Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) (49 page)

The riders were either unwilling or
unheeding of the warning or unable to stop their horses, too eager
in the chase as their horses jumped into the ravine or fell in,
close to a copse of trees larger than the grove they had passed by
before. He skirted the edge of the ravine, pulling his horse around
to find another way down, when suddenly arrows flew through the air
from the direction of the copse, killing two or three of his men
and their horses.

Goga’s horse retreated, and he gasped,
watching in horror as a red-and-black platoon of Coe Wina guards
rushed out of the copse to capture the remaining men. “The fools,
the poor fools,” He muttered to himself, and spurred his horse to
flight once more, though this time away from the ravine and the
massacre.

He could not sacrifice himself as his
men had done, heedless and ignorant of the consequences, for he
knew what was to come, and he knew that the best way to repay the
Coe Wina guards in kind was to survive, and return in time to Coe
Wina, with a force that would crush and overwhelm Lord Lagotaq and
his men. Unlikely as that was in his current condition, when he
knew only that he was the last one left alive of the men that had
gone south from Coe Aela, and perhaps would be chased until his
death by the Coe Wina guards, but he could hope, could he not?
Hope, the cruelest thing of all, how he despised it in that
moment.

As the Coe Wina guard led Basha and his
friends down the mountainside, towards the grove with the sun
setting before them, he called, “Squad A! Status!”

Several men emerged from the grove,
dressed in red and black uniforms. “We have captured two men, the
rest of the Coe Aela guards who entered the grove are either dead
or dying,” One of them said. “All of the men were on foot, but the
first three who entered the grove were chasing three horses--”

Suddenly, the animals in question burst
out of the grove, startling the Coe Wina guards present, but Basha,
Monika, and Oaka called out to their horses, and staggered forward
to greet and subdue the animals. The Coe Wina guards who had been
put in charge of handling the animals followed soon afterward,
having failed in their attempts to wrangle the animals into
formation for the journey back to Coe Wina, but now they were
appalled at how quickly the animals took to these strangers.

“
I take it these are
your animals?” One of the guards asked.

“
Yes, they are, we
had been been forced to leave them behind us at Coe Aela,” Basha
said, brushing Talan’s forehead as the animal kept butting her
muzzle at him. “We have missed them very much.” He said.

“
I suppose you may
keep them.” The Squad A leader said. “We have no use for them, and
your feet can rest on the ride back to Coe Wina. But wait right
here, don’t mount up just yet.” The leader warned them as they
moved towards their horses. “We will collect the prisoners, and
then we will continue the rest of the way together. We must meet up
with the rest of our platoon at their copse, and see if they had
any success with their ambush.”

“
Platoon? Copse--are
there more of you?” Gnat asked.

“
Yes. We will explain
later.” Squad A Leader said.

“
Why don’t you
explain it now?” Oaka asked.

“
It’s too
complicated, now hush.” He ordered, as his squad emerged from the
trees with their prisoners. The group was ordered to mount up, with
Gnat sitting behind Basha on Talan and Fato flying above them, as
they were escorted the rest of the way to Coe Wina, with a brief
stop at the ravine.

Talan, Deja, and Joko fidgeted as they
approached, and then threatened to rear at the smell of the corpses
in the ravine. Even humans with less sensitive noses started to
gag. But a few of the soldiers had taken charge of the horses, to
stop the group from riding off if they so intended, and calmed the
animals down. They were forced to continue on. Gnat covered her
eyes, unwilling to look into the ravine as Basha, Monika, Oaka and
Fato stared down, unwilling to look away as they knew that they
were responsible for this bloodshed, having brought the Coe Aela
guards to the ambush. They had to face what they had done.

