Treason Keep (10 page)

The Kariens did not subscribe to the Fardohnyan notion of beauty first, usefulness second. Setenton Castle was a fortress and pretended to be nothing else. The walls were thirty paces high and thicker than two men lying end to end, and the courtyard bustled with the panoply of war. Looking around her
as she alighted from the carriage in a courtyard crowded with men, horses and the ringing of smiths’ hammers, she wondered if the Medalonian Defenders were as good as their reputation held them to be. She privately hoped they were. Karien was much larger than Medalon, and could overrun the smaller country through sheer weight of numbers, if nothing else.

Hablet needed a drawn-out conflict on the northern border of Medalon. He couldn’t go over the Sunrise Mountains into Hythria with an invasion force, but once on the open plains of Medalon, he could turn south with ease. Of course, the Kariens thought he was planning to attack Medalon to aid their cause. It wouldn’t be until they discovered his true destination that his treachery would be revealed. Adrina was not in favour of the plan, mostly because she would be the focus for the Karien’s fury when they realised they had been duped. Her father had advised her to plan an escape route when the news came. He had seemed singularly unconcerned that his plan might cost Adrina her head.

Lord Terbolt greeted them from the steps of his great hall. He was a tall man with hooded brown eyes and a weary expression. But he greeted Cratyn warmly before he turned to Adrina.

“Your Serene Highness,” he said with a small bow. “Welcome to Setenton Castle.”

“Thank you, Lord Terbolt,” she replied graciously. “I hope our presence will not tax your resources unduly. And you have been playing host to my Guard. I trust they have not been a burden to you.”

Terbolt shook his head. “A few language difficulties, your Highness, nothing more. Please, let
me have you shown to your rooms. You must be tired, I’m sure, and we men have things to discuss that will not interest you.”

On the contrary, Adrina was vitally interested, but it would be difficult to convince these barbarians that as a woman she might have any idea of politics or war. “Of course, my Lord. Perhaps Tristan might be of help, though? I am sure he could learn something from your discussions and he might be able to offer a new perspective, don’t you think?”

“But he doesn’t speak Karien, your Highness,” Cratyn pointed out, with a rather horrified expression.

“Oh that’s all right, I’ll translate,” she offered brightly. “I’m really not tired, my Lords, and although as Lord Terbolt pointed out, I will no doubt be bored witless by the discussion—we are allies now, are we not? All that I ask is that you not speak too quickly so that I may follow the discussion. Tristan!”

Neither Terbolt nor Cratyn looked pleased by her suggestion, and poor Madren looked ready to faint, but she had left them little choice.

“As you wish, your Highness,” Terbolt conceded with ill grace.

She picked up her skirts and, with Tristan at her side, marched indoors.

“Adrina, does something bother you about these people?” Tristan asked her quietly as they entered the gloom followed by the rest of the entourage. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed Terbolt greeting Chastity with all the warmth of a man renewing his acquaintance with a distant relative.

“What do you mean?” she asked as she looked back at him. “They are fools.”

“Maybe. I just wonder if we are the ones being played for fools.”

“You pick a fine time to have second thoughts, Tristan,” she muttered as they walked the length of the rush strewn stone floor. Tall banners, depicting both the sign of the Overlord and the Lord Terbolt’s silver pike on a field of red hung limply from the walls. Presumably the red background was a romantic representation of the muddy Ironbrook. “You were the one who encouraged me to accept this arranged marriage.”

“I know,” he sighed. “I just have this feeling. I can’t define it, but it worries me. Be careful.”

“You’re the one who should be careful. Although, I have it on good authority that provided you confine your attentions to unmarried women, you shouldn’t need to worry about being stoned.”

“It’s going to be a long, cold winter, I fear, Rina.”

He had not called her Rina since they were small children. “You at least have the option of going home someday. I have to spend my life with these people. Not to mention Prince Cretin the Cringing.”

