The Outlaw King: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book One (40 page)

‘Does
he now? Eh? Well, you send him right on down here and I’ll teach him just what
a dragon is. Go on, now.’

(Where
do these children get such fancies! In my day, it was the dreaded
Hath’ku’atch…huh…well, ‘spose one day those boys’ll be old enough to tell truth
from bard’s fancies…)

Guryon
– The planes’
assassin. Its myriad souls wreak havoc across the plains, but only for a price.
It/they is/are (ooh, that could get boring…) no common murderer.

Hath’ku’atch
– A near
mythical beast, in that they do, in fact, exist, but rarely bother to visit the
mortal realms. Their usual abode is within bolts of lightning, and their visits
are usually short. Occasionally, one stays for the duration of its life. No one
knows why, or for what purpose, for they are mystical and do not deign to speak
to mortals.

Jemandril
– Mythical beast with healing
blood. See book for ‘Jemandril’s Tail’, tale, in this instance, not being a
very cunning play on words, but I was tired, see, and I had this rash, and then
I had to go to the physician for a balm, and when I came back, well, Farrell,
the butcher, he’d turned up on my doorstep, and lo and behold, what did he have
with him, but a barrel of ale and a quart of brandy…

Landra
– Woodland
predator. Likes wings, breasts, legs, and sometimes heads, but finds them a bit
too crunchy when it’s teething.

Mirs
– Birds.

Southern
Tempaths
– Four
winged insects with a purple hue to their segmented bodies.

Tarn
– A black mir,
with a white crest and blood-red hooked beak.

The
Lu
– The soul
swords, immortal guardians of the plane’s gaol. (Not bad looking, neither,
after a couple of jars)

Thrushes
– Birds,
although can also sometimes be used to describe varied forms of nasty
discharges suffered by beavers.*

*See
Beavers.

Valierion
– The Thane of
Naeth’s Goshawk. (Honourable mention)

Botany
of Sturma

Ash
– tree made of
tree stuff, with leaves, and bark, and roots, but strangely, no ash.

Carmillion
– flower common to all lands of
Rythe, although with subtle variations.

Honey
flower
– Makes
for good bowel relations, rather like a consulate. Or perhaps an embassy,
should you already be on speaking terms. Favoured food of Beavers.

Lanemot
– A (hehe)
hypnotic (wooh, a dragon…) herb, native to (my, you have warm breath) Sturma,
characterised by (arrgh! My face is on fire!) a long stem with purple hanging
flowers (oh, just a hallucinamation…hallucialation…bugger it. Ooh, the fairies
are coming to tea!), but only in the autumn.

Lud
– Giant of the
forests, the largest, most statuesque tree of all the nations, native to
Lianthre but brought as saplings to Sturman shores by…

‘Ow!
I’ll tell if I wanna!’

‘You
do and I’ll break your arm!’

‘Wouldn’t!’

‘Would,
too! Anyway, shut yer face!’

‘Wargh!
Mam!’

Oak
– Bit boring really. Nice for
crab apples, and acorns, which are good ammunition for woodland battles. Apart
from that, just a sturdy tree.

You
asked. Didn’t say it would be interesting.

Red
spotted funnel
–
A mushroom with healing powers, but only brewed as a paste. Raw, it has the
ultimate power to heal all that ails you.

Saril
vines
–
Nourishing in a gruel, but as it the way with gruels, they nourish but leave
the palette rather underculinaried.

Seer’s
grass
– Kun
weed, grants the smoker insight into the mists of times, but tends to leave the
smoker jaded and slightly detached from the real world. Sometimes the world
beyond the veil can seem enticing, but take your time – we all get there
eventually.

Sickleberry
Bush
– The
berries of which are used to promote good humours.

*

Bonus Material: A Short Story

The Witch’s Cauldron

‘Father,
why are you so afraid of witches?’ asked the small boy, his face red from the
glow of the evening fire. Sparks crackled and glowing embers blew high on the
wind.

‘I am not afraid of them, child, I am in awe,’ said
his father, after quiet deliberation.

‘Tell me why,’ the child pestered him, with a
child’s lack of sensibilities.

‘Very well, son, I will tell you, but you shall not
sleep this night.’

‘Then tell me why,’ asked the child.

‘Then, if you insist, tell you I will.’

And so, he told him the story his father told him.

*

In
the darkness within the Pale Forest, there lurked a witch. The town folk from
the nearby village of Cadrean called on her with their various ailments, some
embarrassing, most not. She wasn’t well loved – it’s difficult to love a witch.
She  given to cackling for no reason. Witches don’t laugh like ordinary folk.

You can’t have a man witch either, it has to be a
woman. Perhaps the midwifery involved makes it important to be a woman. Men
aren’t given to delivering babies. Leastways, not around Kilondor.

