The Invisible Chains - Part 2: Bonds of Fear (69 page)

promised. I promised Jerruth.”

The baroness didn’t respond. What was there to say?

“And the letter to the Grand Keeper?” she asked after several

minutes.

“To order a sarcophagus. White marble. To be put next to mine,

on the left side. Anaxantis won’t mind.”

Again several minutes passed.

“What will you have engraved it with?”

“Something simple, I think. ‘Jerruth, prince of the House of

Mekthona.’ What do you think?”

“He would have liked that very much, dear. Very much.” She

paused for a while, willing her tears back. “We don’t have his body.”

“We know he is dead, otherwise Anaxantis’s men would have

found him. They didn’t. That can only mean that monster killed

him and had him buried somewhere there. We’ll find him. As soon

as possible I’ll send a group back to Elmshill with carts and the

necessary equipment. We’ll find him. We’ll find all our men. I want

them
all
back and honorably buried. I’ll have those hills leveled one

by one, if that is what it comes down to.”

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“I wonder,” Sobrathi mused, “was he really a descendant of

Anaxormas II?”

“Who knows? He could very well have been. Anaxormas had

quite the reputation. But it doesn’t matter. What makes a prince after

all? Descent or how someone rises to the occasion when fate calls

upon him?”

Sobrathi thought for a while.

“Yes,” she said after the lump in her throat had stopped hurting,

“yes, he was a real prince.”

Xirull had waited until Anaxantis and his men had left. He was

just getting ready to leave his hiding place, when he heard voices,

women voices.

“Emelasuntha. Of course. Strange. If she’s here, why didn’t she go

to meet her son?”

He waited until he was certain the queen and her party had also

left the scene. Then, very carefully, looking in all directions, he made

his way back to his men.

“No, I haven’t found the captain,” he answered to their questions.

“He was nowhere to be seen. There was nobody there.”

He had thought it all through. It was obvious that the House of

Damydas, far from mounting the throne, would be in deep trouble.

Better to sever all ties.

The Black Shields had lost a captain. Not that Damydas had

been the only one, but maybe his Glorious Majesty would need a

replacement. Xirull, of course, was, and had always been, a loyal and

staunch supporter of the royal House of Tanahkos. What the baron

had planned and schemed, he didn’t know. The captain had always

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kept his cards close to his chest and, no, he had not chosen to confide

in his sergeant. The last he had seen of him was when he rode off to

Elmshill. He had later gone to his assistance, but when he got at the

place, there was nobody there. Simple. What had happened? Only

the Gods knew. Certainly not Xirull.

He had a long journey back to Ormidon to perfect his story, but

the broad lines were set.

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547

Though he felt a lot more at ease, Anaxantis had chosen to ride

until well after midnight before he gave the order to stop and make

camp. He had led his group on a small path, deep into the woods, far

from every settlement, village, manor or castle. He planned to keep

his whereabouts as secret as he could. Once they would have reached

the road from Mirkadesh to Lorseth Castle, he would again seek

lodgment from the local lords. Officially he came directly from the

Renuvian Plains. All sightings of him in other parts of the Northern

Marches were mere inventions.

He had given orders that the men could sleep a few hours longer,

but he himself woke up early in the morning. He joined the sentry

who had kept a smokeless fire going during the night, to chase the

morning chill out of his bones. When, some time later, he saw Timishi

coming his way he gave the Clansman permission to leave his post.

“You must be very pleased with yourself.” Timishi grinned. “Your

enemy is dead, and with a little bit of luck the quedash will never

find out what happened to him.”

“Pleased is not exactly the word I would have used,” Anaxantis

replied, grinning back. “But, yes, it could have been worse. Much

worse.”

“What a stupid thing to do, trying to scare you with that tale

about the Oath of Sherashty.”

“Hm... not that stupid. He was aware of the fact that we know

virtually nothing about your people, and most of what we know

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comes from him anyway. It made me understand why father didn’t

want to fight your army thirteen years ago and why he has sent us

here with such an inadequate force. He was concerned about a major

conflict at our northern border.”

“Us?”

“What? Oh, eh, yes, us. Commander Tarngord and me. So, the

Oath of Sherashty is just some story?”

“Not exactly. There is some historical truth to it. The story is

real, as far as it goes. There probably was, in times immemorial, a

quedash named Sherashty. That’s what my history teacher, a very

wise man, thought. He is mentioned in ancient chronicles. So is the

famous oath. It seems that some time before a tribe’s territory was

systematically encroached upon by a foreign horde of barbarians.

