Wrath Of The Medusa (Book 2) (47 page)

Udecht blinked at the carnage.  The stones were slick with black red blood and a pile of bodies, feathered and green hided had been stacked to one side of the stairway entrance.  A big orc was staggering to his feet, mailed boots still slipping on a dry patch of floor
as balance slowly returned to him.  He cuffed aside a smaller orc who had extended an arm to steady him.  “Camrak not need help.” 

In the far corner a male prisoner sat up legs and arms bound tightly wi
th leather cords.  He gave the Bishop a baleful stare.   Haselrig stood closer by and Udecht could see the antiquary’s nervousness. The eyes glancing left and right while the tip of his tongue traced flicks of anxiety across his lips.

Only the
Dark Lord appeared free of agitation.  Udecht could not tell whether it was the coldness of the air or the uncharacteristic good humour of the undead wizard, but Maelgrum was stripped of the usual cloying mist of condensed displeasure which habitually surrounded him.  

“Ah B
issshop, ssso good of you to come.  You ssseee who elssse hasss come to visssit usss.”

Udecht looked at last at the captive form in the middle
of the tower, magically frozen in action.  The sword pointed towards him, but her head was half turned in the act of looking behind.  He had hoped never to see his niece again, for in her freedom lay all his hopes that Maelgrum’s plans might be undone.  But there she was, paralysed on the tower top.  Only in the rapid movement of her eyes was there any sign that a living soul rested within the motionless body.

He knew the panic she must be feeling.  His brother Xander had imprisoned him with the same enchantment on the night that Sturmcairn fell.  He well remembered the fear and impotence which had engulfed him then.  Trapped flat on a makeshift bed staring at a stone wall unable so much as to turn around, his heart pounding fit to burst within a helpless body.

“It ssseemsss our new guessst hasss brought sssome trapsss with her.  Would you be ssso good asss to relieve her of anything which might caussse Camrak or his friendsss any dissscomfort.”

“What?”

“Take the sword you reverence,” Haselrig hissed.  “Disarm the woman.”

Udecht stepped towards his paralysed niece.  He recognised the sword.  It was one which he had stolen away to give to her in the secret passages beneath the citadel on the night of his near escape. Its twin
still lay locked in a chest in Haselrig’s workroom, where Udecht had laid it and the antiquary had sealed it.  This blade was stained to the hilt with red and black blood.  He was glad it had seen some service.  He hoped it had done more. Hoped beyond hope that it would do more again.

“Quickly B
issshop,” Maelgrum urged, the first glimmer of impatience creeping into his voice.

Udecht worked at Niarmit’s fingers, prizing them with some difficulty from the pommel of the ancient weapon.  Whether it was the power of the spell that constrained her, or some vestigial control of her own muscles, his niece was unwilling to relinquish the grasp on her weapon.  He looked into her eyes as they scanned his face with quick urgent movements.  Was she trying to tell him something? If she was
, what was there that he could do?

At last the sword came free and he placed it with slow careful care on the floor beside them.  As he straightened up he wanted to ask her, to find out how Hepdida was.  Not sure how she might answer him, he managed to softly murmur, “my daughter? Is she well?”

The confusion of eye movements gave him no reassurance of what the answer was, or even if she had given one.

“And the ressst,” Maelgrum commanded.  When Udecht did not at first respond, the undead wizard added.  “Sssearch her all over, for any other trick or trap.”

Udecht hooded his eyes and mouthed an apology as he patted down Niarmit’s frozen form.  There was a thin sharp knife thrust in her belt, its blade like the sword’s was stained red.  He placed it with the other weapon.  He straightened up his discreet search complete.  “That is all.”

“Ssstrip her.”

“For decency’s sake!” Udecht exclaimed.

“Ssstrip her of her clothesss or I
will ssstrip you of your ssskin, Bissshop.”

Udecht felt the orcs draw closer and tried to position himself as a barrier between their prying eyes and his niece.  In days gone by his body would have been a more than adequate shield for the
redhead’s modesty but time and trauma had reduced him to a shadowy and ineffective screen.

