Lady Of The Helm (Book 1) (10 page)

Hepdida sobbed into her pillow in her small room off the kitchen.  In the outer chamber her parents’ voices were raised in anger.

“The girl is out of control,” her mother was saying. “You should have heard how she spoke to me.”

“She’s her mother’s daughter right enough,” her father growled back.  “Threw herself at some fancy breeches and doubtless got both more and less than she bargained for.  Not the first time it’s happened, won’t be the last.”

“You
are wastrel scum, Vlad.  You have a comfortable life, full of favour in a well supplied fortress and what have you ever done to deserve it?”

“
Well sweet pea.” He ground out the pet name with oozing insincerity.  “Let’s not forget that my name in marriage lends you and your daughter a certain respectability, to set against the freedom with which you dispensed your favours.”

“
I am no common street whore.”

“Exclusivity is not the same thing as morality, Sahira.”

There was a sudden slap, a scuffle of furniture, a chair pushed back, a whimper and then her father’s voice again breathing heavily.  “These great men, Sahira.  They’re nothing.  They take their pleasures where they can and cast you off as soon as they are done.”

“You know that’s not true,” Sahira cried back at him.

“Bah, this Captain Kimbolt, he’s the worst of the lot of them, and you’ve been encouraging the fool girl to make eyes at him.  I’ve seen his type, career hungry, driven by ambition.  He will take his pleasure with her as with a dozen other girls no doubt and if that’s all as happens then she’ll have had a lucky escape.  I’ve worked alongside soldiers long enough, mark my words.  You call me scum, well leastways I ain’t pretending not like yon Captain, looking after hisself, Kimbolt.”

Hepdida could stand it no more.  Abandoning her tear stained pillow, she yanked open the door from her little room to confront her parents.  They
turned at her arrival, Sahira, disshevelled standing by an upturned chair, a new bruise darkening at her temple. Vlad across the table from her, thin grey hair showing his fifty years, his face speckled with the spidery red mottling of a dedicated drinker.  Hepdida raised an accusing finger to remonstrate with both her parents.  She had been going to say that they were wrong, that Kimbolt was the most honourable man in the castle, worth thrice of them both added together. She was going to protest her love for him despite everything.  She was going to say so many things to prove their lies wrong.

What she said instead, her finger trembling as she
pointed, was, “ma, papa an orc!”

Thren and his three companions strode out of the temple, the Castellan’s eyes scanned left to the beacon tower.  “Where are the Sturmcairntor guards?” he demanded, espying the empty opening at the foot of the stairwell.

There was a guttural cry to his right and a clash of steel.  Swinging round they found themselves
facing two orcs, the first with his jagged sword embedded in the twitching body of one of the temple guards.  The other advancing with fearsome intent on the other guard.  That was the green hided monsters’ mistake.  Of the four potential victims they had selected the fully armoured guards for their initial assault, rather than the lightly armoured Prince and his elderly Captain.  While the guards, despite their steel protection, fell swiftly to the surprise attack, Thackery and Thren sprung immediately into a counter offensive. 

“By the Goddess,” Thren cried as his blade flashed with lightning speed.  There was a clang of steel blade on blade. The orc grunted to see his own heavy sword first notched and then
shattered by the blows of the Prince’s slender weapon.  As Thren whirled round faster than the orc could follow, the blade sliced through the mail collar around the creature’s neck and his body fell in two parts, spouting the first green blood to stain the inner sanctum of Sturmcairn.

Thac
kery was making harder work of his opponent, lacking the particular advantages of Thren’s youth and formidable sword.  However, when Thren joined the fight it became most unequal and the orc sensing defeat, flung itself at Thren even as his sword pierced its belly. Still it came sliding down the blade, hatred filling its fading yellow eyes as it struggled to land a final blow on its princely killer.  But as it swung its arm to strike, Thackery’s sword sliced through its wrist and it was but a bleeding stump with which it hammered Thren’s shoulder as it spat foul drool and green blood in Thren’s face.

