Treason Keep (14 page)

Mikel of Kirkland found it hard to be brave in the Defender Camp. Among the Hythrun it had been easy. There he had Jaymes to support him. Jaymes was always brave. Jaymes hadn’t blabbed about the Fardohnyan alliance trying to make himself sound important. Jaymes had been quiet and sullen and strong.

The Hythrun were quick to anger and easy to provoke, and Mikel felt it was his solemn duty to do what he could to sabotage their war effort. He had honoured the Overlord countless times in the weeks he spent among them, cursing the soldiers, spitting in their stew whenever he got the chance, and making a general nuisance of himself. It had been easier once the Warlord left. The big blonde Hythrun had frightened the boy more than he was willing to admit, but once he was gone, Mikel found his courage increased. The fight with the blacksmith’s apprentice had been the last in a long line of skirmishes with his captors.

The Defenders were different, however. They didn’t listen to his insults or his curses, or if they
heard them, they simply laughed indulgently at him. Even more humiliating was the fact that the captain who had saved him from the apprentice and taken him to the other camp had placed him in the care of a woman! Her name was Mahina and he was supposed to call her Sister, even though she wasn’t a nun and didn’t deserve the title. Worse, when the little old lady, who reminded him of his own Nana, had gotten hold of him, she took one whiff of his ragged tunic and ordered him to bathe. She then stood over him while the deed was done, to ensure he was properly clean. Everybody knew that taking off all your clothes was a sin against the Overlord and it was a well-known fact that total immersion in water was bad for you and gave rise to unhealthy vapours. But she had stood there like a slave-master on a Fardohnyan galley and made him wash every part of his body. She then added insult to injury by trimming his hair and making him wear a pair of cast-off Defender’s trousers and a pleated linen shirt several sizes too big for him. His tunic and hose she rather ceremoniously burned on the hearth, holding her nose as she did so.

As praying to the Overlord had always evoked a reaction from the Hythrun, he was startled when his prayers drew nothing from Mahina and the Defenders but bored looks and, in some cases, stifled yawns. The Defenders didn’t seem offended by his prayers. They just didn’t
care
! His devotions meant nothing to them. They were atheists who considered worshipping the gods a quaint and rather laughable custom. That hurt almost as much as the thought that his misbehaviour might cost Jaymes a finger.

The Defenders were frighteningly well disciplined, a fact which surprised the boy. They were under the command of a tall, hard-looking man called Lord Jenga, but it was the captain who had brought him here who scared him most. His name was Tarja Tenragan, and every night, when Mikel said his prayers to the Overlord, he prayed his god would strike the man down.

Mikel burned with hatred for the tall Medalonian who had so calmly ordered Jaymes dismembered if Mikel misbehaved. Although he was only a captain, everybody seemed to listen to him, even Lord Jenga, and he had faced down the Hythrun Raiders without blinking. Mikel was sure there was nothing on this world that could scare him—and that scared Mikel, because he knew that in battle, the Medalonians would not run in the face of the first concerted charge, as he had often heard Duke Laetho boast.

In fact, much of what Mikel had heard in the Karien camp was proving to be incorrect. The Hythrun didn’t eat human babies for breakfast and the red-coated Defenders weren’t weaklings dressed up in fancy uniforms and playing at being soldiers. They were hard men and well trained. Much better trained than the Kariens, Mikel suspected. Where the Karien camp spent time boasting of past victories on the jousting field or anticipating future glories, these soldiers were on the training field in Medalon.

They were much better supplied too, Mikel discovered. Unlike the Kariens, the Medalonians and their Hythrun allies had a constant supply line from the Glass River, and they lived like kings compared to his own people. He had eaten more since being a
captive than he had since arriving on the front as Lord Laetho’s page some four months ago. He began to wonder if it was a sin to eat so well, but when he refused to eat, Mahina had threatened to have him force fed. When that threat had not worked, Mahina called Tarja in. The captain had looked at him coldly and simply asked one question.

“Left hand or right hand?”

Mikel had not missed a meal since and never again brought up the topic of sinning by eating too well.

