Authors: Greg Curtis
“And it is good to finally see a smile no matter how thin on your face.” Genivere smiled as she said it.
“And now perhaps it is time to work. Your brothers told me of what you must do and that you did not have a lot of time in which to do it. And since they cannot be here to help I thought I would take their place.”
Genivere placed the basket on the table, opened up the top and showed him the cleaning cloths, brushes and a bar of lye soap, leaving Yorik horrified.
“Genivere there is no need. I can attend to this by myself.”
“Dear Yorik,” she stared straight at him as if he had said something incredibly stupid. “There is every need. You may be capable with that iron bar you call a sword, and you may be able to polish your armour. But no man ever has truly understood what it is to clean a house!”
Chapter Thirteen.
“You are troubled Sir Yorik?”
Yorik looked up from the horizon his eyes had been glued to for the better part of an hour, without ever having taken anything in, to see Genivere staring at him, a question in her eyes. And of course she was right to ask. He had been unfailingly rude to her as they rode, ignoring her as he dwelt on his own doubts and worries. It was only a mystery that it had taken her so long to ask. For four long weeks they had travelled this path, and for four long weeks he had done little more than sulk like a child. She had the right to at least know why.
It wasn't even as if he had good reason. His sins against the Order of the Lady had been put aside for judgement later, and he guessed that later would mean after this entire war was over, which he suspected would be many months or even years away. Stonebow, if they won through and he survived, would only be the beginning in a longer campaign if the leaders were right, and compared with that, trying him for his failings was a trivial thing at best. Especially when he – like all his brothers in arms – might well not survive through to the end. They might not even survive the coming battle.
In part the delay in his trial was also because he had told them of the Lady's guiding him on a mission, something that was extremely rare and considered a blessing. In part it was because Ascollia had asked for him to stand as his own liaison between their respective chapters, which was unheard of. But mainly, he was sure, it was because the commanders had far more important things to occupy their time than sitting in judgement on a single failed paladin.
Either way he was once again with his chapter, freely accepted by all, and while they were riding into battle, it wasn't as if that wasn't what they were trained for. They were paladins and knights, born and raised to fight. And they had been joined in Briarton by the elves, so that what had once seemed a small force was suddenly great indeed.
Seven chapters of paladins and seven chapters of rangers now rode side by side in a single gold column, a dozen soldiers or more wide, and a third of a league long. At least six thousand men, humans and elves – all brothers in arms – and another three or four thousand clerics and wizards. By any standard they were a powerful force, and quite merry with it. The elves especially seemed to have a love of song, and they regaled the others with an endless melody of touching ballads. Not speaking the tongue well, Yorik and most of the other humans didn't understand the songs, but for all that they were pleasant and often he'd found himself humming along.
Yet for four long weeks as things had only seemed to improve, his mood had darkened. And so finally he had found himself heading toward despair, and only his discipline kept him from giving in to it.
His failure to master Elvish was certainly part of his darkness. His teachings in the monastery had been enough to let him read and write it, and even to crudely pronounce the tongue, but the elves themselves spoke not only too quickly for him to follow, but also with a range of accents he'd never heard before, which made it difficult to understand them even when they spoke slowly. They could follow him, but he couldn't understand them without making them repeat everything at least three or four times. That was a worry for someone who was supposed to act as a liaison, but he wasn't alone. Few of the others of his Order, even those who were far better scholars than he, could follow the elvish tongue in full flight.
Fear of the unknown, and of seeing many of his friends, comrades and heroes falling in the battle to come was also there. That had never happened before. He, like the rest of his Order, had never been to war. They fought for sure, but usually only in small skirmishes where a few paladins might have to take on a dozen or so wrongdoers, but that was completely different from attacking an army of the undead in their own lair. Whatever the outcome of the battle, win or lose, he knew there would be many dead among the Order – among his own chapter – and that was something that he, like the rest of the Order, had never known. Still there was nothing he could do about it.
The sense of wrongness about what lay ahead though – that was the largest part of his darkness however. It had troubled him deeply from the outset, and more with every day that had passed since. Not just as he worried that what they might be doing was a mistake, but that they didn't even know with whom they were fighting. With every day that passed he became more and more certain that it wasn't the Dark One. It simply couldn't be.
His prison was warded with the most powerful spells ever shaped. Spells that would hold even the greatest of demons. If he ever broke through the barrier in Haldesfort he would lose his soul. Just to touch it in any way was to cost him a piece of his soul every time. And to send a necromancer back from his side of his prison to the world he would have to do just that. The Dark One simply wouldn't do that.
No matter how frustrated, angry or desperate he might be, the Dark One was a demon, a form of life. Evil, but alive. The very idea that he might be willing to sacrifice his soul and his life just to be free of his prison was utterly wrong. Demons didn't sacrifice themselves for anything. They clung to life with a grip every bit as fierce as that of a drowning man. They fought for it. It was a part of the reason they couldn't be killed. The held on to their lives with their last breaths and because they were able to, took banishment instead of death at the last. But that left him with the question of who or what exactly they were fighting? Naturally he had no answer.
Perhaps he decided, it was finally time to tell someone else of his doubts.
“Indeed fair maiden. I worry that we are being led into battle against an enemy we do not know. That our enemy is not who he seems, and that we are to be lambs to his slaughter. And that troublesome thought has grown stronger with every day that we have ridden here, and as it has so has my mood darkened. For my rudeness I apologise humbly.”
“There is no need. In truth you are not alone in your worries. Many of our leaders, both elven and human have felt the same, and have said as much. But they have no other course to set. And please, call me Genivere. I am only an acolyte, and not one born of high station.”