Kilondor was the region of sunshine. Vast flat
planes that cast no shadow were the perfect breeding grounds for horses, and
the Thane of Kilondor was rich from this natural wealth. The region had no gold
but everybody, all the other Thanes of course, needed horses. The Thane was a
kind man, called Dandred by all who loved him. His wife was well known
throughout the region for her alms. A kindly family, they were the most popular
rulers on all of Faerdom.

Faerdom itself was a pretty isle, located in the
middle of the Grateful Seas. The ships that sailed to and fro were often lost
in the storms that plagued the seas around it, making invasion all but
impossible. Trade with the other lands was sparse. Peace had reigned for three
hundred years.

But the witch…

The witch now, she was a different breed to the
other people of Faerdom. The people of Cadrean called her friend though,
despite her fey nature. They were not prone to superstition, like the other
regions throughout the lands. The flat planes of Kilondor bred plain folk. They
had no time for superstition. Birthing foals was taxing enough on the brain
without filling it with nonsense and having that to cope with as well.

The witch had no warts. She didn’t wear a funny hat.
She did have three nipples but no one ever saw any of them so she could keep
that to herself. The people of Kilondor were none to good at counting either,
so if any of them noticed the extra finger she bore on each hand they said
nothing of it. What business was it of theirs anyway?

The witch had a name. She didn’t use it often. She
hadn’t forgotten her name but everyone just called her the witch of Pale
Forest. She didn’t have much to her name and wandered mainly, not making a
home. If pushed she would have said that the Pale Forest was her home. It
welcomed her like it welcomed no other. There was no other person in all of
Faerdom who would have been welcome in the Pale Forest. It  a murky, foreboding
forest, full of demons and ghosts. Only those truly desperate came to seek out
the witch of Pale Forest.

One day the Thane of Dandred rode into the forest.
He had a fretful look about him. His horse, at least seventeen hands high (the
Thane could count) bore him swiftly past the town of Cadrean, leaving whispers
in his wake. What was the Thane doing out here? And alone? He goes into the
Pale Forest! He seeks the witch! The people of Cadrean had made gossip a hobby
and before long the whole town knew the Thane had ridden into the Pale Forest
alone. He could only be seeking the witch. The gossip mongers whispered
themselves hoarse mulling the problem over. What could be so wrong for the
Thane that he needed to seek the witch out? Surely a man like the Thane had
everything that he could need.

The Thane was unaware of the stir his passing
caused. He rode on, ever slower as the thickets and brush closed in on him. The
deeper into the forest he went the thicker the undergrowth became. Soon he was
forced to dismount and lead his ashen horse behind him. Before long he would be
forced to draw his sword to hack at the branches that obscured his path, but he
was loath to do so. The witch’s wrath would be great indeed were he to cut back
any of her beloved forest. He felt a wary misgiving at being in the forest at
all. He had heard stories of the witch, a cold hard woman. Were it not for the
direst need he wouldn’t be here at all. But his wife was with child and she had
been bleeding for a whole day now. None of the physicians of the realm could do
anything for her. They had all been called. There was nothing left but to call
on the witch.

The witch saw Dandred’s approach. She watched with
interest as he drew closer to where she sat by the bole of a tree. She knew
what he wanted. But she was loath to leave her forest. She got up.

‘Ho,’ she called to him. ‘What brings the Thane to
visit an old lady in the woods?’

The relief of finding her almost outweighed the
dread the Thane felt. The witch always extracted her price. From those that
couldn’t pay it was often just a lamb, or a carrot, or a turnip for her stew.
For those that could the price was always higher.

‘I come to beg your aid, mistress.’

The Thane bowed low as he said this, holding his sword
back against his leg lest it clatter in an ungainly manner.

‘Mistress, is it? Your need must be dire indeed.’

The Thane stood up straight and said to the witch,
‘I come not for me. I come for my wife. She is with child but she has been
bleeding. I need you to come and help her. If you will,’ he added with a care.

‘I will come, Dandred the Kind. But for you there
will be a higher tithe. You are by all accounts a rich man.’

‘Any sum that I can pay will be yours. I only beg of
you come quickly.’

‘The price is more than horses, my good man. I will
let you know the price when the deed is done.’

‘And that sounds fair, mistress.’

‘Less of the mistress. I will meet you at your
home.’

‘But it is urgent.’

‘I will meet you there. I can travel with haste if I
need to.’

‘Very well.’ The Thane bowed low and led his horse
from the forest. The forest closed in behind him as he walked. The light grew
steadily until he emerged by the town of Cadrean. The people had all come out
to watch him pass. None spoke to him, out of respect, but all wondered what the
price would be.

The Thane galloped as fast as he could back to his
home, a large wooden house on the outskirts of Cadrean. His horse was sweating
by the time it got him back, and there, on the front step, stood the witch,
waiting for him.

‘I have been waiting for you,’ she called out to him
as he approached. She was not out of breath, Dandred noted, even as he wondered
why she would be. She  arrived by magic, not by fleetness of foot, or he was a
fool. And he considered himself no fool.

