The Shield of Daqan Read online

  “My name is Andira Runehand. I mean this town no harm, and I will be gone soon enough if anyone here can point me towards the shortest road to Castle Kellar.”

  The peasant mob fell to muttering, apparently caught unprepared by that explanation and uncertain what to do about it. While Andira waited for them, Hamma gave her a nudge and directed her attention to a large timber-frame building that fronted onto the street. A faded wooden sign displaying a sheep or a donkey hung from a sagging portico and a second, smaller, angry crowd was spilling out of it.

  “They say the Ynfernael is the root source of all the world’s evil,” said Hamma. “And taverns are the wellspring of all its angry young men.”

  A tall, wiry youth with a thin fuzz of dark hair over his head raised a long knife. “We’re not afraid of the Greyfox here!” The drunken mob cheered him on and, buoyed by their response, he charged.

  “My lady?” Hamma asked.

  Andira nodded. “But be gentle.”

  Passing his lady her standard and leaving his sword in its sheath, Sir Brodun walked casually towards the running boy. The youth slashed his knife towards the knight’s face. Hamma bent aside, caught the boy’s arm as it flew past, and had him disarmed with his face in the mud before he could have realized he had missed. The knight knelt on top of him and twisted the boy’s arm behind his back, locking it at the brink of snapping between his gardbrace and his knee.

  “Hands off my son.”

  The voice was unraised, strikingly calm. Andira glanced to the tavern door where a man, similar in appearance to the boy but twenty years older, stood with a flatbow nocked and fully drawn.

  “We’ve had our fill of outside trouble here.”

  The bowman loosed, and then several things happened at once.

  Andira drew her finger around the circle border of her rune, the arrow bursting into flame as it a shield of sunfire and exploded in midair. Townsfolk ducked as burning motes rained down.

  The bowman gawped.

  “Sir Brodun,” said Andira, lowering her steaming hand and grimacing in pain. “Release the boy.”

  The knight did as he was bidden, and the youngster flopped to the ground. Crunching over bits of fire-blackened arrow that now littered the road, Andira walked towards him. She knelt.

  “What is your name?”

  He looked over his shoulder at her. Fear of her made his eyes weak. “Sibhard. My… my father calls me Sarb.”

  “Do not be afraid, Sibhard. Fear is one of the many spheres of the Ynfernael. It is to be overcome and eventually ignored. Remember instead the bravery that drove you to attack me to defend your village.” She smiled at him. “Although you should probably know that Sir Brodun was once the most famed knight in Roth’s Vale and I bested him in his prime.” Hamma grunted that this was so, but she knew it was a story he did not enjoy sharing. “I said I wished you no harm and I meant it. Let me prove it.” She laid her hand on the boy’s head. Pain crept into her wrist and up her forearm, but she held her hand where it was as warming light rinsed across the boy’s face, closing the cuts and bruises from his altercation with Sir Brodun, as well as a few other, less recent wounds, that he had earned elsewhere.

  Andira flexed her fingers and withdrew her hand. The boy gasped.

  Returning her standard to Sir Brodun’s keeping, she stood, walked to her poleaxe where it had remained, stuck in the soft mud of the road, and pulled it free.

  Slowly, Sibhard got up. He touched his face, his jaw, the fear in his face replaced with worship as he gazed up at Andira now. Townsfolk who had just moments before been warding themselves against evil sorcery dropped to their knees

  “Now,” said Andira. “Who is this Greyfox? And who can point me in the direction of Kellar?”

  Chapter Eight

  Kurt

  Gwellan, South East Kell

  The sun was sinking over the moors, tearing at the clouds with pink streaks. The cleaner light and fresher winds of the west, of the Kingless Coast and the unspoiled lands of Terrinoth, threw off the drizzle and the long gray cloak of the day. In spite of the hour Gwellan was abuzz. Andira Runehand was already being hailed in most quarters as a hero. It might have been all quarters, if not for those hailing her as a prophet, an avatar of Kellos, or (amongst the most predictably excitable) a new goddess for a new and evil time.

