Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) (29 page)

Hepdida lay on the bed.  The cerise gown lay in shreds across the floor; she had taken Sir Vahnce at his word and done as she pleased with it.  There were no scraps left large enough to cover a mouse’s modesty. The key to the locked door lay beneath her wet pillow and she huddled, knees drawn to her chest, trying to understand why luxurious survival could be so relentlessly miserable.

There was a soft knock at the door, the squeak of a handle turned in vain, and then a short scratching and click before the creak of a door swinging open on its hinges.  She sat up. Niarmit stood in the doorway.  The nightlight that
Thom had cast for Hepdida lit up her cousin’s weary face.

Puzzled Hepdida reached beneath her pillow and finding the cold iron of the key, held it up in an unspoken question to the Queen.

Niarmit smiled and held up her own hand with a ring on which were two twisted strips of metal.  “Kaylan taught me all he knew, before he started teaching you.  A lock such as that is no great barrier,” she said.

“Is this where we talk then?”

Niarmit nodded.  “Aye, but not in a bad way.” She picked her way to the bed without commenting on the fragments of pink cloth on the floor.  As her cousin sat down, Hepdida lunged to hug her.   Arms wrapped around her cousin’s body, head resting on her chest.

Niarmit hugged her back, stroking her hair with gentle hands.  “I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, I’m sorry,” Hepdida insisted. “I’ve been a bitch.”

“I’ve got
to go.”

“What? When?”

“Tonight.”

Hepdida swung her legs out of bed.  “I’ll get ready.”

Niarmit pulled her back.  “No, you can’t come. You have to stay.”

When Hepdida
looked at her in disbelief, Niarmit added, “there’s a lot of riding to be done, hard riding.”  She gave a nervous laugh.  “You would not like it.”

“
Where are you going?”

“Tordil has come with news.  Zombies have slipped their way into Medyrsalve and the force at the Gap of
Tandar is much weakened.  I am needed elsewhere.”

“Don’t go.”  Hepdida
seized her cousin in a tighter hug.

“
I’m sorry, I must.  But Kaylan will be here.”

“Kaylan?”

The Queen shifted position to look into her cousin’s eyes.  “He volunteered,” she said watchfully.  “Said he would stay to keep an eye on you.”

“Oh!”

“Quintala will stay as well. She can represent me at council.  You will not be alone.”

Hepdida hugged her tighter, squeezing the breath from her cousin’s body.  “Don’t go.”

“I thought you’d be glad of a bit of freedom from my smothering interference,” Niarmit said lightly.

The tears were flooding down Hepdida’s cheeks.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “Please don’t go, please.”

“I have to.  You’ll be perfectly safe here.”

“But… but what if you don’t come back?”

“I promise I will.”  Niarmit wiped the tears from her cousin’s cheeks.  “There, don’t cry.”

Hepdida sniffed and blubbed.  “I’ve been being such a bitch.  I’m so sorry.”

“There, there,” Niarmit patted her back. 

“I see him still, you know.  I
can’t get him out of my dreams. I’m scared to sleep.”

“He’s dead, Hepdida, the orc is dead.”

“Not in my head he isn’t.”

The Queen pulled her cousin up and looked into her eyes.  “
What did he do, Hepdida?”

Hepdida was hiccoughing with her sobs, tears coursing over her scarred face.  She spluttered and Niarmit pulled her back against her chest and said, “
tell me?”

And between her tears Hepdida told her.

The Princess felt her cousin’s arms about her shoulders, felt her grip tighten beyond breathing.  Yet the arms ended in solid fists that clenched and unclenched against Hepdida’s back as the Princess told her halting story.  And a steady rain of tears dripped down on Hepdida’s hair as Niarmit swore regret and railed against the Goddess that she had only been able to kill the orc but once.

The elves had gone, with barely a sign that there had ever been three thousand elven warriors arrayed at the gates of Rugan’s palace.  True to her word the Steward had departed barely an hour after arriving, bearing away Kychelle’s body and the desperately needed spears and the concession of human passage through the Silverwood.  Now, with dawn still hours away, a far smaller troop bid their farewells in the grand courtyard before Lavisevre.