Mahina had set him to performing chores around the camp, which in truth didn’t vary much from what had been asked of him as Lord Laetho’s page. He waited tables and filled wine jugs and ran errands for the old woman, all the while keeping his eyes and ears open. Mikel was certain he would eventually be rescued. If not, there was always a chance he could escape—except that if he did, Tarja was likely to kill Jaymes, so he tried not to think about it too much. But if the chance ever arose, he wanted to take back as much intelligence as possible to Lord Laetho. Perhaps even Prince Cratyn or King Jasnoff would want to hear his information. Mikel managed to spend a good deal of time in idle dreams of his triumphant return to the Karien camp, bearing the one vital piece of information that would ensure a Karien victory.

In the meantime, he performed his chores doggedly, determined to give Tarja no reason to harm his older brother. Mahina was often distracted, but she was not unkind and it was hard to hate her. In fact, it was hard to hate many of the Medalonians,
although his loathing of Tarja Tenragan never wavered. Most of them treated him well, if not out of kindness, exactly. Mikel suspected it was because they didn’t consider him a threat. He had grandiose, if rather vague plans to disabuse them of that notion some day and he prayed to the Overlord every night before he slept that his god would show him the way.

The Defenders’ camp spread out across the plain in neat lines of identical tents, radiating from the old keep in the centre, which served as the temporary command post for the Medalonian forces. The Defenders called it Treason Keep, which Mikel thought the strangest name. It was here that Mikel did his chores for Mahina. It was here that Lord Jenga, Tarja Tenragan and another dangerous looking man called Garet Warner met with the savage Captain Almodavar and a passionate young man called Ghari, to make their plans. Mikel had not worked out exactly what Ghari’s position was in the Medalon forces, but he was often called in to discuss matters of import, although he had little to offer in the way of tactical advice. He seemed to be in charge of all sorts of other things—tasks that were vital to the war effort but not directly involved in the fighting.

Mikel was amazed at how little time the Medalonians spent discussing actual battle plans. They spent a lot more time worrying about supplies and ammunition and feed for the horses and securing enough fuel to see them through the winter. He supposed it was because they did not have the Overlord to protect them. Such mundane matters were rarely discussed in the Karien camp. The Overlord would provide.

Mikel had a natural ear for languages, and it was not long before he could make sense of what they were saying. Astonishingly, once Mahina realised he could understand what was being said, far from discouraging him, she took time out to give him lessons and even boasted to Tarja about how quickly he was picking up the language. Tarja had actually smiled!

Of all things in the Defenders’ camp that confused or surprised Mikel, the strangest by far was the Crazy Lady. She had rooms in the restored upper level of Treason Keep, heavily guarded by Defenders and a sad looking man called Lord Draco who said little and kept to himself in the chambers above the great hall. Lord Draco frightened Mikel, and not simply because of his physical resemblance to Tarja. The man had an air about him that spoke of emotions Mikel was too young to define. The only redeeming features that Mikel could see were his devotion to the Crazy Lady and the fact that any time Lord Draco and Tarja were in the same room you could almost see the hatred between them like streaks of jagged lightning. He didn’t know why Tarja hated Lord Draco and was too afraid to ask anyone the reason, but it made him feel a little better to know that all was not as perfect as it seemed in the Medalonian camp.

The Crazy Lady never left her room. Mikel had seen her once, when Mahina had sent him to her chamber with a document she had to sign. The guards had opened the door for him and Affiana, the tall, no-nonsense woman who seemed to be the Crazy Lady’s nurse, had met him inside. Affiana had
relieved him of the scroll and bustled him out the door, but not before he caught a glimpse of the Crazy Lady sitting on the floor in the centre of the chamber, clutching a ragged doll and humming tunelessly. The guards outside had shooed him away, leaving him burning with curiosity regarding the Crazy Lady’s identity.

The third week into Mikel’s internment in the Defender camp, Mahina sent him to find Tarja. A messenger had arrived from the front with news, and she wanted to see him. It must be something important, he knew, but he was sent away before he could learn what it was.

