Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) (46 page)

“Why such urgency, Captain?”

Giseanne had followed at his bidding, hastening along the corridor, just him and her as he had asked.  But Kimbolt’s agitated manner and the nervous flick of his eyes as they walked were doing little to ease the Lady Regent’s disquiet.

“What is it? What have you uncovered?”
There was a strain in her voice as she demanded answers.

“The Princess is remembering,” he told her.

“Everything?”

“Some things
, things you should hear, your Highness.”

Giseanne’s next question went unuttered as there was crash of noise from behind the door to Hepdida’s room. Captain and Lady Regent exchanged a look of alarm, each distrusting their own ears hoping the other had heard no commotion.  But then there was another indubitable clatter of an object falling.

Kimbolt shouldered open the door. Giseanne following in his wake. 

Elise lay on the floor, an ominous pool o
f red spreading out beneath her from some wound other than the ugly gash upon her head.  An icy gale whipped through the broken shutters. The fragments of the chair which had shattered them lay in pieces across the stone floor, and through the yawning opening all that could be seen was the black of the night.

“Hepdida!” Kimbolt ran for the balcony staring into the darkness of the palace garden for some glimmer of the fleeing girl.

“Mistress Elise,” Giseanne called him back.  “She is grievously hurt.”

As Kimbolt turned from the fruitless survey of the
obsidian night, he saw the Lady Regent kneeling on the floor, her skirts dipped in Elise’s blood.  She squeezed the herbalist’s hand.  “She still lives,” Giseanne called out.  She rose and took two steps towards the door calling, “send for a priest!  Deaconness Rhodra, Bishop Sorenson, bid them hurry!”

And then Kimbolt saw
her erupting from hiding beyond the far side of the bed. Hepdida! A wiry figure wielding a bloodied poker, the sallow yellow pallor had returned to her skin and the madness was in her eyes as she leapt towards Giseanne.  The Lady Regent turned, arm high in horrified defence.  Hepdida lunged, the poker raised above her head, already beginning a downward arc of dazzling speed.  Kimbolt was four strides away and had but half-finished one of them. There was a grunt, Elise’s hand snaked out and caught Hepdida’s ankle.  The girl toppled off balance.  Giseanne leant back and it was the tip of the poker alone that scored a bloody line the length of the Lady Regent’s forearm. 

Then Kimbolt barrelled into the murderous invalid, bowling her other.  They rolled together across the floor.  The poker skittered across the tiles. He had her in his arms holding her tight.  Her feet flailed kicking his shins.  Her head shot back crashing into the bridge of his nose with eye
-watering force.  She wrestled and howled in his grasp.  “It’s all right,” he cried to the frightened girl he knew was trapped within.  “It’s all right. We’ll make it all right again.”

And over the shoulder of the wriggling lunatic he saw the Lady Gisea
nne, a white faced spectator, blood dripping freely from her wounded arm.  Others were rushing in, white cloaked priests and priestesses rushing to the aid of the wounded.  But none were in a hurry to approach Kimbolt and the heaving maniac whom he could barely restrain within the compass of his arms.

There was an agony in his heart which quite dwarfed the pain when Hepdida bit hard and deep into the fleshy part of his hand.  His feet scrabbled for purchase as she rocked from side to side, trying to shake free from him.  He dared not let go.  Guards were arriving now, guards with spears.  He dared not let go.

And there was Rugan, his expression darker than the night, the black voids of his eyes bereft of cheer or mercy.  He flicked his fingers, muttered some small incantation, and the thrashing banshee in Kimbolt’s arms went suddenly still and rigid.   But Kimbolt dared not let go, not even when the guards lifted them both from the floor and brought great chains to wrap around her feet and hands. 

“It will be all right Hepdida,” he said.  “It will be all right.”

Two priestesses hustled Giseanne from the room, her injured arm held high.  She gave Kimbolt a blank stare as she left, not the hostility of her husband, but a look of shocked incomprehension. 

Then they took Elise, lifted none too gently onto a simple litter and attended by a single curate. 

And then they came for Hepdida as she began to stir and howl within the confines of her chains, and Kimbolt tried to soothe her.  “It will be all right, Hepdida, it will be all right,” he said without conviction.

The square roof of the citadel tower made a fine vantage point.  It had held the beacon pyre that had been lit the night that Sturmcairn fell, but now only a few grains of ash remained of the conflagration which had once raged.  Haselrig drew his cloak close around him with a shiver that owed more to the memory of that night than the chill of the morning air.  He had been a hundred leagues away at the other end of the chain of beacon towers in the captured fortress of Sturmcairn, desperate but ultimately unable to prevent the signal being given to alert the sleeping realm of the Salved people.