Whatever they did, they couldn’t keep them away. So Sherashty

rallied the tribes and gathered an army. The chronicles tell of a great

victory, Mukthar honor saved, and our dead avenged. The strange

thing was that my teacher had read in foreign books that the enemy

also claimed victory. He concluded that a battle had indeed taken

place, but that the result was a stalemate.”

“But the legend of the Oath of Sherashty lived on.”

“Oh, yes, several poems — some very long and tedious, believe

me — were written, and whenever there is a feast and the wine has

flown too liberally, songs are sung. Don’t you have them, songs like

that? They shall never vanquish us, we will fight to the last man, and

never shall an enemy set foot on our sacred ground? Things like

that?”

“Yes, I dare say we have them as well.”

“Anyway, maybe the Oath of Sherashty had its effect that first time.

It has never worked since. The last time it was invoked was a few

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549

hundred years ago. Two Mukthar outpost settlements — peaceful,

trader settlements, I might add — were treacherously attacked by

a neighboring people. They called upon the tribes, asking for help

in Sherashty’s name. Not a single one responded. Oh, in almost

every tribe some young hotheads tried to force the quedash and the

Shatangmàhai to send—”

“Shatangmàhai?”

“The Council, the Assembly of the Whole of the People. Nothing

came of it of course. They ended up forming bands of ten, fifteen

young warriors who went to the aid of the settlements under attack.

My teacher said they were too few to make any difference.”

“What became of them?”

Timishi shrugged.

“The settlements were overrun. There were no survivors. Men,

women, children, all were killed.”

Anaxantis looked away in the dying embers of the fire.

“So,” he whispered as to himself, “if I meet them in battle, if I

manage to beat them, if I chase them back to their own lands across

the Renuvian Plains, and if—”

“If,” Timishi said.

The Mukthar prince turned around and walked back to wake his

men.

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There were almost no clouds. Around midnight Emelasuntha

and her group reached the spot on the Highway where Damydas had

tried to stop them.

The remaining Black Shields saw them coming by the light

of the moon. The man in charge hesitated only a moment. The

whole afternoon and evening the two groups had been eyeballing

each other. His men were tired and in a short while they would be

heavily outnumbered and caught between two groups of the Tribe of

Mekthona. The captain and the sergeant were not there. He gave the

order to once more cross the creek.

Several of them were still in the water when Emelasuntha and

Sobrathi rode by. Although they had seen them, they ignored the

remnant of Damydas’s men.

The eight of March, around eleven, the Tribesmen reached the

station from where they had started the race for Elmshill. They were

welcomed by Ffindall Dram who had arrived the day before. The

Master of the Ormidon Chapter had immediately hired the biggest

stable for the exclusive use of the Tribe. Day and night two of his men

guarded the doors.

Emelasuntha had praised his handling of the situation and his

capture of Damydas’s grandsons.

“You’re not going to kill them, are you, dear?” Sobrathi asked as

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551

soon as they were alone in the queen’s room.

“One thing is sure,” Emelasuntha answered, “we can’t just let

them go.”

“Why not? Let’s just leave them somewhere beside the road and

send a discreet note to their fathers.”

“Saying what, dear? That we are so sorry for kidnapping their

sons and please don’t be mad? It will never happen again? No, I think

there is another solution.”

Around two in the afternoon a finely dressed gentleman

approached the guards at the stable doors. A heavily built, tall man,

carrying a leather bag, accompanied him.

“My name is Xwartan Doos,” he said. “The lady is expecting me.”

Without a word one of the guards opened the doors just wide

enough to let him through. He stopped for a moment to let his eyes

adjust to the semi darkness. Then he saw the queen, standing beside

a cart. Next to her stood a portly lady.

“Master Doos?” the queen inquired.

“Xwartan Doos, master trader, at your service, my lady,” the man

answered in an oily voice that made Sobrathi’s skin crawl. She looked

with faint disgust at his dark face with black mustache.

“I understand you have your own caravan, master Doos?”

“Indeed, my lady, and the men to protect it.”

“Excellent. What, if I might ask, is your destination?”

The trader hesitated only a moment.

“The northern independent city states, my lady.”

“Very good. I have a trade proposition for you.”

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A door in the back of the cart opened and Ffindall Dram emerged.

After him Gerri and Warri descended the little ladder.

“Six rioghal for the both of them. You can get twelve times as

much in any northern city state,” the queen said.

Xwartan Doos hesitated. He looked the boys over, who were

visibly disoriented and afraid.

“My lady,” he said slowly, “these seem fine lads, but, well, you

know this is a very delicate, eh, trade, and the, eh, merchandise

seems to be of a rather, eh, specific origin.”

Emelasuntha looked at him with mocking eyes.

“Is that going to stop a professional trader like you, master