Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) Read online

  “By the Goddess,” Kaylan was whimpering on the other side.

  “By the Goddess indeed, Kaylan,” she hissed back. “If I, who was once a perfumed and pampered princess can tolerate it, then you who spent half your life in a stinking prison should be no less at ease with this.”

  It was an unkind jibe. Kaylan bore his criminal past like a hair shirt at the best of times, and from the silence on the other side of the gateway she knew her words had bitten deep. After a pause, broken only by the drip of liquid falling from her face, Kaylan’s voice came from the blackness, somewhere between sullen and servile, with “yes, my Lady.”

  There was a slight ripple as he ducked under the surface. Niarmit reached down to help pull him through, but then there was a louder splash and the hand she had briefly touched disappeared from her reach.

  “My Lady!” there was a spluttering gasp from the other side, a noisy explosion of struggle. She heard and felt his hands clasping the bars on the other side, she gripped them, reaching through to his arms.

  “Kaylan?”

  “I am taken, my lady, seized. Flee while you can.” Whatever it was, must have had Kaylan by the feet for he was stretched out horizontally and he gave a sudden shriek of pain as some part of him was injured.

  Still holding onto him with one hand, Niarmit pulled at the chain around her neck to free the crescent shaped symbol of the goddess.

  “Lumen per Dea,” she muttered, and the narrow channel was immediately filled with light. Blinking she saw through the bars Kaylan’s face, white with pain beneath the streaks of indeterminate dirt. Beyond him she saw a creature crouching in the water, grasping Kaylan’s calf with both hands and, as she watched it sank its teeth into his flesh, drawing another scream of agony from him.

  “No,” she screamed and, at this new noise it turned to look at her. It was human, or may once have been. Her accomplice’s blood ran red down the rotted flesh of a ruined chin. Its eyes were opaque white, yet somehow still they saw her. A few locks of hair still clung to its skull.

  “By the Goddess,” she instinctively swore as the creature bared its teeth and hissed at her.

  “Fly while you can,” Kaylan pleaded.

  “No, Kaylan!” she spat back. “I’m not losing anyone else.” What was this creature? What could she do to harm it, trapped in a narrow shit filled tunnel on the wrong side of steel bars? She raised the crescent symbol to her lips in search of inspiration. The creature’s leering menace suddenly turned to fear and it leant back away from the shining emblem. On an impulse she mouthed a simple blessing, “benedictonium de Dea.”

  The impact was beyond her wildest imaginings. The creature began to turn, abandoning Kaylan’s injured leg it sought to fly, but it had moved barely an inch or so down the tunnel before its skin began to crumble and crack before her incredulous eyes. Its skull caved in as its rotting flesh turned all to dust which fell in a drift onto the slimy surface.

  “Truly, my Lady you are in high regard with the Goddess!” Kaylan gasped despite the pain of his bleeding leg.

  “Hold your breath!” she instructed as she pulled him down and under the bars.

  The agony of the short submerged journey showed on his features as Kaylan surfaced, grey and not far from a dead faint. “My leg is done, my lady. Please go.”

  “Shut up,” she told him, dragging his wounded leg to the surface to see more clearly while the light of the spell she had cast endured. It was a nasty injury, two deep bites the first of which had torn a lump of muscle from the back of his leg. She pressed the crescent symbol against the wound and closed her eyes as she repeated a familiar mantra. “Sanaret servum tuum carus dea, sanaret servum tuum carus dea, sanaret servum tuum carus dea, sanaret servum tuum carus dea.” Each repetition drained her of energy as though she had run a sapping mile and by the fourth one she was panting for breath. But when she opened her eyes she was rewarded with the sight of a wound which, if not entirely healed, was at least sealed closed with slightly irregular but healthy pink flesh.

  “My Lady!” Kaylan said in awe as he flexed his foot with the mildest wince of discomfort.

  Niarmit nodded grimly and replied. “It seems the Goddess has at last forgiven me the times I have distracted myself learning the crafts of your trade, Kaylan.”

  “Aye my Lady, you could make a far better thief than I, no ill intent meant you understand, but I am right glad you are a still greater priestess.”

