The Dame

FOUR

Bannagran stood at the top of the main keep of Castle Pryd, staring to the east. He could make out the light of some campfires, seeming to twinkle on and off as the many trees waved in the evening wind. The savvy leader had set the torch on the wall near to him so that any milling about the streets of Pryd would see him up there in his shining bronze breastplate, cut to accentuate his solid and muscular form. He wore no overcoat and his arms were bare, showing the man’s powerful muscles. Bannagran leaned forward so that his strong features reflected the torchlight. He kept his visage solid and determined, to direct the gaze of any onlookers to the plumed bronze open-faced helmet he had also set on the stone. How many times had the men and women of Pryd Town seen Bannagran adorned in that helm, his oft-broken nose crookedly protruding from the single line of bronze that ran down the front below his brow? They had seen that inspiring sight not once in the course of defeat, only in victory.

This was his role, he knew, and he had been taught well by his friend Prydae. As mighty as he was in battle, his biggest role was to serve as inspiration. “Better to kill one enemy loudly than ten silently,” Prydae once said to him. He had to look and act the part of leader. If the warriors didn’t trust in him, they could be routed and turned at the first sign of defeat, leading any one of a battle’s ebbs and flows into a self-fulfilling prophecy of disaster.

So Bannagran wore his decorated bronze breastplate on the tower top that night. He was too far up for any below to make out the details of that crafted suit, of course, but just seeing the shine would remind them of the craftsmanship, of the line of carved silver wolves running across the chest and the multitude of jewels inlaid above and below that bas-relief. Bannagran was a simple man and had never been overly fond of such finery but, again, he knew his role. He hadn’t come up here simply for appearance, however.

“What are you doing, Ethelbert?” he asked quietly, for something here was not quite right. Laird Delaval’s forces were gathering around Bannagran in Pryd Town, with more streaming in every day. Surely Ethelbert knew that. No scout could miss it.

Milwellis had won in the north and was in position to swing to the south and press Ethelbert hard. Surely Ethelbert knew that.

So why hadn’t he attacked Pryd a week before, as soon as Milwellis had handed his Northern forces the defeat at Pollcree?

Pryd Town swelled with soldiers. Even now Bannagran had at his command more men than Ethelbert could put on the field. That number only grew in Bannagran’s favor with more of Delaval’s warriors streaming in every day.

Bannagran looked past Ethelbert’s distant camp then swung his gaze to the south, looking for some hint that Ethelbert had another force moving in to support him. The night was dark, unbroken by fires beyond the known encampments. Bannagran had scouts wide and far south and east of Ethelbert. There seemed no reinforcements on the horizon.

So, with the balance obviously shifting day by day to Pryd’s favor, why hadn’t Ethelbert already attacked?

And now, with the full weight of Delaval congealing around Pryd Town, why hadn’t Ethelbert turned and flown the field, back to the east and the south where he could rally more allies?

Bannagran knew Ethelbert and had seen him in battle years before against the powries. He was a capable commander, a fine tactician who knew when to strike.

“A fine night,” came a voice behind Bannagran. He couldn’t stop his reflexive wince at the familiar nasal whine of Prince Yeslnik. Bannagran leaned more heavily on his hands, his fingers pressing tightly against the stone of the tower crenellations.

Yeslnik walked up beside him and followed his stare to Ethelbert’s campfires.

“They are many,” Yeslnik said.

“Not so many. Not nearly enough.”

“I will defeat them,” Yeslnik said, and by “I” he meant “Bannagran.”

“If we can catch them and engage them, then we-you-will prove victorious, yes,” Bannagran promised. “More so if Prince Milwellis pivots his force to the south.”

“I prefer to let Milwellis run to the coast to put those wretched lairds of the Mantis Arm to the fire.”

A tactical blunder, both militarily and politically, Bannagran knew, but he also knew that voicing such a concern wouldn’t do much to dissuade the stubborn Yeslnik and, indeed, might prompt an even more stupid response from the impetuous and spoiled young man. Let the lairds of the Mantis Arm hold their loyalties to Ethelbert for now, Bannagran silently reasoned, for once this fight was decided and Ethelbert routed, those lairds would quickly realign behind the victor. They had no ideological and deep-felt belief in this war, after all, and were simply trying to figure out which laird’s victory-Delaval or Ethelbert-would benefit their respective holdings the most.

