The Name Of The Sword (Book 4) (11 page)

“You think maybe another ambush?”

“Possibly.”

Looking at the trail the jackals had left, Morgin revised his opinion of the situation. He needed to move with more caution, needed to go forward protected by shadow, but he didn’t want Rafaellen to see his abilities in that regard. “Go back and ride with your men. I can move more silently without you.”

Rafaellen shook his head. “No. I’m staying close to you.”

Morgin turned to face the captain. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

“I do trust you, but not that much.”

They locked eyes for a long moment, and Morgin realized he had no choice. He wrapped himself in shadow and Rafaellen gasped. Then drawing his sword as he danced among the shadows, he stepped out of one immediately behind the captain and pressed the tip of his sword between the man’s shoulder blades. Rafaellen froze.

Morgin said, “If I wanted to betray you, or murder you, do you really think you could stop me?”

Morgin lowered his blade, stepped back a pace and said, “Turn and face me.”

Rafaellen turned around slowly, and the fear on his face surprised Morgin. The man’s voice trembled a bit as he said, “ShadowLord.”

Morgin shrugged. “I suppose so. But if I am, forget all the legends you’ve heard. I have no intention of harming you or your men, or the princess. So do as I say.”

He pulled another shadow, knowing that in the soft light beneath the forest canopy he would seem to disappear. Rafaellen gasped again, and Morgin stepped from shadow to shadow until he stood about ten paces farther down the trail. “Do as I say, Captain, or you’ll hinder me, and that will endanger the princess’s life.”

Rafaellen returned to his men and it appeared that now the captain would obey Morgin’s orders. Morgin climbed into Mortiss’ saddle and pulled a shadow about them both. He nudged her forward, moving more cautiously now that his suspicions had been aroused.

11
The Track of the Jackal

Seducing Lewendis proved to be rather easy. He was a bit of a yokel, and had never really had a lover as beautiful—and as talented beneath the sheets—as Chrisainne. And to her surprise, he turned out to be a gentle and caring lover. He was not the most handsome of men, but he took great care to be certain she enjoyed herself, and she did. Between him and the stable boy she almost had enough lovemaking in her day to keep her satisfied. If only she didn’t have to fuck that pig BlakeDown.

She felt the touch of Valso’s mind close at hand, so she quickly put such thoughts away.

The weather here in Durin is atrocious,
Valso said.
It’s been raining all day.

It’s rather pleasant here, Your Majesty
, she said.
Though it saddens me that you must suffer such dreariness. But I do have some good news to report, and that might brighten your day.

And what is that?

I have seduced one of ErrinCastle’s lieutenants, one of the hotheads his father forced upon him.
She had thought long and hard about this, and decided that she could use Lewendis to her own advantage with Valso.
His name is Lewendis, and he can be quite volatile. But he’s also easy to manipulate.

Chrisainne heard the skepticism in Valso’s tone.
But it sounds as if he’s nothing more than a low-level lieutenant. So how is this good news?

Through him I have more direct control of the border situation. I can directly influence his thinking, keep him from starting a war too early, but when you decide the time is right, I’ll have him start it at your pleasure. How much of a war would you like him to start? An all-out bloodbath, or just a skirmish?

Oh Chrisainne! I like you. I like you very much.

And with that, Valso withdrew from her mind.

Yes, Lewendis: a pleasant surprise wrapped in a crude country package. And while she took enjoyment from that surprise only because Theandrin had forced her to seduce him, Chrisainne wouldn’t let that stop her from killing the woman.

A rather surprising thought occurred to her: why stop with Theandrin? Theandrin first, then wait a year or so, and ErrinCastle could follow her, some sort of accident. At that point, with no other offspring, BlakeDown would be desperate to sire a new heir. And he’d have Chrisainne close at hand, a beautiful, young noblewoman in the prime of her fertility. She’d have to do something about her own husband. It might look suspicious if he died, and then shortly afterward she married BlakeDown. Better to kill him off sometime between Theandrin and ErrinCastle. If she did this right, she could be the mistress of Penda and mother to its heir. She’d have to put up with BlakeDown and his piggish rutting—or perhaps not. Once she bore a son to inherit the leadership of Penda, and maybe a spare, she’d have no further need of BlakeDown. And with him out of the picture, there’d be no one to stop her from taking all the pleasure she desired from whomever she chose, for she would be the Lady of Penda, with no lord to gainsay her.

Yes, she just needed to set her sights higher, and be willing to take whatever steps were necessary.

••••

“Pheasant tonight,” Theandrin said, standing in the kitchen, reviewing the meal plan with the cook. “Boar tomorrow evening, and how about—”

Something triggered her special ward, sending a jolt through her soul. She staggered, reached out and gripped the back of a chair.

The cook frowned and took her arm. “What’s wrong, milady? Are you ill?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Here,” the cook said, pulling out a chair. “Sit down. I’ll get you some water.”

