difficult, but only because Tyla wasn't used to them and he had to take them slowly. But almost no one noticed him – a dark figure on a black horse riding up the huge stone stairs as they ran around in utter confusion. It was not long before he reached the terrace.

He could have taken the main entrance on the ground, knocking the front doors down and racing through, but he knew that there would have been a more substantial army waiting for him if he had gone that way. But Heri's quarters were close to the terrace where he liked to stand and wave to his long suffering people. Of course when he did so he had his archers posted on the battlements so they could take down anyone who looked dangerous as they entered the huge courtyard below. 

The terrace proved no more difficult to cross than the courtyard, as the only two archers who'd actually managed to reach their stations on it had to throw their bows to the ground as they caught fire in their hands. Their screams as they desperately put out the flames that started licking at their sleeves followed Sam as he galloped past them. But he paid them no mind. Another small blast tore out the armoured doors leading from the terrace to the inside of the castle, and he quickly forgot about them.

Sam raced around the upstairs balcony that completely surrounded the main hall, dining hall, ball room and throne room, Tyla knocking over tables and chairs in her rush. But it was light weight furniture, items put there simply to look elegant and make Heri feel grand. In reality the only people who ever stood on the balconies were Heri's own guards, and like the others they simply stood there with their longbows at the ready while the court was in session, there to kill anyone who looked like threatening him.

At the far end of the balcony he reached the side stairs leading to the royal wing and bed chambers and he knew his prey was close.

Tyla's steel shod hooves made an ominous racket on the stone floors, as she thundered along. A racket that could surely be heard in the royal bed chamber itself. But then his prey would have heard the destruction of the main gate and walls before this, and had probably guessed what was coming. Who was coming. He was probably trying to run even now. But he would be too slow Sam promised himself. Far too slow. The toad would not get away from him.

Up the two flights of stairs he galloped, and then into the hallway where a dozen alert and panicked looking sentries in full armour were posted outside his brother's bed chamber. It was a mistake as their presence told him exactly which of the chambers Heri was using. Obviously Heri had expected his company as the only possible response to his murder. But he hadn't expected it enough. He had assumed Sam would come as a knight and a minor wizard, sneaking in. He had never expected to face a true master of fire. Another small fire ball took out the door and walls to the bed chamber, and blew all of the guards to the floor at the far end of the corridor where they lay in a tangled heap of steel armour and fallen debris.

Were they dead? Sam wouldn't have thought so as he'd limited the fireball's size to only what he needed; just enough to spare them serious injury though he didn't truly want to. It was simply a matter of honour, though in truth he was too angry to really care. They were his brother's henchmen, no more no less.

A heartbeat later his brother was in his view. He was standing beside his bed with a pike in his hands, while a couple of concubines in linen night dresses cowered behind the bed.

“Why?!”

Sam bellowed the question at his half-brother's cowering form, even though he knew he'd never get a reasonable answer. Not for why he'd killed her. Not for why he'd even jailed her in the first place. As an illegitimate son Sam had never been in line for the throne. He'd never wanted to be. And he had said that since the day he was old enough to speak. His brother had never had reason to fear him.

Until now! Now he would know fear.

“You!” Heri grabbed for a lump of white stone on the bedside table, sounding shocked to see him. He was too slow. Sam had no thought as to what the stone was, save that he could feel magic streaming from it. Still, it didn't last long when he hit it with a blast of fire. The stone melted and the table caught fire.

“Be damned!” Heri cursed and leapt away from the burning table before suddenly raising his pike and pointing it at him, as if preparing to charge. His white stone was gone and the weapon was all he had left.

It was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Without even thinking about it, Sam stretched out a finger and his sword of flame cut through the pike and half his half-brother's leading hand. Heri dropped like a stone, screaming as he saw his fingers hitting the floor ahead of him, and for a long time nothing more than his screams could be heard in that room. In fact he could probably be heard throughout the entire castle. He screamed like a little girl.

Sam didn't mind though. He enjoyed it. It might have been wrong of him and no doubt the priests would have plenty to say about it at his next confession, but for five long years he had hated his brother with a passion, even as he had had to suffer the ceaseless agony of knowing his wife was locked up in a dungeon and being unable to go to her. Never truly knowing her fate. Not knowing her touch. Not even knowing if she was well. All he had known was that she would remain alive as long as he stayed out of the realm and away from local politics. As long as he stayed away from the other nobles who Heri truly feared.

Heri's screaming brought more of the guards to his bed chamber, and they sprinted in belatedly. Many were still half dressed, and even those fully who were dressed and armed posed Sam no danger. Not while he had fire like this raging through him. He simply put up a wall of flame around himself and his brother, cutting everyone else off and ignored them. They could not pass through it and nor could their weapons. Not even arrows. He watched more than a few of them hit the fire wall and turn to ash. Poorly trained troops. They should have known better than to waste their arrows.