“Do I need Milwellis?” Yeslnik asked. “Have I not given you enough to properly deal with this old sot from the south?”

“Yes, my laird, I mean, no, you do not need Milwellis, and, yes, you have more than enough men already gathered in Pryd Town to destroy Ethelbert’s force.”

“Then why are they not yet destroyed?”

Bannagran summoned his patience. “Because time works against Ethelbert. He is ill-supplied, and our numbers grow daily.”

“But I can beat him now.”

“A difficult fight.”

“So?”

The callousness of that remark was not unexpected by Bannagran. Yeslnik didn’t care how many men and women, his own as well as Ethelbert’s, he sent to the grave as long as he achieved his victory.

“If Laird Ethelbert comes at us, we hold a defensive posture and he will be utterly destroyed,” Bannagran tried to explain. “That would be the sweetest victory for you of all. If we must fight him in the open, then we will still win, though I fear that Ethelbert himself and many of his warriors will escape. If we must find him, we will win more decisively with every passing day. It is not just the victory, Laird, but the extent of the win that is important.”

“I grow tired of the waiting,” Yeslnik sighed. “March tomorrow morning.”

Bannagran managed to avoid Yeslnik’s gaze as he rolled his eyes.

“What will Ethelbert do in that event?” Yeslnik pressed. “He will see my strength and know his doom.”

“He will likely flee the field,” Bannagran replied, thinking it through as he spoke. He started to explain to Yeslnik that Ethelbert assuredly already knew of their strength, but the words caught in his throat and he stared back to the east more intently and with obvious alarm.

“What?” Yeslnik demanded anxiously, and he, too, looked that way. “What do you see?”

“Ethelbert is a shrewd commander. He knows he cannot win this fight,” Bannagran pondered, more to himself than to Yeslnik. “He will flee. He seeks no more, perhaps, than to draw us out or to keep us occu-” Bannagran cut himself off and shook his head with slowly blossoming concern.

“That is a good thing, is it not?” the confused Prince Yeslnik asked as Bannagran wheeled away from the wall and started for the ladder leading back into the keep.

“How protected does Delaval City remain?” Bannagran asked.

“Behind her high walls?” the oblivious Prince replied.

“You have emptied her guard?”

“To fight Ethelbert,” Yeslnik said, somewhat defensively, without knowing why.

“It is a ruse,” Bannagran explained. “A feint of the highest order. He does not sit there intending to fight but only to keep us occupied, to keep us gathering our forces for a decisive battle that will not commence, not here, not soon.”

“Then go and get him!” Prince Yeslnik cried, not catching on to the cause of Bannagran’s alarm.

“Why is he here?” Bannagran asked.

“What puzzles are these?”

“To bring us here,” the general from Pryd answered his own question. “Why does Ethelbert wish us here? Why does a swordsman invite a parry?”

Yeslnik stared at him blankly.

“Because such a parry will not defeat his true intended attack,” Bannagran explained, and when Yeslnik at last seemed to be catching on, he repeated, more grimly, “How protected does Delaval City remain?”

Yeslnik’s wail confirmed Bannagran’s fears. The seasoned soldier rushed into the keep, Yeslnik dithering in his wake.

Guard Captain Rubert was widely considered the toughest man in the service of Laird Delaval. He had grown up on the streets of Delaval City, literally fighting for his every meal. His knuckles carried the scars of a hundred fights, a hundred crushed faces, and he wore a necklace of teeth he had knocked from the mouths of his opponents.

His reputation served him well, with an appointment to Delaval’s own elite guards and a climb to the rank of captain, and in this latest adventure, where most of the soldiers had been sent from the city on the miserable hike to Pryd Holding, Rubert had escaped the call.

He was too tough, too valuable to Laird Delaval, the would-be King of Honce.