The action long since
over, and the smell having alerted them to what to expect so that
they might steel themselves, meant that they weren’t quite as
shocked as they might have been, if they had come to a fight like
this unawares as participants. But they still were unsteady in
their seats as they contemplated the awful scene, and had to hold
on tightly to their horses. Basha recalled the fight that he had
been a part of in the warehouse about two weeks ago, and how much
worse it was to be a part of such an action, like one of the Coe
Wina guards who had attacked the Coe Aela guards, or one of the Coe
Aela guards
.
T
o be involved in such bloodshed, and yet
to be removed from it as well, unable to process fully what was
happening around them except for what needed to be done in the
moment. Everything was filtered through the senses, and the edges
were always dulled in a fight like that, until reflection made them
more vivid in the mind. The men who survived would
remember.

Basha remembered what he had feared on
the mountainside, being chased down and killed by Goga’s men, and
how it was now the Coe Aela guards who had faced a similar fate. It
didn’t make him feel any better, or braver. It just made him feel
worse.

Monika studied the dead and captured
men from where she sat on Deja, and asked, “Where is Captain Goga?
Was he amongst them?”

“
We saw his flag,”
One of the Coe Wina guards said, as more prisoners and the rest of
the platoon joined the squad. “His personal flag, just as the Coe
Aela guards approached the grove close to the mountainside, but he
was not here, nor was he over there. We believe he got away,” He
said, looking up at the group. “A horse and rider were spotted at
the top of the ravine just as the fight started, and it fled. We
sent several men after him. Hopefully they will capture or kill
him.”

The group inhaled and shuddered at the
thought of Goga still on the loose, with Gnat in particular
clutching Basha tighter and making it difficult for him to breathe
a little, but there was nothing they could do for now, just hope
that the Coe Wina guards would prevail. The group continued on,
pushed by the Coe Wina guards past the copse and its carnage,
towards the castle on its motte, along with the captured Coe Aela
guards.

They had questions about what had
occurred, and how it had come about, but Basha and his friends did
not feel free to speak to the Coe Wina guards, who were even more
austere and stoic than the Coe Aela guards that they had previously
known. The group members found it difficult to believe that they
were safe here and even thought that they might have made a mistake
in coming to Coe Wina. Captain Goga and his guards might have been
defeated, with their pursuit of the group ended, but the group
members did not feel comfortable with, and were even more
intimidated by, the Coe Wina guards, after having witnessed the
outcome of their ambush upon the Coe Aela guards. They feared that
the same fate might await them and that, in the end, Coe Wina would
prove to be no different than Coe Aela.

This motley collection of people went
up to the massive gatehouse at the base of Coe Wina’s motte, and
then, once the portcullis had been raised, they entered the first
bailey of the estate, which included subsidiary buildings like the
guardhouse, forge, and kitchens. The guests were forced to dismount
here, as Talan, Deja, and Joko were taken away once more to the
stables. The horses put up a bit of a fight with the servants,
after having been reunited with their original owners not that long
ago, and Basha, Monika, and Oaka didn’t exactly blame them.

Fato fluttered down to land on Basha’s
shoulder. “Do you just choose people to land upon to please
yourself?” Basha asked the bird in a low voice, so as not to be
heard by the guards, but he was slightly exasperated with the
situation in general, not just with the bird. The horses, Goga’s
escape, being captured by the Coe Wina guards--it was just too much
for him to deal with right now.

“
Consider it an honor
that I regard you so much,” Fato remarked to him.

“
He does seem to
favor you,” Gnat remarked, standing next to Basha now instead of
clinging to him, as she had done on Talan.

“
I didn’t ask to be
honored or favored in such a manner.” Basha said. He wondered if he
was attracting people to him more now than ever before, now that he
was on his quest.

Monika stared at him, a young man
surrounded by bird and girl, and laughed. It was rather
embarrassing.

After the prisoners had been escorted
into the guardhouse, which led into the dungeons, the guests were
led up the barricaded slope, which featured obstructions and traps
designed to impede invaders, to the second bailey at the top of the
plateau, which contained the castle itself. Thick walls surrounded
everything from top to bottom. The Coe Wina guards escorting the
group made them stop here in the second bailey, as one of the
guards went forward into the castle, possibly to announce their
presence to his lord.

“
This is massive.”
Oaka said, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

“
One of the largest
and most well-fortified castles in the world,” Fato
remarked.