  Kurt could only laugh. Even if he had no one but himself to laugh with.

  Any hedge wizard with the right set of runes in their pocket could mend a split lip. The runemaster at Bastion Tarn, Kurt couldn’t remember his name now, could do miraculous things with frostbite and wound rot. What he’d mostly treated of course were hangovers, if he could be moved to sympathy by a hard enough push of coin.

  If he looked very carefully, and borrowed from his small store of imagination, then from his vantage at the top of the Gwellan hill Kurt could almost see a blueish flash of metal from the north road. It was a drovers’ trail really, a minor tributary of the Great Forest Road that ran out east, the long way around the forest’s borders, towards Kellar. The old soak, Yorin, had volunteered to lead Andira and her little army of fanatics north.

  Good riddance, was what he thought.

  To the lot of them.

  “I hear I missed a bit of excitement in town,” said Pranten, the pigherd, shooing the last of his animals into a snuffling, ill-tempered group churning up the mud of the road around Kurt and his already cantankerous black horse. The man had the washed-out look of too much worry and too little sun. His skin was pasty, and with a clammy sheen. His hair was long, but thinning. A huge wax coat swaddled him.

  “Better off out of it,” said Kurt.

  “That’s excitement for you. It’s always better after the event or when you’re not there.”

  Kurt nodded in agreement. “You might be one of those fools out there with her now if you had been.”

  “My marching days are long done, though I fancied myself quite the adventurer in my day.”

  Kurt looked the man up and down and decided to take his word for it.

  “I heard that hero was quite beautiful too.”

  “I think those days are long done too.”

  The pig-farmer sighed. “You’re probably right.”

  “Besides.” Kurt crossed his arms. He’d barely looked at another woman since Katrin, which made no sense at all, because while she’d been alive he’d looked at them plenty. Sometimes he thought that strength of feeling just wasn’t in him any more. Like Katrin had taken something with her when she’d gone. “I can’t say I noticed.”

  The other man gave him a look. “I heard she put you in your place, Kurt Stavener.”

  “Give her to me with her back turned and I’ll put an arrow in her same as anyone.”

  “You’re a proper hero, you are.”

  “No such thing as proper heroes,” Kurt grunted. “And if I had shot her then I’d have spared a lot of gullible folk around here a lot of wasted breath.”

  “Maybe. Maybe. Or maybe they’d have been calling you a hero now.”

  Kurt snorted. If that didn’t sum it up just perfectly then he didn’t know what would.

  Pranten gave his herd a last look over as if putting off the moment of parting now it was here.

  Kurt wished he knew what he was supposed to do with them.

  “Where’s your boy?” Pranten asked.

  “A quick errand in town, he told me. He’ll be back soon.”

  “You’re set on leaving tonight then?”

  “The Greyfox won’t trouble Gwellan again so soon, and it’s not so far. I can be there by dawn and Elben will be sure to fret if I’m not.”

  “Not like your eldest. I don’t suppose being roughed up a little by someone old enough to be his granddad will teach him any lessons.”

  Kurt frowned in thought.

  Sometimes he wond
ered if a good lesson was what Sarb needed. But if the last night on the farm hadn’t provided it then he wasn’t sure his brief and humiliating run-in with Andira Runehand’s henchman was going to do so.

  “No. I suppose it won’t.”

  Approaching his horse, he gave his baggage a final look over. He had picked up several packages of salt, honey, vegetables and grain, in addition to Pranten’s pigs, and spent several minutes pulling on straps and tightening buckles to ensure that all was secure.

  It was then he noticed that his bow was missing.

  “Damn,” he muttered, going cold in his chest, and spent another anxious minute rummaging to reveal the absence of a blanket, a cook pot, a tinderbox, a pouch filled with a half dozen recently purchased onions, and a spare set of Sarb’s clothing. “Damn, damn, damn.”

  “What is it?” said Pranten.