“Ah, but there’s a cold wind coming down the masur this night,” he lamented, tightening his cloak against the frigid breeze rushing down the great river, a harbinger of the approaching wintry season. “And I’m out o’ weed for me pipe and got not a striker pad to light it up. Be a good sport,” he called to his fellow sentry atop the wall encircling Laird Delaval’s main keep. “Put a light up and a pinch.”

As he neared, the man stood up and shrugged off the guard cloak. Even in the dim light of the quarter moon Rubert knew at once that this was not his companion. For that moonlight shined off a bald head, where his companion wore a thick mop of black hair, much like Rubert’s own.

“Who are you?” Rubert called, his hand going to his finely crafted sword.

The imposter strode calmly toward Rubert. He carried no weapon that Rubert could see, and he was not a large man, certainly not near to Rubert’s two-hundred-fifty-pound muscular frame.

“Far enough!” Rubert warned, drawing forth his sword, its dull metal gleaming in the moonlight.

The stranger continued toward him.

“You have been warned!” said Rubert. Heart pounding, he retracted his arm and thrust his blade at the man’s chest.

But the man was no longer standing before him, having somehow moved enough to the side so that the blade slipped harmlessly past. Rubert felt a slight thump against his throat. He fell back, slashing his sword at the stranger, who by then had retreated safely out of reach.

“What are you about?” Rubert said, or started to say, or tried futilely to say, for no sound moved past his lips, though he did hear a wheeze a hand’s width below them. He brought his free hand up to his throat and moved it before him into the moonlight, feeling the warmth of his own blood on his fingers. He started to protest, to ask the man another question, but again nothing came forth but a wheeze.

Another form scrambled over the wall behind his attacker, then more behind him. The original assailant grinned at Rubert and calmly walked by. Rubert meant to strike at him with his sword. He really did, except that his arm wouldn’t heed his command to lift the weapon; indeed, he heard the sword, as if very distantly, clang against the tower’s stone roof.

The stranger walked past, along with his companions. Rubert stood there, staring ahead, only vaguely aware that he was perched on the precipice of death’s dark pit and falling forward without reprieve.

Only vaguely did Rubert feel his nose and cheekbone shatter against the hard and cold stone of the tower roof. Only vaguely did he hear the shuffle of light footfalls go past him. He didn’t think of Laird Delaval, the would-be King of Honce, then. He didn’t think of anything at all, just the inviting, irresistible blackness.

Laird Delaval was not a young man, and he surely felt every day of his nearly sixty years that evening. Winter was coming on in full force, with frost every morning and several snow flurries already. Delaval wasn’t looking forward to it. He had hurt his knee in battle three decades earlier, thrown from his horse when some impudent peasant had stabbed his mount in the flank. Though the laird’s wounds had healed-he was back to fighting form within a few weeks-the knee used every day of inclement weather, whether rain or the constant ache in the cold winters, to remind him of that long-ago fall.

“If my nephew can be rid of that troublesome Ethelbert in the coming battle, I just might winter in Ethelbert dos Entel this year and every year thereafter,” Delaval said to Genoffrey and Tademist, his personal attendants and generals. Genoffrey had been with him since the early days, before Delaval had even been named successor to his father, the laird. A large man, his muscles not slackened in the least by the passage of the decades, Genoffrey wielded a claymore of extraordinary weight. More than once had he taken down heavy warhorses on the field of battle with a powerful swipe, and he had one time slain three men with a single swing, a feat that was still much discussed across the holdings of western and central Honce. Tademist, half the age of Delaval and twenty years Genoffrey’s junior, had only recently joined the inner circle. Tall and lanky, the young warrior had not yet thickened with age. Where Genoffrey won with sheer power, Tademist was more of a finesse fighter, wielding a short sword and a long dirk, a rare two-handed fighting style, with cunning and unmatched speed.

The two men glanced at each other with obvious skepticism.

“I know, I know!” Laird Delaval said with a wave of his hand and a snicker. “Prince Yeslnik is not known for his martial prowess.”