  “Aye, Kaylan, but remember, my name is Niarmit. Now let’s get out of this shit hole.”

  ***

  “Don’t you people ever knock!” Udecht, bishop of Sturmcairn, exclaimed as he gathered the bedclothes around his well fleshed body.

  “Er…” Kimbolt stammered. “I had not thought to find you abed at this hour, your reverence and the Prince has sent me on a matter of some urgency.”

  “My nephew thinks everything is urgent,” Udecht muttered, patting the plump cushions that filled his bed. “A little privacy if you please, Captain,” he asked, waving his hand for Kimbolt to turn around. “There are parts of the body ecclesiastic that are not for general viewing.”

  “Of course your reverence.” Kimbolt obediently turned his back hearing only the swish of robes as the priest put on his vestments.

  “What is the latest crisis that our castellan bids me attend?” Udecht demanded crossly.

  “I was not to say, your reverence, merely to bring you to the gatehouse and to do so immediately,” he tried in emphasising the last word to convey the urgency of Thren’s summons, but the Bishop was not in a mood to be hurried.

  Udecht harrumphed unhappily, “gatehouse eh? so doubtless some soldier on patrol has an injury that needs a priest’s powers of healing. Well for this kind of disturbance I expect two broken limbs and a fair bit of bleeding. Anything less, and I will cuff yon’ Prince’s ears for him, done it before Captain, mark my words I’ve done it before.”

  Kimbolt kept silent. He did not doubt that there was some truth in the Bishop’s words. He may indeed have clipped Thren round the ear, but the last time would have been at least fifteen years ago when Thren had been but a child and Udecht’s father still sat upon the throne.

  After what seemed an age, Udecht announced himself ready with a command for Kimbolt to lead the way. Outside the Bishop’s quarters the Captain waited while Udecht pulled the door closed and then made to move off. “You aren’t locking the door, your reverence?”

  Udecht looked at him squarely. “I would like, to think, Captain that with a garrison of a thousand of the King’s finest in the strongest fortress not just in the realm but probably in history, that the locking of my door would be a little superfluous. Now, given my nephew’s desire for haste, perhaps we should move on, or is there anything else you wish to pass comment on?”

  “No, your reverence,” Kimbolt dipped his head in a subdued bow and the two men hurried off down the corridor. Behind them, the door to the chambers creaked fractionally ajar and a slender hand threaded through the opening.

  The fortress of Sturmcairn was built into the side of the mountain. On its Northern flank its walls melded into the side of Silvertop whose sheer sides rose to the highest peak in the Gramorc range. The fortress’s southern wall skirted some four hundred yards along and thirty feet above the narrow ledge that was the Silver pass, one of only three routes through the Gramorc mountains. The ledge ranged from ten to thirty foot wide. Its other side was a vertical drop into the tumbling churning waters of the young Nevers river which was just beginning its long journey across the Salved Kingdom. Any creature passing east or west through the mountains had to pass under the walls of Sturmcairn at point blank range for the skilled archers and spearsmen within.

  For good measure a gatehouse had been built, jutting out of the southern curtain wall, to straddle the pass at its widest point – so that anybody skulking unseen along the pass would still find their way blocked by the forbidding structure and unopening gate of the finest and oldest fortress in this or
any other kingdom. The gatehouse had three exits, each barred by a steel portcullis and a thrice timbered, iron bound wooden gate.

  The eastern exit opened on the pass leading back down into Morsalve the home province of the Salved Kingdom. In regular use, supplies, relief troops and messengers passed through the East gate in both directions. Also, those condemned to exile would pass through this gateway just the once, en route to the enforcement of their sentence.

  The western gate opened onto the pass into the forsaken land beyond the barrier, where dark things dwelt and exiles were sent. It was opened less frequently, either for a weekly patrol, or, once a month for the troop that would escort the latest band of condemned exiles to Eadran’s folly, where they would be abandoned to their fate.

  The northern gate opened on a stairway cut into the rock that led up into the fortress of Sturmcairn itself. Halfway up the stairway passageways to either side led off to the holding cells for the condemned exiles. It was not considered fit for such people to be accommodated in the main castle.