He leaned closer to her and, although speaking Fardohnyan, even if he was overheard, nobody here would understand him. “Look on the bright side. He’ll be off to war in a month or two. With luck the Medalonians with keep him there for years.”

“With luck, they’ll put an arrow through him,” she corrected with a whisper, then turned to her fiancé and smiled serenely, every inch the princess.

Cratyn was looking at her with an odd expression. Not dislike, exactly. It was stronger than that. She had a bad feeling it was distaste.

Tarja returned to the camp late in the day, letting Shadow set her own pace, still brooding over his last argument with Jenga. The Lord Defender was trying to hold together a disparate force, Tarja knew that, and the knowledge that he was doing it through deception weighed heavily on him. But it didn’t excuse his intransigence over the matter of attacking the Kariens. The Lord Defender was willing to defend his border, but he refused to make the first move. He wanted to wait until the Kariens invaded. Tarja disagreed. The Karien camp had grown considerably from the five hundred knights that had been camped there all through summer. They should be taking the fight to the enemy and they should do it now, before the Karien force grew so large that they would simply be overrun.

Jenga was furious when he heard that Tarja had crossed the border. Using the same Hythrun tactics that were so effective in the south, on their numerous cattle raids into Medalon, he had taken a handful of men into Karien under cover of darkness and stampeded the enemy’s horses through their camp.
The ensuing destruction had been extremely gratifying—it had probably set back their war effort by weeks. He’d only lost three men to injury, and had considered the entire affair a small, if significant, victory.

Jenga didn’t see it that way. He had exploded with fury when he learnt of the attack, accusing Damin of being a reckless barbarian for suggesting the idea, and Tarja of being an undisciplined fool for listening to him.

Following his desertion two years ago, Tarja had often longed for the chance to return to the security and brotherhood of the Corps. But now that he was back, he discovered it was not the easy ride he had hoped. He had
liked
being in command of the rebels, he realised now. He had been raised to command, and knew, without vanity, that he was good at it. Tarja respected Jenga, but had grown accustomed to making his own decisions. Jenga was a good soldier but he’d been Lord Defender for more than twenty years, and that meant he had more practice with politics than war. Tarja had spent the best part of his adult life at war with the Hythrun, the Defenders and now the Kariens. Jenga had not raised his sword in anger in decades.

They still had only six thousand of the twelve thousand Defenders they could count on, and a thousand Hythrun Raiders from Krakandar. As he thought of the Hythrun, he wondered, as he had already done countless times, where Damin Wolfblade was.

Nobody had seen the Warlord for nearly a month—not since the argument with Jenga after the raid, when
he announced that he was going to speak with his god. If Almodavar knew where he was, he wasn’t saying. The grizzled Hythrun captain seemed unconcerned by his Lord’s absence. If Damin wished to speak with the God of War, to seek his blessing, then his troops were not about to object. They fervently believed Zegarnald would help them. They were counting on it, in fact.

When he reached the camp, on impulse Tarja turned toward the scattered Hythrun tents. Perhaps Almodavar had heard something. It was becoming increasingly difficult to reassure Jenga that Damin had not simply deserted them.

He rode through the camp, acknowledging the occasional wave from the Hythrun troops. The Raiders were much less respectful of rank than the Defenders. Among the Raiders, one earnt respect through battle, not promotion or pretty insignia. But some of these men had faced Tarja on the southern border. They knew him for a warrior and found nothing strange in their Warlord’s alliance with his former enemy.

The Defenders had been far less accommodating. They resented the presence of the Hythrun and made no secret of it. Tarja thought that much of the impressive discipline the Defenders displayed was designed to show the Hythrun how things were done in a “proper” army. The Defenders despised mercenaries, and most of Damin’s Raiders were just that. Tarja was a little more tolerant. Had the rebellion not intervened, he would likely be a mercenary himself, by now. But feelings ran strong between the two camps and fights broke out frequently. In the beginning, Tarja and Damin had
organised training bouts between the two armies, ostensibly to foster some sort of cohesion between the two forces. Three fatalities put paid to that laudable sentiment, and Jenga had ordered them stopped. Now the training was strictly segregated.