“But he has Bannagran, the Bear of Honce, with him, my king,” said Tademist, who, along with Genoffrey and all the others of Delaval’s inner circle, had started referring to Delaval by the title all in Castle Delaval considered inevitable.

“You know this one?” Delaval asked.

“I know that his reputation is well earned, by every account,” Tademist replied, and Genoffrey nodded. “As is his title. They call him the Bear of Honce because of his great strength and size, and when he enters the field, the enemies flee.”

“I have seen him in battle,” the elder guard said. “Both when he was beside Pryd’s son, Prydae, those many years ago, and in our most recent fighting south of Pryd Holding. If anything, his prowess in battle and in commanding his forces is greater than the whispered huzzahs. The Bear of Honce, indeed, in strength and sheer power, but he is more the fox in cleverness. Prince Yeslnik is well-served by that one and will win every day if he heeds the instincts of Bannagran of Pryd.”

“That is good to know,” Laird Delaval said, nodding. He started for his armoire, unbuckling his sword belt as he went. He knew that Genoffrey and Tademist were glancing at each other again behind his back, both of them concerned by his pained hobble. “I plan to live a hundred years, my friends.”

“You will, my king, of course!” said Tademist.

Delaval laughed. “But these are dangerous times, and I fear that I’ve abused my body over the decades. Too many battles, too many hunts, too many women, and too much strong drink!”

Tademist started to protest, but Genoffrey cut him short. “I hear no regret in your voice,” he said slyly.

Laird Delaval laughed again more heartily. “You were there for much of it,” he replied, turning to face his oldest friend. “Do you believe that I should hold regrets?”

“Ah, but if our lives are twenty years shorter for the games of it all, then we’d have lived more than any man deserves!”

Tademist looked at his companion with horror that he would talk to the king so casually, and then both Delaval and Genoffrey laughed.

“You’ve been here for more than two years, young swordsman,” Genoffrey said to Tademist.

“Do you not yet understand?” asked Delaval.

“Understand what, my king?” the poor young man stammered.

“That when it is just we three, you need not call me that,” Delaval replied with obvious exasperation.

“But-”

“Oh, shut up,” said Delaval, laughing once more, or still, actually. “All the formalities are for those out there,” he explained, waving his hand at the closed door of his private chambers.

“And out there, never forget your place or his title,” Genoffrey added.

“But in here we are friends,” said Delaval. “Genoffrey was by my side when he was just a boy, a groom. As he grew, he trained with me and then became my constant companion in the wars. We saw men die, and often.”

“Too often,” Genoffrey grumbled.

“Aye, and we’ve killed men, and goblins and powries, side by side,” Delaval continued.

“I am blessed to be here, my king-” Tademist said with a bow.

“Nonsense!” said Delaval. “You earned it with your skills! You remind me of a young Genoffrey, and I assure you, that is no small compliment.”

Tademist, who considered himself fortunate in his daily sparring with Genoffrey on those rare occasions he even earned draw, didn’t doubt that for a moment. He looked to his companion and smiled.

A knock on the door interrupted the conversation.

“Speak!” Delaval called.

“Your hot towels, my king,” came the familiar woman’s voice of Maddie Macabee, another of Delaval’s personal attendants.

“Hot towels for aching bones,” Delaval said with a sigh, and he nodded Tademist toward the door.

But a sudden and sharp cry from outside the closed door froze Tademist in his tracks. “What are you about?” Maddie yelled, followed by a thump and a scream. Not just any scream. Delaval and Genoffrey knew such a keen quite well, the dying shriek, the final wail of a man or woman as death descends.

Tademist knew it, too, and drew his weapons as he rushed to the door. From over his shoulder Genoffrey pulled out Spinebreaker, his legendary claymore, and Delaval slid his fine blade from its scabbard and let the belt fall to the floor.

The door burst open before Tademist got to it. In rushed Maddie Macabee, though not of her own accord. She was already dead, her chest gashed open. She flew forward, tumbling before the dodging Tademist, who did well enough to ignore the shock enough to prepare for the man following Maddie into the room.