  Kurt bared his teeth, unable to make the words to answer, and looked back to the north road, desperately seeking out the blueish glimmer he had almost convinced himself he’d seen amidst the heathers. He could no longer see it, gone the way of the sinking sun. His thoughts raced. The old knight had been the only one in Andira’s company with a horse. Her warband would be going by foot, and even with a half day’s head start on him Kurt knew he could ride them down without pushing his horse to raise a lather. What he’d do when he got there was another matter. He’d slap some sense into his son, for starters, drag him home if he had to, but whatever he thought of Andira’s supposed godhood, he wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit for another run-in with her. Or with her knight.

  He thought of the pigs he’d just spent the last of his coin to buy.

  He thought of Elben, waiting for him at home, alone.

  He closed his eyes and cursed silently.

  Then he looked up, tears threatening in his eyes.

  Why did you have to die, Katrin? he thought. Neither of them ever listened to me.

  “Kurt?” said Pranten.

  “It’s nothing.” Kurt angrily stuffed what was left of his belongings back into their bags and climbed up onto his horse. “Just realized I’ve one less mouth to worry about this winter. That’s all.”

  Chapter Nine

  Trenloe the Strong

  Hernfar, the Borderlands

  Sergeant Marns brought Trenloe to a wooden door. The oak was rich and dark, but very plain. The handle was simple brass and the stone frame undecorated. The rest of the hall looked pleasantly furnished, insofar as Trenloe had the sophistication to judge it, albeit with a sort of bare-knuckle hardness you rarely saw in the homes of southern lords. Aside from Marns and himself it was also eerily quiet. There was no legion of aides or flunkeys going about their private business. There were hardly any soldiers. Just the occasional curl of mist that had somehow snuck in over a door jamb or through a window. The emptiness had been unnerving at first but Trenloe found he rather liked it. This was frontier décor. Lordship without its airs.

  It was refreshing.

  With a curt salute and a smile that might have been sympathetic, Marns withdrew to attend his other duties.

  Trenloe knocked on the door, waited a moment and then ducked inside.

  A highly polished oak table sat in the middle of a modest chamber. Places had been laid for two, but Trenloe thought that it could comfortably seat four or five with standing room leftover for a servant or two apiece. He could almost picture it as the setting for a short breakfast before a battle, or a hurried conference between the castellan and her highest knights over simple fare. Two large platters were presently heaped with crusty loaves. The bread was of an eastern type he did not recognize, black-crusted and studded with nuts. Nevertheless, he had been dreading the sort of dainty he was likely to find at a lord’s table – softshell merriod eggs, razorwing tongues, Ghur Highland mushrooms – and the range of silverware necessary to eating it, so the straightforward food was reassuring. Even his father would have felt at home, though he might have grouched at the idea of putting seeds on good bread. Set beside the platters were two wooden goblets, both chipped, a jug of water, and a large breadknife with a serrated blade and a plain wooden handle. A fat tallow candle produced a smoky light and a strong scent of cooked mutton. There was a single window, and since the room was quite high above the castle it was pleasantly large, but the evening was gloomy, even above the fog, and the candle was the only source of light.

  Lured by the scents, Trenloe drifted towards the table.

  He’d not had a proper meal since the crossing from Dhernas. Dremmin would probably have finished off both platters by now. Even Bethan, though she would have been more convincingly guilty about it afterwards. But Trenloe’s father had taught him better manners.

  He pursed his lips in thought.

  As he had never been introduced to either of his lieutenants’ parents he decided that that was probably unfair.

  But he remembered his manners better.

  Mentally tightening his belt, he moved to examine the shelves that lined the walls.

  In amongst the decorative tea sets, small portraits of hard men in serious armor, and the strange fetishes of ivory and feathers that had to be trophies claimed from battles fought beyond the Lothan in the Ru, were several books with cracked, faded spines. Trenloe ran his finger along them, but did not pick any one to look at more closely. He had never learnt his letters. Though not for want of effort. The skill just didn’t seem to want to go in. But he’d always felt… the best word he could think of was enlightened in the presence of words. There was something civilizing about them. Something better. Even in this small room they seemed to stand above and apart from the rough décor and bestial totems.