A cold wind tugged at the cloaks of the rid
ers.  The horses’ breath misted in the torchlight.

“It is so dark,” Hepdida cried.  “
It isn’t safe to ride.  You’ll fall.”

“All will be well
,” Niarmit soothed.  “Tordil will lead us, and Thom’s spells will help us see the night more clearly.  We cannot delay.”

Jolander’s horse stamped its feet, impatient in the darkness, sparking a flurry of shaken heads and rattled bits from the rest of the lancers’ horses, roused at such an ungodly hour from the warmth of their stables.

“Be careful Lady Niarmit,” Giseanne urged. “The night is not the only danger.”

Niarmit smiled, “What we cannot out fight we can outrun, can’t we Thom?” She buffeted the young illusionist on the shoulder, making him grab for the pommel of his saddle.  Suddenly serious, she turned to Rugan. “You will send word, won’t
you to the towns and villagers?”

“I know my duty to my people, Lady Niarmit.”

“But the message, about the priests.”

“Aye, Lady Niarmit.  They will gather about their priests and holy places.  I will have the priori
es and monasteries emptied too. It is time these prelates grown fat on our indulgence finally earned their keep.”

A white speck drifted through the pool of light, disappearing before it reached the ground, another drifted by. “Great,”
Thom exclaimed.  “Now the snow comes!”

Niarmit gave a grin.  “For an illusionist, Thom, you have so little imagination.  The snow could be our friend as much as our enemy.”
  She turned back for a last look at the trio of companions she was to leave behind. “Quintala, you have my say in matters of state here, use it wisely.”

The half-elf bowed and answered plain, without the habitual twinkle of mischief in her eyes, “I will guard your interest
, your Majesty, and my temper.”

“And look after these two fools,” Niarmit said with a wave towards Kaylan and Hepdida.  “Keep them from seeking any harm.  Goddess knows why, but they are both precious to me.”

“I am honoured by your trust, your Majesty.”

“And they will honour you with their obedience,” Niarmit insisted,
her eyes on the thief and the Princess. Kaylan stood tall and impassive.  Hepdida could not raise her head, her eyes full and averted.

“Your friends will enjoy my protection as Regent,” Giseanne offered.  “And my husband’s also.”

“Indeed,” Rugan gruffly agreed.  “I hope it will serve them better than it did poor Kychelle.”

Niarmit leant from her saddle to lift the Princess’s chin and look steady green eyes to tear-filled blue.  “Don’t worry, Hepdida, I’ll be back.” 

Kimbolt was excited in a way he hadn’t been since a long ago
afternoon with his first love, a girl whose name now escaped him.  Dema at his side was affording him a sideways glance, her forehead wrinkled with perplexity.  “You have already surprised me Captain.  When you said you had something to show me I expected to be walking towards my bedchamber, not away from it.”

“I think thi
s will please you nonetheless, Mistress,” Kimbolt assured her as he led her across the castle bailey to the great eastern storage shed.  He pushed open the double doors, an opening big enough to admit a loaded cart, and with a conjurer’s bow waved her in.  “There,” he said.  “Now what do you see?”

Dema picked her way through the timbers laid out on the floor, some straight, some angled, some curved into curious shapes but each as thick as a horse’s neck and as long as a wagon or two.  “I see wood,” Dema replied.  “A lot of wood.”

“These pieces were in Rugan’s baggage train, at the battle of the Saeth, he left them in his flight up the Eastway.”

Dema nodded as understanding dawned.  “These are the components of his siege engines, the ones he meant to bombard Listcairn with after a battle he had no chance of winning.”

“Indeed.”

“But, my brave Captain, while he left these struts and frames, his soldiers did have the wit to destroy the trigger mechanisms.  Without that, there is no point in assembling them.”

“But Dema, I am trained in siege warfare, unlike your outlanders and your orcs.” He licked his lips, savouring the moment of revelation.  “I have had the triggers rebuilt.  These machines can be assembled and made serviceable wherever you please.”

He had her interest now.  She nodded slowly.  “And where had you in mind, Captain?” Although he guessed she already knew the answer.