“By the G
oddess, orcs in Sturmcairn.”  Thren pulled his sword free as the orc fell to the ground.  “This is the work of that foul traitor.  Thackery, use the temple bell sound the alarm. I must go to see the beacon fire is set.”

Hepidida had seen orcs in picture books, but never in reality.  The creature stood in the doorway to the kitchen, full six foot tall, its green-grey hide covered in strangely shaped mail.  Tusk like teeth protruding from its uneven mouth, breath whistling through its flattened nostrils and its amber eyes full of malice as they scanned the room.   One hand held a heavy shield, the other a long sword that broadened at its end to give a wicked spike on the obverse side to the blade.  However, what made the menace all too real was the red blood than stained both blade and shield.

With a bravery born of foolish desperation, her parents chose their weapons.  Her mother picked a pottery mixing bowl, her father a bread knife and with
these unlikely tools held in outstretched arms they tried to wave the apparition away.  The orc swayed into the room, head cocked slightly to one side as he weighed the threat these people posed.

“Get away,” Vlad urged. “
I’ve done my time in the army. Now get away while you can you orcish trash.”

“Shoo, shoo,” her mother echoed as though the lumbering orc was a bird that had strayed into her kitchen.

The end when it came was swift.  The orc swaggered towards Vlad who lunged at it with the breadknife and then, as her father swayed a little off balance, the orc swung his heavy blade across the man’s throat.  Hepdida screamed as he collapsed in a welter of blood.  At that moment, her mother brought the mixing bowl down with crashing force on the orc’s helmet.  With barely a shake of the head, the orc thrust the spiked boss of his shield through Sahira’s face and she fell soundlessly to the floor.

Hepdida’s second scream was stifled by terror as the orc turned its interest from the bodies of her parents to their trembling daughter.
  There was nothing to be done, nowhere to flee, no weapon it was safe to grasp.  The orc drew closer still, bent down to sniff her, drawing in the scent of her fear.  His mouth split open in a grotesque parody of a smile and Hepdida shut her eyes as tightly as he could, wished she cut shut off her nose to block the foul stench of her parents’ slayer.

“
Grundurg!” a voice called from somewhere, female yet commanding.  Hepdida sensed the hideous heat and miasma of the orc recede as he stepped back from her.  She dared to open one eye, then the other.

A tall woman stood in the doorway, cloaked and hooded with a mask across her eyes.  The orc that had so callously slaughtered her mother and father bobbed in obsequieous fear at the new arrival.  She spat some words of a foul foreign tongue at the orc and it bowed low and
backed against the wall.  Whatever relief Hepdida might have felt was tempered by the long sword the lady carried which, like the orc’s, was stained red with human blood.

“What’s your name child
?” the lady demanded coldly.

“Hepdida,” admitted with a cry.

“I had thought it customary in the Kingdom of the Slaved to thank those who did you some minor boon, like saving you from death at the hand of Chief Grundurg.”

“You’re not going to kill me?” Hepdida was ashamed at the relief she felt.

“As the new Castellan of Sturmcairn I shall have need of servants, servants who know their place.”

“Prince Thren is castellan here!”

The woman smiled at Hepdida’s defiance, a wry mocking smile.  “Some spirit eh? perhaps you might make breeding stock.  Well, poor Prince Thren’s tenure as Castellan is shortly to come to an end, along with his life.”

“No!
” Hepdida wailed. “Captain Kimbolt won’t allow it.  He’ll kill you and all your foul orcs.”

The woman seized Hepdida’s chin, closing her mouth by force, as the dim sparkle of her half concealed eyes met the girl’s blue ones with stilling power.     “Hush child.  You ask much of one poor Captain who may well be dead already.”

“No!” Hepdidia gasped, the mere thought of such an event crushing the breath out of her.

“Kimbolt
?” The woman played with the name.  “Kimbolt? what is this Captain that makes him so special to you child?”