  A second door behind him creaked, and Trenloe turned.

  A large woman in the last years of her middle age walked in. She was wearing a richly padded doublet and an embroidered cloak with a fur trim. A heavy signet ring was squeezed over the little finger of her left hand and a scepter that looked sturdy enough to double as a mace swung at her hip. Her eyes had a sharp look that might have appeared knowing, even wise, if not for the sudden widening of startlement as she caught sight of Trenloe.

  “My word,” she whispered, after the moment of shock had passed. “Trenloe the Strong. You are even bigger than your reputation. That is saying something.” With an embarrassed cough, the woman swept out her cloak and seated herself at the table. There, she poured herself a goblet from the water jug and, disregarding the knife entirely, tore off a hunk of bread. With the bread in one hand and the goblet halfway towards her lips, she caught sight of Trenloe, still hovering by the bookshelves, and paused. “I take it I am somewhat more or less than what you were anticipating as well.” She lifted one eyebrow. “Would it be indecorous to ask which?”

  Trenloe cleared his throat, feeling oddly like a boy with his hand caught in the honey jar, and stood to attention.

  “Dame Ragthorn?”

  The woman sat back in her chair and smiled. “You were expecting some waifish dilettante, I wouldn’t wonder. Or some over-promoted imbecile. All chins and braid.” Trenloe shook his head, but the castellan raised her hand to forestall him. “No! Don’t try to deny it. I shan’t hear it. It comes with the territory of being distantly related to aristocracy, and so I am hardly offended. Baron Fredric is my cousin, you know.”

  “I didn’t, my lady.”

  “Oh.” The woman appeared briefly deflated. “Well, second cousin actually. We share a great-grandmother. But blue blood is thicker than red, as they say.” Trenloe didn’t think he had ever heard anyone say that, but then he was a simple man and so said nothing. As if marking his reticence, the castellan sighed. “Sometimes I think that no matter how far I climb people will assume that it is because of Fredric. Or how quickly I fall, I suppose. So there is that.” She set down the bread roll and extended her hand across the table. “Forgive my manners, sir, but this is a plain house. Dame Marya
Ragthorn, Lady of Hernfar.”

  Trenloe took the offered hand, swallowing it in his.

  “Trenloe,” he said.

  Marya snorted. “I know who you are. I envy you a little. Common boy. Self-made. Master of your own destiny.” She gave him a look and Trenloe again caught a glimpse of the sharpness he had thought he’d seen. She was a strange woman, but then most nobles tended to be. Being consigned to the eastern shoulder of Terrinoth had undoubtedly left her more than a little starved for conversation. But there was a shrewdness underlying it that Trenloe felt it best not to ignore. “But now I look at you I see that you were probably always destined to be a hero. As much I was destined to be lady of some out of the way castle far away from Kellar.” She picked up her bread. “So. Which was it?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “That you thought I’d be. Dilettante? Moron? Senile old mouth-breather stashed away in a border castle where she won’t bump into any of the Daqan lords?”

  Trenloe smiled. He thought he rather liked the lady of Hernfar. “I hadn’t thought much on it, my lady. My partner, Dremmin, generally handles that sort of thing.” He shrugged, thinking back to his home in Trast. Unlike the majority of sellswords and career soldiers, and even the handful of self-declared “heroes” he had met in his time, his childhood had been a happy one. “I mostly just fight.”

  “We all have our talents.” She gestured towards the chair opposite. “Would you please sit? Ordinary men loom. You…” Her eyebrow climbed slowly as if to encompass his stature. “Just sit, will you.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “And that’s enough of the ‘my lady’.”

  “Yes… er… my lady.”

  He eased himself carefully into the proffered chair and wedged his knees under the table, wobbling the crockery. Dame Ragthorn caught the water jug before it spilled and grinned. Mumbling his apologies, he picked up a whole loaf and broke it in half.