While Mikel dreaded the thought of seeking Tarja out, he was looking forward to the opportunity to visit the training ground legitimately. He hurried through the camp, ignored by Defenders who considered him not worth noticing. The day was quite cold and still. Swirls of dust floated through the camp like smoke eddies. Mikel all but ran, knowing the quicker he got there, the more time he could spend watching the Defenders before he had to approach Tarja.

The training ground covered a vast area north of Treason Keep. It was dusty and noisy, the long grass scuffed bare by the boots of thousands of men training for war. He slowed as he reached the field, weaving his way cautiously between groups of men charging with pikes at targets nailed to posts buried deep in the ground. A little further on another troop bearing red-painted shields was practising a set of striking sword blows. The sergeant in charge bellowed impatient instructions about turning hands,
and standing side-on, and told one hapless young man that if he continued to use his shield as a counter-balance instead of protection he would undoubtedly have the honour of being the first trooper to die in defence of Medalon.

A little further on Mikel watched in awe as a troop of Hythrun Raiders practised, mounted on their beautiful golden steeds. They were shooting into melons mounted on short poles, which exploded in a ruddy mess as wave after wave of them galloped towards the targets; they loosed their arrows side-on, reloaded and fired at the next target without missing a beat. The Raiders steered their horses with their knees and rode as if nothing could unseat them. Karien knights picked their horses for their ability to carry the weight of an armoured man. Agility and speed were secondary concerns. Mikel thought of Lord Laetho’s huge and very expensive warhorse, which looked clumsy and cumbersome compared to the sleek Hythrun mounts, and wondered how he would fare in a battle.

He moved on in the direction Mahina had told him Tarja would be, watching the Hythrun horsemen over his shoulder as he hurried forward. He stopped again for a moment to watch another group attacking a number of armoured targets, practising slowly and deliberately as they aimed for the vulnerable places in the armour with deadly precision. Mikel frowned as he watched them. Although every man here was training for war, these men were specifically training to kill or disable the knights who would lead the charge. He shuddered at the thought. The Medalonians seemed to be taking this war a lot more
seriously that his own people.
But then they had to
, he reminded himself.
They were outnumbered and they didn’t have the Overlord on their side.

“Here, lad, what are you doing hanging about the field?”

Mikel jumped guiltily and turned to the man who had challenged him. It was Ghari, he discovered with relief. Ghari didn’t frighten him nearly as much as the Defenders.

“Sister Mahina sent me to find Captain Tenragan.”

Ghari placed his hand on Mikel’s shoulder with a friendly smile. “Let’s go find him then, shall we? I’m looking for him too.”

Mikel nodded a little uncertainly and let Ghari lead the way. He watched the man out of the corner of his eye, expecting to see some sign that Ghari’s friendliness was feigned, but the young man simply glanced down at him and smiled again. Mikel couldn’t understand these people at all.

Tarja was on the far side of the training ground, stripped down to trousers and boots and sweating in the cold sunlight. He was training with another man, a little older than he, and both men were breathing hard, dust clinging to their sweaty skin as they traded blows. Both had the musculature of men who spent hours with a sword, but Mikel was astounded to see Tarja’s back scarred with the unmistakable mark of the lash. He was savagely pleased to think that someone had lashed Tarja. He would like to meet the man and thank him.

The sound of metal against metal rang loudly as Tarja and his opponent moved back and forth, neither man trying to gain the advantage, simply
working muscles to the point of fatigue and beyond to strengthen them. Mikel had heard one of the Medalonians say that it was the training you did after you reached the point of exhaustion that really counted. Everything you did up to that point was just warming up.

Tarja saw them approaching and held up his hand to halt the fight. His opponent lowered his sword and glanced at Mikel and Ghari. Realising that their appearance heralded the end of their bout, he raised his blade in salute to Tarja with a weary smile.

“You’re getting slow, Tarja. I can still stand up.”

“
I’m
getting slow,” Tarja laughed as he returned the salute. “More likely some Karien knight is going to make a trophy of your hide.”

The older man chuckled. “Perhaps, but he’ll have trampled you getting to me.” Captain Alcarnen picked up his shirt off the ground and wiped his forehead with it, then threw it over his shoulder. “Ghari,” he said with a nod as he walked past the young man.