Behrenese, judging by the color of his skin, the man held a fine, slightly curved sword in both hands. He entered in a fast and steady walk, perfectly balanced all the way to Tademist, where he launched a sudden thrust, then retracted his blade with amazing precision and speed, launching it into a downward diagonal swipe that would have taken Tademist from shoulder to hip had he not been focused solely on defense.

Tademist twisted away from the thrust and backed out of the downward cut then responded fast with a sudden thrust of his own sword, a stab of his dagger as he retracted the sword, and a second thrust. He advanced as he attacked, thinking to drive the man back, for other Behrenese appeared at the doorway.

But the man was suddenly not in front of him. Luck alone saved Tademist as he happened to turn the correct way in trying to find his too-quick opponent and happened to have his sword at the proper level to barely deflect another thrust of his opponent’s fine blade.

A man went by the combatants to Tademist’s right as he squared back up with his opponent. A woman entered next, as sounds of fighting erupted in the hallway, the castle guard rushing to their leader’s aid.

Tademist faded right as the woman, a fine sword in her hand as well, moved to pass him on the left. He wanted to intercept, but his opponent kept him dancing, kept him dodging.

As the woman passed, she smiled at him, and such an awful grin it was! Tademist felt his knees go weak, as if she had just withered him to his core. In that smile he knew-somehow-that he and his beloved King Delaval were surely doomed.

Genoffrey was used to missing with his first swing. The claymore wasn’t wieldy, after all, and Genoffrey never took pains to disguise his first attack. The blade came lumbering down from on high and the warrior before him easily and gracefully leaped back and to the side.

Genoffrey hid his grin, purposely seeming to overbalance as Spinebreaker thumped against the thick carpet. He even appeared to stumble.

The warrior rushed forward to the side of him, pivoted fast, and came in with a straightforward thrust, but just as he started the turn, so too turned Genoffrey, dropping his foot back as he lifted and re-angled his blade, putting it right in line to pierce the charging warrior.

He thought he had a win, and the necessary quick one so that he could go to the side of his beloved Delaval. But the warrior leaped up high, front somersaulted above the level claymore, and landed in a run past Genoffrey. The soldier tried to turn to keep up and felt the burn in his side, felt the warmth of his blood spilling from a long and deep gash.

To his credit Genoffrey grimaced through the pain, completed the swinging turn, and would have scored a hit on the retreating man had not that man, almost as if he had long anticipated this reaction, dived into another roll, this time along the floor.

This Behrenese warrior was two plays ahead.

Well, come on then and be done with it,” Delaval said to the dark-skinned, slight woman, although he had no way of knowing if she even understood him. She just smiled and circled, her curved and decorated sword down low before her, its tip nearly cutting the threads of the carpet.

“I need not ask who sent you,” said Delaval. “Long have we known that the traitorous Ethelbert favored the beasts of Behr.”

“You leaders of Honce slaughter your people with impunity,” she answered, surprising Delaval with her command of the language. “And yet, we of Behr are the ‘beasts’? Tell me, you who would rule the world, how do you measure such a title?”

She came forward suddenly, her sword flashing left, right, and center with three separate thrusts that seemed almost as one to the Laird of Delaval. To his credit, he managed to pick off the first and back out of the reach of the second and third.

She wasn’t done, though, quick-stepping forward and turning a complete circuit-something few warriors would ever dare try-bringing her sword in fast at Delaval’s side, then doubling the complexity of her form by changing its angle mid-swing.

Somehow, and he knew luck to be a part of it, Delaval managed to block.

“How much is he paying you?” he asked, trying hard to keep the nerves out of his voice. In just those two routines, the man feared he was outmatched. “I will double it!”

“Shallow principles,” the woman chided. “We are beasts.”

“You intervene where you do not belong!” Delaval growled at her. “You risk a war with all of Honce!”

“Idiot Delaval,” she said, and she came again, in a vicious flurry of swings and thrusts that left Delaval dizzy, that left Delaval retreating.

That left Delaval bleeding.

“You do not command all of Honce,” the woman finished.