“
Indeed it is,” Basha
said, turning to Monika. “What do you think?” He asked
her.

Monika sighed. “I think that it is one
of the most redoubtable fortresses I have ever seen, although I may
have seen one or two that do go beyond even what Coe Wina has to
offer.” She said as Basha whistled.

“
Are you joking?”
Gnat asked her.

“
Do I look like I
am?” Monika teased.

“
No talking.” A guard
hissed, and the group fell silent once more until the castle door
opened. An older gentleman, of about 59 years, stepped out, dressed
in fur-lined robes that overwhelmed his slim body, his face a crag
of weathered and brow-beaten lines, by storms, erosion, avalanches
and eruptions that had taken their toll upon him. His face also
contained bright, yet penetrating eyes that overwhelmed others with
a glamour of their own, and a smile that seemed genuine even if
faulty. His graying hair, which appeared to be chestnut originally,
reminded Basha of the steward Marlo that they had met in Coe Aela
briefly just before they found out what sort of a place that
was.

Basha blocked out that tainted memory
as the group bowed their heads, assuming that this was Lord Lagotaq
since the guards were doing the same, and Lord Lagotaq waved a
trembling hand at them. “Don’t bother, I’m not here just for
pleasantries. Welcome to Coe Wina, I am Lord Lagotaq, your host and
Duke of this castle, and I would like to ask you all--which one of
you has the fire power?” He said.

“
I--I suppose you can
say I do, Your Grace” Oaka said, lifting his hand as the other
members of the group stared at each other in
astonishment.

“
Prove it.” Lord
Lagotaq commanded.

Oaka closed his eyes and then
concentrated on Sisila, until the sparks and flames appeared in his
hands, glowing with the intensity of a small sun. “Is that enough,
Your Grace?” He asked. There was a small light that danced off of
the edges of his vision then, coming from the castle, until he had
quenched his flames.

“
It is enough.” Lord
Lagotaq said, turning around and whistling. A page emerged from the
shadows of the doorway, carrying a long, narrow, and short chest,
which cracked at the edges, rusted on the hinges, and had a thick
layer of grime covering its surface, as well as other signs of
indeterminate old age. A prickle of lightning went up Oaka’s spine
then and made him shudder. The page managed to get the chest
through the doorway and then conveyed it to his lord, holding it up
for Lord Lagotaq to delve into the pockets of his fur-lined robes,
retrieve a key, unlock all of the clasps and remove them to reveal
a shimmering haze.

A blaze of bright orange, red, green,
yellow, magenta, copper, burnished gold, black, gray and white hit
their eyes and blinded them, hypnotizing them into seeing nothing
else but the flames full of sparkle and life, flickering and
dancing lazily until the flames roared into a monstrous inferno
that swept everything else aside, except for what it swallowed
whole. The blaze finally settled down into a sheen of bright-red,
almost brighter than blood, along its cracked leather hilt and
blade, which curved incrementally on its long, straight path to a
sharp point, yet the lines forged into the steel were wavering
constantly, with a glow of their own.

Oaka stepped forward,
awed and attracted by the light, as Lord Lagotaq removed the Red
Sword and its
red
scabbard from the chest, holding them out for the
young man to grasp. Oaka felt at once comforted by the warmth and
lightness of the Red Sword as it reminded him of Sisila lying
against his chest underneath the bushes, in Suma and in all other
seasons, breathing with him and their hearts beating together. He
almost thought he could hear and feel her heartbeat in that moment,
but something about it was different for him.

“
My name is Oaka, and
I bind this Sword to me. Thank you.” He whispered.

As Oaka stepped off to the side and
practiced swinging the Red Sword, with the guards watching him,
Lord Lagotaq reported, “A few nights ago, when there was a storm on
the Old Smoko mountain range a few miles away from here, I was in
my study writing, when the Red Sword...stirred in its chest. It
caused a commotion where it was stored, and the servants had to
bring it up from the basement before it damaged some other items. I
was informed of the situation, and I came down to see what could be
done to quell the thing.