  It was down this northern stairway that Kimbolt now led the royal uncle. All three portcullises were down and Thren was pacing angrily back and forth at the foot of the stairs. In the square space beyond a score of cold returning soldiers waited in obedient bafflement.

  “What kept you?” Thren demanded, leaping up two pairs of steps to confront the tardy bishop.

  “A bishop of the Goddess cannot rise at will to every soldier’s whim, nephew, not even one so exalted as the castellan of Sturmcairn.” Udecht’s attempt at a tone of avuncular reproach inflamed more than calmed Thren’s ire.

  “A bishop in a fortress is under military orders, my orders. Uncle or not, Udecht, in this place and time you call me sire!”

  “Er… yes, er… sire.” Udecht rattled more by Thren’s anxiety than his intemperance. “What is it that vexes you so, sire? is one of the men injured?”

  “Injured?” Thren toyed with the idea. “Not one of ours. There is a man Captain Thackery has brought back from beyond the barrier.”

  Udecht’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Brought back? From beyond the barrier?”

  “Indeed,” Thren echoed the Bishop’s incredulity. “It is a man I would have you cast an eye upon before I consider opening any gate.”

  “I am as curious as you, sire, to see this man that Captain Thackery sees fit to break every law and order for.”

  Udecht approached the gate on the other side of which the Captain Thackery awaited, a hoarfrost dusting his moustache, a perfect picture of misery. “Well Thackery, where is this exile?”

  “’An it please your reverence, but he’s in the litter. Could barely walk when we found him, said I should show you and the Prince this though.” Thackery held up a ring, a gold ring set with a heavy ruby around which two golden serpents wound delicately carved bodies.

  Udecht gazed at it in disbelief and held up his own hand which bore an identical ring, save that the stone was a deep green emerald. “Where….. where…. where did you get this?”

  “I asked the same question, uncle,” Thren grunted behind him.

  “Our mother had them made,” Udecht murmured absently. “Her dowry paid for them. A diamond for your father, a saphire for your Aunt Giseanne, an emerald for me and a ruby… a ruby for…”

  “Bring the prisoner over here,” Thren commanded.

  Four soldiers brought the stretcher over and laid it and its occupant lengthways along the side of the portcullis. Udecht looked down in wonder at the strained features of the invalid as his head turned feebly from side to side. His hair was lank and unkempt, his beard straggly. He was thin and pale, the left hand that fretted at his side was missing the little finger. He muttered incessantly. “I have sinned, Goddess forgive me I have sinned. I was a fool and I have suffered, I must suffer, suffering is my lot.”

  Udecht’s face was creased in a conflict of grief and joy. He blinked damply at the form through the portcullis.

  “Is it him?” Thren demanded impatiently behind him.

  The Bishop heeded not his nephew’s question, speaking soft soothing words to the restless figure on the stretcher. “It’s me,” he said. “It’s Udecht. It’s been so long, my poor brother. Tell me, tell me you remember, you remember who you are?”

  The figure stilled for a moment at the Bishop’s words and the eyes ceased their wandering, instead staring fixedly over his shoulder as though the answer to the question lay in the air behind him. “I…. I was called Prince once… my name was Xander, Prince Xander and I have come home.”

  “So it is him then, Uncle Xander?” Thren demanded of Udecht.

  “In no great health, sire, but by grace of the Goddess yes, it is him, restored to us at last,” the Bishop confirmed mopping at his eyes with a silk handkerchief.

  “One last test though, let him unlock the gate himself,” Thren’s tone was grim, the occasion far less stirring to his emotions than to the princely cleric beside him.

  Udecht looked at him in shock. “You can’t mean…”

  Thren ignored him. “Thackery press the prisoner’s hand against the gate seal.” The veteran captain hesitated at first but then bade the stretcher bearers lift their burden and bring it to one side of the gate.

  “Sire,” Udecht interrupted. “You know what peril awaits anyone not of Eardan’s bloodline who tries to unlock those seals. In his condition the shock could kill him.”