Tademist did not hear Laird Delaval’s gasp as Affwin Wi’s blade punctured his belly. The young warrior heard nothing but the near constant ring of metal as he and his shaven-headed opponent exchanged vicious and furious flurries. Sword hit sword, dirk hit sword, and so fast was the man from Behr that even as Tademist intercepted his thrust with the dirk and perfectly executed a responding thrust with his sword, he found it fully parried.

If that weren’t impressive enough, the man from Behr then immediately launched another thrust routine, left, right, right again, and then right a third time.

Tademist blocked the first three, but his anticipation had him sliding his blade across to block a thrust angled left that never came. He felt the stab in his shoulder, felt his dirk arm go weak, and heard the weapon hit the floor.

Genoffrey did hear Delaval’s gasp, a sound he had heard only once before, in a far-off and long-ago battle in the Belt-and-Buckle mountains. He reacted with a sudden and brutal straightforward rush, stabbing his sword then slashing it, then reversing it with a powerful backhand. He didn’t get close to hitting his opponent, but he wasn’t actually trying for a kill there. He drove the man back, back, and then he turned and charged across the way, behind Tademist and toward Delaval.

He registered that Tademist was in trouble, but there was nothing he could do at that time, for before him the woman was into another wild exchange with Delaval, their blades ringing and screeching with hits and slides, and Genoffrey’s fine eye told him that his friend was too slow here, that the woman was outmatching him, strike for strike. He watched her setting Delaval up with every stride he took, and indeed, he felt as if he was running in deep mud, as if everything before him was just out of his reach. She brought Delaval’s sword to the right, then a bit farther to the right, and then again, with three short, quick stabs, then she flipped her blade across to the left, actually tossing it to her waiting left hand.

“No!” Genoffrey cried in dismay as Delaval futilely tried to re-angle his own sword. To the laird’s credit, he did manage a central thrust, but the woman stepped away from it, farther to his left, and turned as she went, rotating her hips and shoulders, lengthening her thrust and putting great force behind it.

Genoffrey felt a slug in his lower back-he knew it to be a stab from his pursuing opponent-at the same time he watched the Behrenese woman’s sword slide deep into King Delaval’s chest.

It occurred to him that it was appropriate that he and his dear friend would die at the same time.

He finished his charge, unable to interrupt his own momentum, slashing Spinebreaker down hard against the woman’s blade, but too late, of course, for that only jarred the impaled laird.

Genoffrey stumbled forward, taking Delaval with him hard into the far wall. The king crashed in without any attempt to cushion the blow, slammed face first into the stone, and bounced away, crumbling to the ground. Somehow Genoffrey managed to hold his footing and hold his blade, turning about with his back against the wall. He saw the woman, in obvious distress, looking down at her sword, nearly half its blade snapped off.

Whatever comfort that might have given Genoffrey, though, ended as she thrust her arm at him and launched the remaining piece of her weapon, flying spearlike, spinning sidelong in the air.

Genoffrey heard it hit the stone wall behind him.

It took him a moment to realize that it had gone through his throat.

He slid down to a sitting position. The woman approached him, while the man who had been his opponent, his sword red with Genoffrey’s blood, turned toward Tademist.

Genoffrey heard Tademist’s cries, one after another, as the two men stabbed at him. Every now and then came the ring of metal as valiant Tademist managed a block, but mostly Genoffrey heard the sickly sound of metal puncturing flesh.

He didn’t see any of that desperate last stand, though, for he could not take his eyes off the slight woman walking toward him. She bent low before him, stared into his eyes, and gave that wicked smile once more, then yanked her broken sword out of his throat.

She started for Delaval, but calls from the hall turned her.

She crossed Genoffrey’s field of view, running back toward the exit. He wanted to turn to Tademist, wanted to turn away from the sight of his fallen friend, Laird Delaval.

But he couldn’t. He hadn’t the strength, and even the slightest movement sent fires of agony tearing through his body. He couldn’t even manage to close his eyes, and so was forced to watch Delaval’s lifeblood pouring from him, pooling around him as he lay so very still.

To Genoffrey, that was the cruelest trick of all.