He reached the centre of the Hythrun camp and discovered a large number of the Raiders in a cheering circle, obviously wagering on some sort of contest. As he neared the group a cheer went up, almost drowning out an unmistakable cry of pain. Tarja dismounted curiously, threw the reins over Shadow’s neck and pushed his way through the crowd.

The source of the Hythrun entertainment proved to be two boys, both bloodied and wounded. The brawl must have been going on for quite some time, by the look of the two combatants. The older of the two was a well-muscled, fair-haired Hythrun lad of about sixteen, an apprentice blacksmith that Tarja had seen once or twice around the forge. The younger boy couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven and was unmistakably Karien, but despite the difference in their sizes, he appeared to be giving a good account of himself, although he was clearly on the brink of collapse. His freckled face was almost totally obscured by blood, his clothes torn, his eyes burning with hatred. He was staggering to his feet as Tarja pushed through to the front of the crowd.

Tarja winced sympathetically as the older boy ran at the disoriented Karien lad and delivered a kick to the boy’s chin that snapped his neck back almost hard enough to break it. With a pain-filled grunt, the Karien boy dropped to the ground. Breathing heavily,
the apprentice laughed, triumphantly standing over his vanquished foe. He reached down and snatched the pendant from around the boy’s neck and held it up high to the cheers of the spectators. The five-pointed star and lightning bolt of the Overlord glittered dully in the afternoon light. Someone started up a cry of “Finish him!” which was quickly taken up by the rest of the spectators. The apprentice grinned at the chant and pulled his dagger from his belt. Tarja glanced around the Hythrun and realised, with horror, that they were serious.

“Enough!” he shouted, stepping into the clearing, his red jacket stark against the motley browns and black chain mail of the Hythrun.

Silence descended on the circle of Raiders. Only then did Tarja wonder about the advisability of walking into the centre of thirty-odd Hythrun Raiders crying for blood. The Raiders stared at him, their stillness more threatening than their chanting. He covered the distance to the startled apprentice and snatched the dagger from his hand.

“Get back to work, boy,” he ordered in a tone that brooked no argument.

The Hythrun boy glared at him, but stepped away from the fallen Karien. A discontented mutter rippled through the men, until one of them, a slender man, with a puckered scar across his throat that looked as if he had survived having it cut, stepped forward.

“You’ve no authority here, Defender,” he said. “Go back to your pretty-boys and leave us to deal with the Karien scum as we wish.”

Tarja could feel the animosity from the Hythrun mercenaries surrounding him. He was far from his
own troops, and Damin’s restraining influence had weakened in his absence. With a jolt, Tarja realised he may not get out of this alive. The mercenary stepped closer and Tarja did the only thing he could think of, under the circumstances. He brought his elbow up sharply into the Hythrun’s face and then kicked the stunned mercenary’s legs from under him. The Hythrun hit the ground before the others could react. Tarja slammed his boot down across the man’s scarred throat and then looked up at the startled Raiders.

“Anyone else?” he asked with an equanimity he did not feel. The man beneath his boot squirmed desperately, gasping for air, lack of oxygen draining his strength to escape the pressure of Tarja’s boot.

“I think you’ve made your point, Captain.”

Tarja had to consciously stop himself from sagging with relief as Almodavar appeared in the circle. The Hythrun captain barked a harsh order at his men in their own language and the circle dissolved. Tarja took his boot off the throat of his challenger and the man scrambled to his feet and ran off without looking back, clutching at his neck. Almodavar smiled grimly.

“I never thought you had a death wish, Captain,” the Hythrun remarked with a shake of his head. “You should know better than to interfere with Raiders when their blood is up.”