  Kimbolt, a lowly witness to these proceedings, glanced at the life size palm print carved in stone at the right hand side of the gate. An identical sigil lay on the far side of the wall in the gatehouse and it was this that his colleague Thackery was presenting the prisoner to. These were the ancient magical locks which Eadran the Vanquisher had added to further strengthen the fortress. Like all the common soldiers and those of non-royal blood Kimbolt always kept well clear of the enchanted stones.

  “Aye, Bishop, I know it well enough. I’ve seen a panicked exile blasted clean across the gatehouse when he tried to unlock the eastern gate with his palm print. But if this shadow of a man is indeed your brother and my uncle then the blood of Eardan runs in his veins just as much as ours. He will have naught to fear from the bloodline magic.”

  “And if he is not?”

  Thren raised an eyebrow at the flicker of doubt Udecht seemed to now be admitting in his earlier confident identification. “If he is not, Uncle,” the Prince said heavily, “then you will have been sadly deceived but at least a dissembling thieving exile will have been prevented from weedling his way back across the barrier.”

  Kimbolt, Thren, Udecht and the handful of sentries on their side of the gate waited expectantly. On the far side of the portcullis, Thackery lifted the fitfully stirring invalid’s right hand. With great care he manouevred himself so he could place the other man’s palm against the seal while not touching the heavily enchanted stone himself.

  There was no explosion of sound and light, no sparks of magical fury, only a brief purple glow from the stones on both sides of the gateway and a low note of warning as though a distant bell had been struck and then silenced.

  “See,” Udecht cried in triumph. “He is my brother. You do him no respect, nephew, shame on you.”

  Thren just nodded to the gate guards who turned the crank to raise the now unlocked portcullis. It was far from full raised when Udecht ducked beneath it to fuss at the side of his long lost sibling. Seizing his hand, smoothing his brow, uttering hushed words of comfort. “All is well now, brother you are home.”

  Thackery and his troop waited until the gate was high enough to walk beneath, and then, at the Captain’s command, they marched evenly into the fortress.

  “Take my new found uncle to the exile cells,” Thren ordered, to Udecht’s immediate consternation.

  “Nephew, you are mistaken,” the Bishop wailed. “Prince Xander must go to the infirmary, he is not well in spirit or in body.”

  “’tis true, but he also has in his hands the power to unlock the major por
tals of my fortress. This is a man who has been missing for what, seventeen years. No one knows where or why he went. As you say, sick in mind and body. I cannot have such a potential madman roaming free. He is to be locked up until I can be sure he is no risk.”

  “Your heart is full of fear, Nephew and void of compassion,” Udecht stormed.

  “My heart, like my head is full of duty, as should yours be uncle. Methinks you forget yourself,” Thren retorted with a low gravelly note to his voice.

  “May it please you, sire,” Kimbolt dared to interrupt the princes’ exchange. “And also you, your reverence. The sacristy could be made quite secure to meet all needs and yet may offer a more comfortable lodgement than the exile cells.”

  Bishop and Castellan turned to stare at his unwarranted intrusion on their public spat, but the logic of what he suggested weighed more heavily than the manner of his expressing it. Thren, gave a curt nod. “That could be made to serve,” he admitted.

  Udecht’s furrowed brow smoothed into satisfaction. “Aye, he would be close at hand to my quarters, I would have no objection to guards being posted outside.”

  “Make it so, Captain Kimbolt. Bishop you have tonight to work your healing powers. I will visit him at first light to ask some necessary questions,” Thren instructed and then turned on his heel, departing while his exchange with his uncle was still broadly civil.

  ***

  Odestus knew he was dreaming, it was always the same dream which haunted his sleep so many nights. But knowing it was a dream did nothing to diminish the paralysing fear as his subconscious dragged him two decades back in time to that miserable little room. He tossed and turned in his narrow campbed mumbling aloud his part in a long ago conversation.

  There were twelve of them in all. rifling through the survival packs that the Sturmcairn guards had just given them. Odestus followed suit, his fingers struggling with the drawstring bag not knowing what he should be looking for, but finding solace in the mere act of doing something.