He stood close and undid the top fastenings on her jerkin, then paused. 

“What have you found your reverence?” Haselrig noticed his sudden stillness.

There were
two thin chains around his niece’s neck, and it was the objects suspended on them which had caught his eye.  With both hands he lifted the first item over her head.  The coronation ankh dangled before his eyes.  At the centre of its head the great gem glittered a soothing shade of coral pink.

“What isss that?”

“It is part of the bloodline magic of Eadran, Master,” Haselrig hastened to display his knowledge.  “It charts the life of the heir to the throne and, when the monarch dies, shows the path to his successor.”

Udecht let the gem spin between him and Niarmit, its facets refracting shards of sunlight in both their eyes.  Strange to think the gem tracked his own life, shining bright a
s evidence of his own vitality, the heir to his elder brother’s daughter.

“Plassce it with the sssword, B
issshop,” Maelgrum commanded.  “Thisss trinket may have itsss purpossse too.”

Udecht lowered it by its chain, letting it fall the last few inches, trying to hide with his body any sight of the other item.  Of course she wa
s a priestess first and monarch second.  There against the pale skin of her chest rested a gleaming crescent symbol. Its intricate twists of gold were wound into the shape of the new Moon in remembrance of the promise of renewal and a new life hereafter that was always the gift of the Goddess.  Niarmit’s eyes flicked up and down in a move of swift deliberation.  There was some message, there, but what?  Seconds were ticking by, in a moment he would have to lift it clear and put it with her other confiscated weapons and treasures.

A sudden movement caught his eye.  The bound man in the corner had contrived to loose his bonds.  He flung himself at the nearest orc with a cry, seizing the creature’s knife from its belt.  There was a scuffle as Camrak and the other orc descended upon him.  Haselrig was shouting, “don’t kill him.  The thief has a purpose here as well.”

“We not kill,” Camrac was grunting. “We hurt, we good at hurting.”

Niarmit’s eyes had flicked to the side straining to see the brutal assault that the thief was being subjected to.  Her eyebrows rose a little as alarm and time contrived to loosen the hold that the magic had on her.

It was the work of a second.  Udecht’s hand shot out, snatched and grabbed.  The thin gold chain dug into Niarmit’s neck and then broke and the crescent slipped down Udecht’s sleeve.   

His hea
rt was pounding far more after the deed was done than it had been during the act itself.  Had anyone seen?  The grunting of the orcs and their victim as fists and boots rained down on the thief seemed to have held the attention of Haselrig and Maelgrum.

“Scchhtooppp!” the blurred drunken sound burst from Niarmit’s lips.

“Master,” Haselrig cried.  “The spell is losing its hold.”

The orcs paused in their brutality.

“Bind her,” Maelgrum hissed.  “Bind them both.  More sssecurely thisss time.”

Udecht stepped back as Camrak set to work tightly winding rope and cord around
the prisoners.  The battered and bloody thief seemed about to slip into unconsciousness, but as his senses faded, the lady became more alive, limbs twitching with returning sensation. Camrak contrived to smash his elbow into her face. Udecht’s cry of dismay slipped past the hand he raised to his lips at the sight of the blood streaming from his niece’s battered nose.

“Camrak,” Haselrig commanded.  “She is not to be killed.”

“I not kill,” Camrak grunted, delivering a winding blow to the redhead’s stomach.  “I just hurt a little, maybe more than a little.”

“Clumsssy, orcsss,” Maelgrum berated them.  “I need her healthy, not half dead.”

“She tricksy this one,” Camrak growled.  “She needs kept in line.”

“The spell’s hold was loosened early,
Master,” Haselrig observed.

Udecht grimaced.  When Xander had enchanted him, the magical restraint had lasted well over an hour and he had needed some external intervention to shake him
self free of its binding.  While there was hope to be had in the lighter grip of Maelgrum’s magic on his niece, there was dismay that the Dark Lord and his associates were already wise to the risk.