The panic and consternation on that tower top had been absolute.  Even Dema h
ad been stunned into inactivity by the firing of the beacon, but Dema was dead now slain in the pass of Tandar.  The remains of Xander the traitor prince had been poured slowly into a makeshift grave.  Kimbolt, the Captain who had lit the beacon, was gone too, burned to a cinder by elven flame.  Of the four key players in that roof top drama only Haselrig alone remained, and for all their fears and the Master’s fury, Maelgrum’s plans had proceeded virtually unimpeded.

The undead wizard played a long game.  It was seventeen years since that night deep in the
mountain beneath the citadel, when the three of them had released the enslaver of the Salved from his prison.  There had been no immediate fulfilment of Xander’s hunger for revenge, only a malevolent patience by the Dark Lord in building force and allies to recapture his old domain, one piece at a time.

Five years ago it had been annexing the province of Undersalve in the name of the desert nomads.  This year it had b
een Morsalve.  Next year, when summer came, it would be the turn of Medyrsalve and the last provinces of the Vanquisher’s kingdom.  Haselrig paced the stone platform.  He had initially served through greed, though back then he had called it ambition.  Now he stayed through fear.  He had embarked on a journey at the side of a master of unimaginable cruelty, and there was no choice but to carry on, no escape, no alternative but to see it through.  He could only hope that, unlike his companions from the signal tower of Sturmcairn, he was still standing at Maelgrum’s moment of ultimate victory.

His reflections were interrupted by
a guttural grunt from the orc on watch to the East.  The creature waved his three subordinates over, gesticulating towards the horizon where the low morning Sun still dazzled.  Squinting through splayed fingers the antiquary could see the dark specks of distant birds. 

“Fetch the M
aster,” Haselrig ordered.

The biggest orc glared down at him. “Camrak give orders to orcs, not little man.”

“Fine,” Haselrig replied. “You do it, Camrak.  You might want to get some extra guards sent up here as well.”

“
Glubnut, go tell Master. Bird-women come back.”

“And?”  Haselrig raised an eyebrow to prompt the big orc.

“And…. And hurry,” Camrak concluded with a glower at the antiquary.

Glubnut disappeared down the stairway while his commander dared Haselrig to utter some word of rebuke. 
He heard something in the antiquary’s silence and answered it anyway.  “Three orcs enough for little human prisoners.  We not need more.”

Haselrig smiled and backed towards the stairway entrance, always anxious to guard his retreat in case anything should
go amiss.  He had discovered over long years in Maelgrum’s service that orcish arrogance was usually a presage to some form of disaster.

The flying monsters’ appearance was deceptive.  Their span, far broader than the greatest of eagl
es, meant they could be discerned when still well over a league away and it was a long ten minutes before the clumps of winged assassins were close enough to begin circling around the tower top for a landing.  They had brought only two prisoners with them but they had the most important one.  Haselrig saw the flash of red hair on the slim figure clinging to the lead harpy’s belly.  The other prisoner was a man, stretched between four flying maidens who glided down to a perfect landing in the narrow space of the roof top.  The captive wrestled against their grasp but, at a barked command from Camrak, two orcs flung themselves upon him pinning him to the tower with their weight as they wrapped bindings around his legs and arms.

As the first four harpies cleared the platform, the lead harpy came in for
her landing, attended by two followers who held the Lady Niarmit’s flailing feet.  Haselrig stayed back in the shadow of the stairway, more from fear of being shat on again than from any more mortal concern.

Perhaps that was why he didn’t entirely see what happened next, perhaps that was why he didn’t die.
  There was some squawk of panic from the harpy leader and Niarmit swung from her belly towards the stone floor.  The harpy was flapping frantic for height but there was a drunken disco-ordination to her movements and she slid sideways onto the tower.  Red blood was spewing from a jagged wound ripped up through her belly, or at least it was mostly blood.

The other two bird
-women had released Niarmit with a sudden jerk, raising their wings high for a downbeat that would drive them yards further into the air.  But their passenger must have leapt in the instant that Haselrig blinked for what he saw next was the red haired woman hanging one handed from a harpy’s taloned foot as the creature tried unsuccessfully to drag their combined weight into the air.  The circling harpies cawed and shrieked their alarm at the sudden disaster.  One of them swept down to buffet the furious prisoner with its wings and shake her free from its desperate companion.  There was a flash of silver as Niarmit drew a long steel blade from over her shoulder and a yellow toothed harpy’s head rolled across the platform to rest by Haselrig’s foot.