The witch of the Pale Forest wore a dark cloak about
her person that looked too warm for the sun high in the sky. Winter had long
since passed and spring was on its way to summer. The Thane didn’t wonder about
the cloak. It was too heavy but a witch’s business was her own.

‘Then come inside with all haste. My wife sickens
while we talk.’

The Thane thrust the door open and took the steps
two at a time. The witch followed quietly behind.

At the top of the stairs there was a door leading to
the bed chambers. The Thane held the door open for the witch and she entered,
spreading her cloak wide to reveal a coat holding assorted implements of what
looked like torture. There were callipers and scalpels, small vials of
disgusting looking preparations, scissors and tongs, and wickedly curved needle
of bone. She took off her cloak and the coat underneath fair shimmered with the
silvery glint of hideous devices. She laid her cloak on a chair and turned to
the Thane.

‘Leave me with her.’

‘But she is my wife.’

‘I work alone. That you must have heard.’

The Thane looked longingly at his wife, where she
lay on the bed, bleeding out in quiet misery. For those that have ever seen a
child birthed, they will know that until the baby is safely in his mother’s
arms there is nothing but misery and a gnawing fear, hope abandoned until the
deed is done. Rare is the birth that starts in joy, although to be fair to
Mother Nature the act preceding is often done with a hint of a smile, and
perhaps a cheery slap on the behind. But this was childbirth, and it was
another matter all together. The love that Dandred’s wife felt for him was all
but forgotten in her pain, and by then there was little in her face but forlorn
hope, and not a little fear.

‘Very well. Do what you must, but save my wife,’
implored the Thane.

‘I will do what I can, though I promise nothing,’
said the witch testily.

She ushered the Thane to the door and closed it
behind her.

The Thane paced up and down the hallway outside his
bedchambers. His leather boots clacked on the wooded floor and he could hear
nothing from inside. He put his ear against the door but could discern not even
a groan from the chamber.

An hour passed, and then two, but fear of the witch,
and fear for his wife, and their unborn child, unmanned him. He was loath to
enter the bedchamber, and whatever horrors were there. He could not face it. He
would not.

Then, just as he was beginning to convince himself
that his wife must have died inside, he heard the first gasp of a wail, then, the
wail that followed it. He burst inside to find his wife sitting up, the blood
covering the whole of the bed, and an infant, tiny, held in the witch’s arms.

‘Out man! I have not finished yet! Your wife still
bleeds from the inside. Out I say!’

Before a smile could reach his lips; a baby son! he
worried for his wife. Reluctantly he shut the door on the witch and his pale
wife, and thought about his son. It was his first son, and he knew he would
love him all the more. But not should he lose his wife. That would be a pain
unbearable.

He waited and waited. The only sound from inside the
room  the wailing of the child. The child cried incessantly and he wanted to go
in to give it a father’s comfort, to hold him in his arms. He wanted to hold
them both in his arms but the witch told him to stay outside so he stayed.

Eventually the witch came out holding his baby in
her arms. She smiled sadly at him.

‘Is she alright?’ the Thane asked, holding his arms
out to take his baby son.

‘She is sleeping. She has lost much blood but I
think she will live. The sheets will need changing when she wakes and I will
return in a ten day to remove the stitches I have placed inside her. She will
live, I think.’

‘Thank you! You have saved both their lives and
saved my only son.’

‘It was not for nothing. There is the payment.’

‘What payment could you ask? All my wealth would not
be enough for all you have given me this day,’ the Thane said gratefully, an
almost childish grin on his face.

‘That will not be necessary. I ask only this: that
you make me the finest cauldron, with your own hands. That is the price. And I
give you this advice. The next time you ask for my assistance, I beg of you do
not ask. The price that time would be too high for even you to pay. Remember
this. Do not ask again or you will weep tears for a lifetime.’

But the Thane was so happy that day that he paid no
heed to the witch’s warning.

After a ten day, the Thane had delivered to the
witch a cauldron of the finest making. Together, working with the blacksmith,
he had wrought a fine cauldron from the finest iron, and emblazoned upon it his
own crest of a dancing horse. The cauldron was delivered and the Thane thought
nothing more of it.

Ten years passed as though in a dream. The Thane
brought his son up to be a good man. He loved his wife and son all the more for
nearly having lost them, and the Thane was a happy man. His people loved him
and the Thane became, if anything, even kinder to them. His council was wise
and the decisions he made were for the good of the people, never for himself.

One day his wife spoke softly to him in the bed
chamber.

‘I am with child again,’ she said, and Dandred
thought his heart would burst with happiness. For all the time he spent loving
his wife and son he dearly wanted another child.

But for both of them there was a hint of fear. They
tried to ignore it, as couples are wont to do, but it festered within, until
they could not lay side by side anymore. The Thane took to leaving his wife
alone at nights, and often sat reading to his son, even after the boy had
fallen asleep. He almost forgot the gift given to him. But by then, he had
forgotten much.

Months passed and the Thane watched his wife grow
large with child.