“Nothing,” she said as caution finally seized her mouth.

The woman shrugged.  “As you wish.” She barked a few guttural orders at the bobbing orc chieftain by the door.  “You must excuse me, I have people to kill. Grundurg here will tie you up before he leaves to lead his people in triumph into Sturmcairn.  I have told him to use no more force with you than is necessary, but please don’t annoy him by struggling.  To an orcish mind force is always necessary.”

And with that she was gone, leaving the trembling orphan alone with her parents’ corpses and the resentful orc.

As Thackery sprinted through the temple lobby he almost crashed into Kimbolt coming the other way. He clapped his colleag
ue on the shoulder.  “Kimbolt, you go sound the temple bell.”

“Why
?” the young Captain wore a puzzled expression as though wrestling with some inner conundrum.

“Orcs! orcs in Sturmcairn! T
rust not the Bishop Udecht.”

Kimbolt
’s eyes flicked right then left as he processed this new information.  Thackery punched him in the shoulder for emphasis, exasperated by the unusually leaden witted thinking of his friend.  “Orcs, Kimbolt.  Now sound the alarm.”

“Where are you going
?” he called as Thackery hastened back towards the inner courtyard.

“Our P
rince is off to light the beacon, methinks he may need help,” the veteran called over his shoulder.

“The beacon,” Kimbolt repeated to himself thoughtfully.   He strode,
still in some confusion, not towards the bell tower but after Thackery and emerged in the dark courtyard just in time to see his colleague disappear into the Sturmcairntor stairwell.  His brow furrowed as he tried to fathom the contradictory thoughts that assailed him and to pin down that elusive truth which ducked and dived just beyond his mind’s grasp.

“Kimbolt
?” a voice demanded querulously from the steps of the Castellan’s quarters. “I told you to pray!”

As the young captain turned he saw again the face of
his good friend Udecht.  Kimbolt’s face was wreathed in smiles at the reassuring sight, all uncertainty evaporating like the morning dew in the presence of the most excellent Bishop.  All would now be well.

Thren hesitated on the steps at the sound of pursuit.  He drew his sword and listened to the distant noise of heavy breathing and a familiar voice bemoan those creaking aged joints. “Thackery?”

“Aye sire.”

“What of the alarm?”

“I set Kimbolt to do it, thought you might need help.  There are bodies at the foot of the stairs.”

“I know, I saw them too.  Come, we’ll not be trusting to passwords at the top.”

Together, P
rince and Captain ascended the stairs with careful haste.  They gathered themselves at the door, exchanged a nod of agreement and burst onto the beacon tower with a ferocious cry. “For the Goddess,” screamed Thackery.

“By Eadran’s blood,” cried Thren. 

There had been five outlanders on the tower, none watching the door for the sight below was too enthralling.  The tide of men and orcs had passed through the open gatehouse and emerged into the outer bailey. Dividing into two parties they had headed for the East and West Barracks where most of the garrison were sleeping and it was as they broke down the distant barracks doors, that Thackery and Thren exploded onto the beacon platform.

In an instant the five
outlanders became three before the furious swords of the newcomers.  The remainder, however, were the cream of the outlander army, vicious exiled fighters whose skills had been honed through survival in the wild beyond the barrier.  They hefted their swords and went to work making use of their numerical advantage.  While two faced off against the whirling blades of Thren and Thackery, the third tried to outflank them, skipping round the beacon pyre to come at the intruders from behind.  However, before he could complete the manoeuvre, Thren’s sword penetrated the defences of his own opponent.  The Prince then swung round to confront his would be backstabber with an alert and enraged foe. Battle lust was in in his eye, as he brought the ancient sword down two handed in a blow that stove in the man’s head.  Thackery’s opponent, distracted by his colleagues’ demise, fell victim to the Captain’s driving thrust deep into his armpit.

“Where did they come from, Sire
?” Thackery queried as the last body slid gurgling to the floor.