He looked up, one headless harpy was strutting a faltering walk across the rooftop until it toppled over the battlements.  Another of the
bird-women lay sprawled against a merlon, its blood mingling with that of its dying leader.

An orcish battle cry drew his attention
.  Camrak’s two minions were circling towards the ferocious woman and her blood red sword.  They were spreading apart but she was quick and that blade was deadly.  Orcish armour was stoutly made with a lattice of metal plates, but the first orc might as well have been wearing a night shirt for all the good it did him as the woman dived and drove and the point of her weapon emerged with a hiss from the creature’s back.

The speed of his comrade’s demise momentarily stunned the other orc.  He missed the
eye blink of opportunity as Niarmit was fully extended in the killing thrust.  Even as he gathered the wit to raise his ugly mace for a strike, the flashing blade slid out of its last victim and swung across his throat and he toppled backwards gargling his own blood.

There had been a dozen harpies, now there were nine all hovering at a safe distance.  That left the tower platform to Camrak, Haselrig and Niarmit.  Two to one?  Those odds were not nearly good enough for Haselrig’s liking.

He saw her look, appraising the two targets of nearby hulking orc and more distant cowering antiquary, and gave a small gasp of relief as she settled on Camrak for her next assault.  The big orc was grinning, tossing his scimitar from hand to hand as he circled warily around her. She feinted left. He guessed correctly and swayed out of the way of her blow, but she swung her blade back in time to block his counter strike.

He
stepped back. Haselrig saw the first crack in Camrak’s arrogant composure as the big orc registered the notch that the woman’s sword had cut in his own weapon.  He edged further back, less eager to launch his own blows and more focussed on dodging hers.

There was a clatter of mailed boots on the stairs and a fresh quartet of orcs erupted into the tower top.  Haselrig saw only a wrinkle of annoyance crease Niarmit’
s forehead at this new batch of assailants.  The newcomers, lacking Camrak’s brief but salutary experience of skirmishing with the lady and her formidable sword, charged at her in force, a decision that two of them quickly but briefly came to regret as their lives leaked out, black orcs’ blood mingling with the crimson gore of the dead harpies.  

The remaining two hung
back in a line with Camrak, all watching the lady edge sideways towards the trussed and wriggling form of her companion in captivity.

“
Are you all right, Kaylan?”

“Yes, my L
ady, if you could just toss me a knife I can get these bonds undone.”

The disclosure that the woman had brought her tame thief for company momentarily distracted Haselrig.  So he did not at first register the slight shimmer in the air behind Niarmit.  However, the hazy blurring of the atmosphere quickly solidified into a tall oval
window on a dark torch lit chamber.  Kaylan gave a cry of alarm at the vision.  Haselrig recognised it as Maelgrum’s throne room.  Niarmit, eyes front watching the hostile orcs, was slow to turn and the dark robed form of the Master was already stepping onto the platform, fingers flicking in a dance of enchantment, when Kaylan at last managed to verbalise a horrified, “behind you, my Lady.”

But she did not turn round.  She froze in position, sword out in front of her towards the wary orcs.  It took a second for Camrak and the others to realise their tormentor was paralysed and less than that to raise their weapons ready to take advantage of her vulnerability.

“No!” Haselrig cried, desperate that the impetuosity of orcish anger should not unravel the Master’s careful planning.  Maelgrum’s response was more practical. With a dismissive flick of his fingers he flung the orcs back across the tower top, falling flat on their backsides before they had taken so much as half a stride towards the defenceless form of Niarmit.

“I need thisss prisssoner alive.”

The orcs emitted muffled grunts of discontent.  Fear more than wisdom preventing them from a more open expression of dissent.  Camrak, with a look at his ruined scimitar and gleam of greed in his eye, stepped towards Niarmit.  “She broke my sword, I take hers.”

Haselrig’s cry of warning came too late, while Maelgrum made no attempt to alert the unwise orc.  Camrak reached for the sword with one hand, while his other grabbed Niarmit’
s wrist for the purchase to pull the weapon free of her rigid grasp. As his fingers closed on the intricately carved hilt, a charge of energy shot through the foolish orc sending him crashing into an insensible pile by the entrance to the stairway.

The remaining pair of orcs learnt new found caution, suddenly less eager to approach the frozen but still lethally enchanted form of Niarmit.

“Hassselrig.”  Maelgrum stalked around his captive, emitting a soft note of contentment that, to Haselrig’s ear, was not unlike the purring of a cat.  “I think there may be a ussse for the Bissshop.  He at leassst, can disssarm thisss ssscion of Eadran in sssafety.   Sssend for him.”