“No,” Theandrin said. She had to move quickly. She turned and marched out of the kitchen, saying, “We’ll finish this later.”

She’d created a new ward, designed to trigger on a non-physical intrusion, and she had to get to it before the effect dissipated. She strode through the castle proper, servants scurrying out of her way. She marched up to the second floor and into her bedroom.

She retrieved a small chest from beneath her bed, placed it on the bed and opened it, its only contents a small, silver pendent containing a lock of her hair and 13 drops of her blood. She lifted it out of the chest, pressed it tightly against her breast and closed her eyes.

She felt nothing for several heartbeats, but as she concentrated and focused her magic, a faint and indistinct impression washed through her. She saw a white light far in the distance. It slowly approached and grew in intensity until it shone with such brilliance it flooded the landscape of her thoughts, almost swamping any other feature. But not quite, for beneath it she saw two shadows, one green, one blue, both nothing more than a blotch of color beneath the overpowering white radiance. The vision slowly faded, until nothing remained to be seen but the back of her own eyelids. She opened her eyes to consider what she’d just seen.

There was no mistaking the white of Decouix, and that made sense. If she must guess who might place a spy in the Penda Court, the two prime candidates were Olivia and Valso. But she’d seen no Elhiyne red, just the white of Decouix, the green of Penda, and the blue of Vodah. The white and green she understood, a Penda traitor reporting to the Decouix, but how did Vodah fit into this?

Valso probably had a few of his Vodah lackeys sneaking about. They’d keep a low profile, probably pretend to be Penda, or any of the other Lesser Clans. She’d have to check nearby inns, put together a list of possibilities. It would be someone who had been inside the castle walls at the moment the ward had been triggered.

If she couldn’t track this intruder down by simply looking for Vodahs lurking about, she’d have to strengthen her special ward. But then the intruder might detect it when he triggered it. Maybe she could add something to it to give her a sense of direction, or location.

What would she do with the culprit when she found him? She’d have to think on that.

••••

Morgin rode at a slow pace with his attention sharply focused on the track left by the jackal troop, Rafaellen and his men following at about a hundred paces. The forest thinned out and the jackals no longer needed to ride in a single column. That worried him, for if a small group split off from the main troop, he could easily miss the signs of them doing so. He had slowed to a walk when he heard a noise to one side of the track.

He and Mortiss froze, and the only sounds to break the silence were the soft rustle of the forest leaves, a little noise from Rafaellen and his men, and the faint sing-song sound of a jackal’s voice lowered to a whisper.

Turning only his head, and doing so slowly, Morgin looked in the direction of the jackal’s voice. He saw nothing for several heartbeats, then caught a glimpse of motion behind a large clump of brush to one side of his track. An ambush, and he and Mortiss had walked right into it. If not for his shadows he’d likely be a dead man now.

The play of light beneath the dense forest canopy was ideal for shadowmagic. So he released Mortiss’ reins and draped them across her neck. Conscious that even the creak of his saddle leather could give him away, he gripped the saddle horn, and moving slowly he swung his right leg over Mortiss’ rump. He cautiously lowered his right foot to the ground, then lifted his left foot out of the stirrup and lowered it, careful not to snap any twigs or make even the slightest sound. He leaned toward Mortiss’ ear and whispered, “You take the jackals we spotted. I’m going to check the other side for a second bunch. And start the killing just as they spring the trap.”

Crouching low, and reinforcing his and Mortiss’ shadows, he edged toward the side of the track opposite the jackals he’d spotted. He hadn’t detected any jackals on that side, but they were smart enough to set up an ambush with a proper crossfire, and there were several clumps of brush that could easily hide a second group of jackal warriors.

Rafaellen and his men were quickly approaching so he didn’t have much time. He drew his sword slowly, glanced back once and saw that Mortiss’ had left the track, though whether she chose to obey his orders was always a question that would only be answered when the time came.

Walking in a crouch about 20 paces outside the track, he paralleled it, danced from shadow-to-shadow and checked anything that might hide a jackal. He found one standing behind the trunk of a tree, two more a few paces away behind a large bush, all holding strung bows and nocked arrows, their attention locked on Morgin’s companions as they approached. He couldn’t be certain he’d found them all, and he had no more time to search further. So he stepped into a shadow behind the two and waited. Using surprise he’d try to kill them quickly, then go after the one behind the tree.

The jackals were smart enough to not wait until Rafaellen and his men had crossed directly between them; too much chance that a stray arrow might miss its target and continue on to strike friend rather than foe. No, they’d surprise their enemy just before they reached that point. But since Morgin’s targets were spread out, he couldn’t wait for that.