“On the Eastway, half-way up the pass.  We can bombard the enemy lines from well beyond bowshot.  Boulders, stones, caltrops, all could be flung at them from perfect safety.”  He hesitated to make his next suggestion while Dema walked between the massive timbers, testing their strength with a speculative kick.  “We could hurl other missiles at them which might break their spirit as much as their bones.”

She looked at him, her snakes silent as
she pondered.  “Go on.”

“Corpses, the dead of the battlefield, those too torn to be of use to Galen.” When she nodded to herself he hurried on.  “There is an outbreak of fever by the Eastgate of town, near the sewage outfall. Several have died, women and children, many are ill.  Why bury the dead when they may yet serve our purpose.”

He had surprised her again, though she was smiling beneath the mask.  He shrugged, “why even waste time with the sick – those doomed to die anyway.  Why not cast them out….. in the bucket of a trebuchet?”

“The women and the children?”

“This is war, Dema, absolute war.  We win or we die.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “My Kimbolt
how you are changed.  I’ll make a good orc of you yet.”

He grinned, glad to have pleased her. 

“There will be a chance.” She nodded, pursing her lips in contemplation of the possibilities.  “Between the rains and the snow, we have perhaps a week when the frost has hardened the mud, but the snow is no more than a dusting on the ground.  We could strike then.”

“
What of the necromancer?” he asked.

“That dandy? What of him?”

Kimbolt swallowed hard, wary of raising a matter which was likely to spoil Dema’s mood.  “He is gathering his orcs and nomads for an assault. The enemy have detached half their force chasing his zombies; Galen means to be the one to make use of that weakness.  We should make him wait until these machines are ready.  Then we can act together.”

The M
edusa gave the slightest shake of her head and a dismissive wave of her hand.  “No, let us not trouble the necromancer with this news.  Let him see if he can show us how to force the Gap of Tandar by his own efforts.”

Abroath clutched his cloak about him, frost crunching with every step of his borrowed boots.  Ahead of him, Niarmit strode from picket to picket, Sir Ambrose by her side.  At each group of soldiers she paused to exchange a few words and dispense a blessing which warmed the men more deeply than their guttering fires.  “You should rest, your Majesty,” he said softly as they moved between pickets.  “You must have ridden day and night.  The men will hear you just as well tomorrow.”

“The P
rior is right, Lady Niarmit,” Sir Ambrose added his considerable weight to the argument.

The Queen shook her head.  “The men may have to fight today, tomorrow will be too late for words of comfort.”

The knight gazed out across the frozen pass.  “By the Goddess I hope you are wrong, my Lady.  We are at our weakest now.” He bent low to bring his mouth to Niarmit’s ear.  “No disrespect to your companion, but I would you had brought Captain Tordil with you rather than this scrawny fellow.”

The Queen followed the Knight’s gaze to where
Thom was flapping his arms and hugging himself next to a campfire in a bid to drive the cold and aches from his gallop weary limbs.  She smiled.  “The illusionist has his uses, Sir Ambrose, and I have hopes of seeing Captain Tordil before the day is done.”

“If the enemy should come we will sorely miss those hobilers which
Elyas took,” the knight said ruefully.

“It had to be done, Sir Ambrose,” Abroath retorted.  “We could not let five thousand zombies roam unhindered through the farms and villages of Medyrsalve.”

“That necessity will not make us need them any less here, Prior, should the enemy come,”  Ambrose said.

Niarmit stamped her heel against the unforgiving frozen earth.
The mailed boot made no dent in the solid ground.

Ambrose grimaced. 
“Our spades and picks cannot break the ground to dig pits, Lady Niarmit, or to embed our spikes against the enemy.  We must hold this place with what few men and defences we have in place already.”

Niarmit merely smiled at the knight’s dour analysis.
“How long ‘til the snow comes in earnest?”

Ambrose
looked at the sky for inspiration.  “A week, my Lady, maybe two.  Then the whole pass will be thigh deep in a white  blanket and we will be safe until Spring.”

“In the meantime?”

“We are vulnerable, my Lady, more exposed than ever.”

She shook her head and gave the knight a flashing smile.  “Have faith, Sir Ambrose.  Trust in the Goddess and let us bring some cheer to more of your poor cold soldiers.”