“My apologies Genivere. I will gladly call you Genivere, if you would call me Yorik. As I have said before, the Order of the Lady does not accept titles unlike many others. Not for paladins and neither I would guess, for rangers. And while I have no knowledge of your station among your people, I can assure you that you are most definitely a fair maiden. Forgive me please. I meant only to show my respect.”
For once he managed to elicit a reaction from Genivere as she reddened slightly in the face, and he tried to suppress his own smile in return, not entirely successfully. Though it was a most inappropriate thought there was something in Genivere that called strongly to him, and had it been right he would have gladly asked for the honour of courting her. But she was an elf, he a human and a disgraced paladin, and her people would never have accepted such a thing. Still, it was nice to compliment her now and then – especially when his words were only the truth – and let his thoughts dally on what could never be.
The odd thing was how quickly he'd come to think of her not as an elf or even as an acolyte of the Mother, but as a woman. Before he'd met her or any others of her people, he would never have considered such a thing possible, but the more he travelled with her – and with Ascollia too – the more he seemed to forget their differences and just treat them as he would any others. Ascollia was a fine warrior, a worthy leader and a man of good counsel, while Genivere was a beautiful and magical woman of virtue. That they were elves was irrelevant.
That was something he had discussed with his comrades from time to time, and they'd more or less come to the same conclusion. The paladins, knights and clerics were the most accepting, but even the younger students, squires and spell-swords who'd never left their home city before were adjusting to the strangers among them. The elves too, from what he could gather, were slowly adapting to the newcomers among them, and they for the most part like the paladins hadn't known there was another Order of the Lady among the humans. The secrecy ran deep on both sides.
Of course that same familiarity kept bringing them new surprises as each learned that much of what they had been taught was either exaggerated or simply wrong. Not all elves were pretentious overly mannered, elitists, nor were all humans violent criminals. But the elves did expect a greater degree of politeness in their dealings than he was used to, while the humans were far rougher and more casual in their dealings with one another. Thus every so often someone would go too far in their conversation, and tempers would fray. So far however, no fights had broken out.
The reason for the secrecy still wasn't clear. The commanders of both the paladins and rangers had all come together as one on the first day the elves and humans had joined forces, and simply said that the separation of the Order had been both necessary and planned from the outset, nearly five hundred years earlier. But they hadn't said why. What they did say, many times over, was that the time for secrecy was past, and the time to act as one was upon them. That much no one could disagree on, and they spent their days perhaps not so much treating each other as brothers in arms as they should, but at least recognising that they were allies in a fight not that far ahead. Questions, doubts and even friendship could all come later; for the moment they had to stand together.
“No apology is needed Sir – Yorik, and I thank you for your overly kind praise. It has been an honour travelling with you.”
The redness in her cheeks had if anything brightened and Yorik had a terrible time trying to keep himself from bursting out into laughter.
“You are most welcome Genivere, and the honour has been all mine. I hope – ” He was about to say that he wished their journey together could continue for a while longer when something cold, dark and clammy clutched at his heart, and all thought of conversation vanished. He knew instinctively that something evil had seen them, and that same evil was approaching.
Drawing his great sword in a well practised move, Yorik began turning in his saddle, hunting for whatever it was that had spied them, but he could see nothing. All around were merely more rangers and paladins, many of them staring at him in alarm. Some because they wondered what he was doing. Some because they too felt the darkness nearby. Yorik had no time to worry about them though.
“Let the light of the Lady shine!”
He uttered the blessing almost without thinking, and a heartbeat later was rewarded as his great sword burst into flame. Flame was the most powerful weapon against the undead, but that wasn't why he'd incanted the spell. The light from those flames was magical, but it also illuminated the land all around them, dispelling illusion and revealing the unseen. Yet he could still see nothing. All around were simply more soldiers, staring at him as if he'd gone mad, while others were also holding their magically charmed weapons aloft, desperately seeking out the evil.
“Mother be!” He turned as fast as his head could whip around to see Genivere staring not at him but rather at the ground under her feet, the most horrified expression on her face. A heartbeat later he knew why as he could see through the spell the dark outline of something deadly burrowing under their feet. A lot of outlines were burrowing beside it, attacking the very middle of the soldier's column from the side.
“To the west!” His call was every bit as loud and fast as it was meant to be and he was obeyed without question despite the fact that it wasn't his place to command anyone. Yorik didn't even need to think about what to do. All his years of training told him that. The creatures were burrowing under them from the east and had already penetrated their lines. They had to head west as fast as they could to separate their lines and prepare some sort of counter-attack once they had the time, though how you could fight creatures under the ground he didn't know.
His call was like a siren song as all around him horses and riders – hundreds and then thousands of horses and riders – wheeled around and started galloping in the direction he pointed. Indeed they were so fast that despite his being the one to give voice to the order he was almost left behind in the rush. The knights, paladins and rangers were all well trained and quick to respond.
A heartbeat later, fully five thousand or more soldiers were galloping madly west, almost in a stampede, while a few stragglers at what had been the rear of the line, and a few more at the front, stared at them, no doubt wondering what was going on. But they were so far back, so far from the burrowing creatures, that it probably didn't matter.
The thunder of the horses' hooves on the ground must have been a signal to the burrowers, and immediately Yorik could see them stopping in their tracks, and heading for the surface. But they were too slow. The soldiers had cleared the area and created a three hundred yard gap between themselves and the creatures in less than a minute. It was just as well. As they turned back to face their enemy, they could see hundreds and then thousands of little mounds of dirt rising out of the ground.