He guessed the jackals would strike when Rafaellen was about ten paces out, so he moved when they were at 20. He held his sword in a two-handed grip, stepped forward and swung it down at an angle at the jackal on his left. It bit deeply into the warrior’s neck where it met his shoulder. At the same instant Mortiss’ cried out a scream from netherhell, and the deep brush on the other side of the track erupted in a maelstrom of barking jackals and enraged horse.

Morgin’s sword stuck in the jackal’s spine and he lost a precious moment tearing it free. He swung it around at the second jackal, conscious that the third remained unchallenged at his back. His sword crunched into the side of the second jackal’s head as he saw the flash of an arrow streaking toward his allies.

He spun away from the two jackals he’d killed just as the third stepped out from behind his tree and swung a sword in a flat arc. Morgin ducked beneath it, stepped into a shadow, danced among the shadows while the jackal slashed his blade about blindly. Morgin stepped out of a shadow behind the dog, lunged forward and buried his blade in the jackal’s back.

The jackal grunted and stumbled forward, sliding off Morgin’s sword. It turned about and faced Morgin, stood there swaying from side-to-side, its tongue hanging limply out the side of its muzzle. Then the light of life left its eyes and it slumped to the ground.

No more jackals came at Morgin, and the other side of the track was silent so he concluded Mortiss had done her job. But a few hundred paces distant a jackal howled out a cry that must have carried for leagues. One of them had gotten away to warn the others.

Morgin bent down and wiped his sword on the jackal warrior’s tunic, then walked out into the track. Rafaellen and three of his men were standing over the body of one of their companions, the shaft of an arrow protruding from his chest.

Mortiss walked up to them still wrapped in shadow, and only then did Morgin realize he hadn’t extinguished his shadowmagic; he quickly did so. One of the soldiers looked at Mortiss, then at Morgin. He stepped back and said, “Devil horse . . . devil horseman.” He finished by making a sign with his fingers, a useless symbol that peasants believed would protect them from evil.

••••

JohnEngine reined in his horse and looked carefully at the Penda border patrol. They were a good five hundred paces out, but even at that distance he saw that they had doubled their numbers—not a good sign. That could force him and Brandon to double theirs. They needed parity on the border, a careful balance that discouraged ill-thought action.

The Pendas rode forward and halted about two hundred paces from the border, a winding creek that sliced through the flat fields of the western Elhiyne lands. It was no coincidence that two hundred paces was just within bow shot of the border. The Penda lieutenant deployed his men in a skirmish line, with archers on the flanks, and only then did he ride forward.

JohnEngine had no choice but to respond in kind. He arrayed his men carefully at a like distance from the border, though they were outnumbered two to one. And when he rode forward to meet the Penda lieutenant his horse sensed his unease, and danced a bit from side-to-side with skittishness.

When JohnEngine recognized Perrinsall, the tension in his shoulders eased a bit. The Penda lieutenant was a reasonable man, not a hot-head like Lewendis. With about 20 paces separating them, Perrinsall nodded politely and said, “Greetings, Lord JohnEngine.”

JohnEngine heard strain in his voice that had not been there the last time they’d met. “Lord Perrinsall. I hope all is well.”

Perrinsall shrugged, obviously uncomfortable with the situation. “Tell Alcoa we caught his pig thief and stretched his neck beneath a tree.”

JohnEngine said, “We’d have preferred to stretch his neck under an Elhiyne tree.”

“I know,” Perrinsall said. “But he tried to steal some Penda pigs, so BlakeDown ordered his execution then and there.”

Clearly, Perrinsall had chosen to give JohnEngine a carefully edited version of the incident. “Well, as long as someone hung the bastard.”

“Trust me, he’ll not be stealing any more pigs.”

JohnEngine knew he must ask the next question carefully. “May I ask why you’ve doubled the men in your patrol?”

Perrinsall grimaced. “Orders from Lord BlakeDown.”

A terse, simple answer, without elaboration. Perrinsall likely had no further details upon which to elaborate. “Well I thank you for hanging the thief. Good day, Lord Perrinsall.”

“Good day, Lord JohnEngine.”

As JohnEngine rode back to his men he considered the situation carefully. It would not do to have such a discrepancy between the size of the Penda patrols and the Elhiyne. That alone might encourage a hot-head like Lewendis to act rashly, and start a war that none of them wanted. As a matter of caution he and Brandon would have to double the size of their own patrols.

••••

Rhianne’s suite consisted of five rooms on the second floor of Castle Decouix. She had a sitting room in which to entertain guests, a bedroom and a bathing chamber, with a smaller, second bedroom in which two of her handmaidens slept. That allowed them to be close at hand should she need anything, even in the middle of night. It also allowed them to watch her closely, day and night. The sitting room opened into an outer foyer meant to provide privacy to the rest of the rooms. Any potential guest who knocked on the outer door would be greeted by one of her handmaidens, who would then find Rhianne and privately tell her who had come to visit, and Rhianne could then choose to see or not see the person. At least, that was how it was supposed to work.