“We keep her quiet,”
Camrak offered, drawing back his fist for another blow to the prisoner as she breathed in spluttering bloodied breaths.

“Ssstop,” Maelgrum ordered.  “You could caussse an injury that would claim her before her part isss done.  The sssoft insssides of the human form are ssso easssy to damage.”

“Where then?” Camrak asked.  “Not face, not belly? Where?”

“Her handsss, Camrak,” Maelgrum announced.  “Cr
ipple her, don’t kill her.”

The big orc wheezed his approval with a throaty laugh. 
He got up and ambled over to the pile of bodies.

“Come, your reverence,” Haselrig urged.  “Bring these trinkets  We are not needed here anymore.”

With blind horror Udecht picked up the sword, the knife and the ankh and followed the antiquary towards the stairway.  Camrak, his search of the fallen concluded, walked back swinging a heavy mace with a broad grin on his face.

The B
ishop stumbled down the stairs.  He had gone five steps when the first shrill scream came echoing after him, a piercing cry of pure pain.  He stumbled on.

The powdered flunky rushed in after Kimbolt, begging excuses of his lord and master.  “Prince Rugan forgive me. The Captain barged past. I could not stop him.”

The half-elf looked up from the papers in his lap.  The petitioner
kneeling before the throne glanced nervously over his shoulder at the fulminating figure of Kimbolt.

The C
aptain stood, arms loose by his sides, fists clenching and unclenching as his fingers itched to punch or throttle someone.  “Security in my palace really isn’t what it used to be,” the half-elf observed without a smile.

“Please forgive me
, your Highness,” the flunky gulped.  “I can call for the guards.”

Rugan waved the suggestion away.  “If the Captain had meant me any harm
, he has already missed his opportunity.”  Rugan raised his fore finger towards Kimbolt and drew a circle of indifferent imprecision in the air.  “I think I can manage
this
well enough.  You may leave.”

“
What about my submission, your Highness?” the groveller on the floor interjected.  “I will pay most handsomely for the toll rights on the Eastway, far more than my competitors.”

“I must speak with the Captain before he bursts. You may
both
go,” was Rugan’s only reply.  When the would-be toll-master moved more slowly than the flunky, Rugan added an emphatic, “Now!”

Kimbolt did not trust himself to speak before the doors had closed behind the departing pair, but once the catch clicked shut he could not stop himself.  “You’ve locked them up!” he cried.  “You’ve locked them both up.”

“A long overdue precaution, Captain.” Rugan’s tone was flat and emotionless, but the fingers of his hands flexed in an agile rehearsal of spell casting on the arm of the throne.

“They’re sick, they’re both sick.  A prison cell is no place to keep an invalid.”

“No, but it suits a dangerous lunatic.”

“
Hepdida’s sick.  She needs to get well again.”

“She won’t get well again,” Rugan said with leaden certainty.  “You forget Captain, I have seen this sickness before.  The pattern of recovery and relapse is all too familiar from long months I spent at my wife’s side while she tended her dying father.  The recoveries were almost as cruel as the relapse, for the false hope it brought.  I grieve for the girl, but it is time we
let this disease run its course. The child had it right when she held a knife to her own breast.”

“You’ve locked her up to let her die?”

“I’ve locked her up to keep my people and my family safe, Captain.  Last night my baby son was a hair’s breadth from losing his mother.  The Lady Giseanne is too kind for her own good and it is time I saved my wife from the consequences of her own charity.  I should never have indulged her wishes to keep Hepdida here by us.”

“It is inhuman.”

Rugan’s lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “Well, as you may have noticed Captain, I am not human.”

Kimbolt felt the sinews in his neck straining, breath coming in angry throaty rasps as he tried to gauge how close he could get to the Prince before some spell of entrapment could seize him.  Rugan, seeing the fury writ large in the Captain’s features, softened his mordant tone.  “We will make the girl comfortable as far as we can, keep her clean to the end.  But we do no service by prolonging her agony.  King Bulve
ld would have begged for mercy if he could have, I am sure the girl must feel the same.”