“Your Raiders should know better than to encourage cold-blooded murder,” Tarja retorted, turning to the prone form of the Karien boy. He knelt down beside the lad and was relieved to see his eyes fluttering open blankly.

The Hythrun captain looked down at the boy and shrugged. “Don’t blame my Raiders too quickly, Captain. That one asks for it daily. He wants to die for his Overlord.”

Tarja pulled the boy to his feet. Far from being grateful, the boy seemed disappointed that Tarja had saved him. He shook himself free and staggered a little before drawing himself up to his full height.

“I need no help from an atheist!” he spat defiantly in broken Hythrun. He had obviously been in the camp long enough to pick up some of the language. He would never have learnt a heathen language in Karien.

Tarja glanced at Almodavar and then back at the boy. “Ungrateful little whelp, isn’t he?” he said in Karien, so the boy would understand him.

Almodavar, for all that he looked like an illiterate pirate, spoke Karien almost as well as he spoke Medalonian and Fardohnyan. Damin held that understanding an enemy’s language, was the first step to understanding an enemy. He had been surprised to learn that most of Damin’s Raiders spoke several languages. His Defenders, the officers at least, could speak Medalonian and Karien. It had been considered polite to converse with one’s allies in their own language, but few bothered to learn the languages of the south. It was a lesson Tarja had taken to heart, although trying to convince Jenga that the Defenders should learn to speak Hythrun was proving something of a chore.

“Aye,” Almodavar agreed, easily falling into the language of their enemy. “This isn’t the first time, and I’ll wager it won’t be the last, that he’s caused
trouble. He and his brother were the ones who brought the news of the alliance. His brother isn’t much trouble, but you’d think this one planned to defeat us single handed.”

Tarja studied the boy curiously for a moment. “
This
is the Karien spy?”

The boy bristled at Tarja’s amusement. “Atheist pig! The Overlord will see you drown in the Sea of Despair!”

“I’m starting to regret saving your neck, boy,” Tarja warned. “Have a care with that mouth of yours.”

“The Overlord will protect me!”

“I didn’t see him around just now,” Almodavar chuckled, and then he changed back to speaking Medalonian without missing a beat. “You wouldn’t consider taking him back with you, I suppose?” he asked. “I doubt he’ll last much longer around here with that attitude.”

Tarja frowned. The last thing he needed was an uncontrollable ten-year-old reeking havoc in their camp in the name of the Overlord. But Almodavar was correct in his assertion that he wouldn’t last long among the Hythrun. He pondered the problem for a moment then turned to the captain.

“Very well, I’ll take him back with me,” he agreed, speaking Karien so the boy could follow the conversation. “You keep his brother here. If the boy gives me any trouble, I’ll send word. You can send back a finger from his brother’s hand each time you hear from me. When we run out of fingers, start on his toes. Perhaps the prospect of seeing his brother dismembered bit by bit will teach him a little self-control.
It’s obviously not a virtue the Overlord encourages.”

The boy’s blood-streaked face paled, tears of fear and horror welling up in his eyes. “You’re a vicious, evil, barbarian bastard!” he cried.

“A fact you would do well to remember, boy,” Tarja warned. He dare not look at Almodavar. The Hythrun captain made a noise that sounded like a cough, but which Tarja suspected was a futile attempt to stifle a laugh. “Go and fetch your belongings. If you’re not back here in five minutes, you’ll find out what your brother looks like without his left ear.”

The boy fled as Almodavar burst out laughing. “Captain, I swear you’re turning into a Hythrun.”

“What did you expect from a vicious, evil, barbarian bastard?”

“Truly,” Almodavar agreed. “You’ve had a busy day. First you take on my Raiders, and then you subdue a Karien fanatic with a few words. What’s next?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Tarja said. “You’ve no word from Lord Wolfblade?”

“None. Don’t let it concern you, Captain. He’ll be back.”

Tarja sighed, not really expecting any other answer
. He’ll be back. But before or after the war is over?
he wondered.