“She was better, she was cured.  Elise had cured her.  Why have you had the mistress Elise confined as well?  Why wil
l you not let her work her…” Kimbolt hesitated and then rephrased his thought.  “Let her deliver her cure again.”

Rugan tilted his fingers outwards
.   “There was no cure, do you not see it now?  It was a temporary reversal in the disease’s inexorable progress that is all.”

Kimbolt shook his head in a rattle of confusion.  “But why confine her? Why have a guard by Elise’s bedside?  Why bar her from being visited?  She was a victim here, she took a poker to the head and across the belly.”

“And our priests have saved her life.  Elise has been luckier than my grandmother was.  We are not uncivilised, but that does not change who she is, or what she is?”

“I don’t understand.”

“My physicians found items on her person which, shall we say, were more than a mere herbalist might carry.”

Kimbolt tilted his head trying to fathom the half-elf’s argument. 

Rugan went on.  “I wasn’t sure at first.   She must have been shielding her nature.  However, Bishop Sorenson and Deaconess Rhodra both confirmed my suspicion while Mistress Elise slumbered under their healing scrutiny.”  He looked squarely at Kimbolt.  “The woman is a sorceress, a practitioner of the art forbidden to humans, a magic user, a criminal.”

The words, baldly stated,
struck Kimbolt like slaps.  He looked to the side, eyes scanning the ornate carved architrave as he sought for the correct response.  “I…”

“You don’t seem surprised, Captain?” Rugan rose from his throne
, his own head tilted in enquiry as he stepped towards Kimbolt.  “One might almost think this was not news to you?”

“I..” Kimbolt floundered wordlessly like a landed fish.

“Had you some inkling of the criminal nature of she who was abusing my hospitality and my wife’s trust?”

“She was curing Hepdida, everybody knew it, everybody saw it.  Even Rhodra.”

Rugan sniffed, “Doubtless the witch found some way to trade present health against a future madness and, oh what a whirlwind we have reaped now the madness is returned.  There is no cure for this disease.”

“It’s not a disease!” Kimbolt’s snapped exclamation drew the most piercing of sharp looks from the half-elf.  Rugan glared at him through
eyes narrowed with curiosity and suspicion.

“What do you know of this disease, Captain?”  He asked in a tone so low it rolled like distant thunder.

Twice Kimbolt opened his mouth to speak and twice he shut it in unbroken silence.  It was a curse, a curse that had been reapplied, or so Elise had said.  Elise who trusted no-one but herself and maybe him.  Elise who lay under guard recovering from the assault.  They had been attacked, attacked while he was fetching Giseanne.

“L
et me speak to her,” he begged.

“To who? The witch?”

“I must found out what happened.”

“We know what happened.   The foolish witch’s trick wore thin and it would have been no injustice for her to have perished
by it.  The crime is that my wife was drawn into danger, drawn in by you.”  The half-elf was circling Kimbolt now, fingers twitching like a fencer ready to reach for his blades.  “Were I minded to see conspiracy, Captain, and as my enemies know I am, then there is a fertile field in which to dig for it.  The criminal witch and the turncoat captain and my wife bleeding at the hands of a lunatic. It is not a difficult puzzle to assemble.”

“You cannot think that
any of us had any intent to harm the Lady Giseanne.”

“I can think anything and everything, Captain, and I do.
”

“I must see them, see them both,” Kimbolt mumbled weakly.

“The witch will await trial and imprisonment pending exile.  The girl will be made comfortable, but I will admit no access to any who might be tempted to let her loose.”

“Niarmit would never have allowed this.”

“The Lady Niarmit is not here!” Rugan’s frayed temper snapped.  “And your sojourn in this palace begins to trespass on the hospitality for which I am so famed.”

“What says the Lady Regent to all this?”

“My wife is worn by the cares of a Regency she did not seek and the disappointments of misplaced trust,” Rugan growled into Kimbolt’s face.  “And I will take any measure necessary to protect her health and happiness.  Now it is a cold winter, Captain.  Go back to your quarters and be grateful that, for now at least, I send you no further away than that.”