R. Salvatore - The Dame

“Queen Gwydre of Honce,” remarked Father Premujon. “It rings of hope.”

“It rings of presumption and arrogance,” said Dame Gwydre.

“Perhaps it is the time for both, good lady,” said Father Artolivan. “Perhaps it is time for both.”

Dawson stood near Lady Dreamer’s prow, his favorite place when his ship found a good wind and threw her spray up high. She opened her sails now, leaving the docks of St. Mere Abelle far, far behind. The slight splash of salty water felt good to Dawson, made him feel alive and gave him a burst of that brine smell that seemed to define his life. He came up here to be alone with his thoughts, to reflect on his life and the point of it all.

And today, Dawson needed that contemplative energy more than ever. The night with Callen Duwornay had thrown his emotional balance into a delicious swirl, a jumble of possibility. Terrifying possibilities, since Dawson had stepped away from his typical course. But that was the way of the world right now, was it not? Honce was at war with itself in a struggle that would dramatically redefine the old feudal holdings, however this insanity ended. And the roads! Dawson had long been among the most worldly of people in parochial Honce and even more parochial Vanguard. Lady Dreamer was his freedom, his transport to exotic lands. Until these last few years, only the sailors and the marching armies typically saw any of the world beyond their own home villages. The average person in Honce would spend the entirety of his or her life knowing only a few square miles of land and a few score, perhaps a hundred, other people.

While that no doubt remained the truth of the land, the roads connecting all the major holdings of Honce proper were taming the land and making possible many more journeys to Delaval City or Pryd Town or St. Mere Abelle. The world was changing, and the tumult of those monumental shifts was a big part of the reason for the war.

Now Dawson’s world, too, was changing, had changed. He couldn’t believe that he had found the courage to be so forward with Callen, couldn’t believe his good fortune to find his feelings reciprocated. He could only hope now that he would be able to get to the city of Ethelbert dos Entel and back in time to realize the sweetness of his courage. Suddenly, he couldn’t imagine his life without Callen.

Dawson took a deep breath. If Callen went home to Pryd Town, then was he to abandon his life at sea? How could he give up Lady Dreamer? How could he give up Callen?

“I say, Captain!” said an insistent voice from behind, in such a tone that Dawson realized he must have been hailed several times already.

“What? What, then?” Dawson stammered. He focused on the situation at hand, noting that they were fast closing on Shelligan’s Run, the ship he had selected to deliver Dame Gwydre’s message back to Vanguard. At first all seemed as it should, but Dawson’s face crinkled a moment later when he noted the commotion on the deck of the other ship, with sailors running to the port rail and to the rigging.

“West, Captain,” Dawson’s crewman said.

Dawson looked that way and felt his heart sink.

Palmaristown warships, three of them, each twice as large as Lady Dreamer, sailed in tight formation. Their decks were full of crewmen, archers with their deadly longbows. Even from this distance Dawson could make out the distinctively high poop deck of a Palmaristown warship, for those craft had each been equipped with a large ballista, a gigantic crossbow set on a rotating platform.

Giant sails full of wind, the ships came on fast.

Dawson’s thoughts whirled. Could Lady Dreamer tack fast enough and fill her sails with the westerlies quickly enough to outrun them?

He shook his head doubtfully. Lady Dreamer could get up to speed and outmaneuver anything on the water, true, but she wasn’t even at full sail, and she couldn’t straight-line outrun Palmaristown warships, the greatest vessels in all of Honce.

Dawson glanced back the way they had come, thinking that maybe they could turn about and get into the protection of St. Mere Abelle’s harbor before the warships got in range and laid waste to his two ships.

And there, Dawson McKeege saw his doom, for he sighted two more Palmaristown warships running the coast.

He had sailed into a trap.

Five ships, fully manned and armed for battle, any one of which could probably defeat both Lady Dreamer and Shelligan’s Run.

Two of the ships in the west continued their straight charge, while the third had veered to the north to cut off any attempt to flee into the open waters of the gulf.

There was nowhere to run.

He thought of Dame Gwydre then and how he had failed his friend. He thought about Callen. Once the notion of the beautiful woman entered his mind a great despair washed over him. He knew that the beautiful possibilities had just flown away.

Would he take comfort in the memories of his last night when the Palmaristown fleet put him into the dark water? he wondered.

Well, you know an army or two marched through here,” Jameston Sequin said somberly-the only tone appropriate for the images around them. They were nearing the Mirianic coast now, far to the southeast of Pryd. Torn roads, burned forests, and carrion birds, so many carrion birds, greeted them at every turn.

A ground fog covered the region this day, thick with the smell of death.

Bransen had fought in several battles, most notably in the large and wild fight outside Ancient Badden’s castle, so he was not unused to the aftermath of war. But this was different, darker and more sinister. For he knew that this time the smell of rotting bodies was not fully from, not even mostly from, the corpses of combatants, the soldiers of Ethelbert and Yeslnik who had fallen in their struggles. No, the air was thick with the smell of rotting, dead children and other innocents caught between the bloodlust of the warring lairds.

“You got no belly for it,” Jameston said, obviously seeing the sour expression on Bransen’s face.

Bransen looked at him hard. “You do?”

Jameston gave a helpless chuckle. “You’re starting to understand why I live in the woods.”

“And yet, here we are.”

“I already told you…”

“I know, a purpose bigger than your own life,” said Bransen. “Are you, am I, possessed of magic enough so that we can just lift a gemstone and utter a phrase and repair all of this?” As he finished, he swept his arm toward the south, where a trio of burned-out cottages stood. Even the animals on the small farms had been killed, and several cows lay on the field, covered with pecking birds.

“Not thinking that, and you’re not either,” said Jameston. “We’ll find ways to help. That’s something.”

Bransen nodded, his expression grim. They set off again, heading east, and Jameston’s words seemed prophetic soon after, when cries for help and of fear rent the heavy air.

The pair rushed through a stand of thick trees and around a rocky bluff, Jameston stringing his bow as they ran. With the sounds coming from over an old and crumbling stone wall-crumbling, but still taller than a tall man-Bransen reflexively called upon his brooch and his Jhesta Tu training, reaching into his concentration and the malachite stone simultaneously, instantly, instinctively. He leaped high. Too high. He felt weightless, the malachite working its magical levitation and amplified by his Jhesta Tu understanding. He had meant to grab a hold on the top of the wall and pull himself over, but he climbed into the air to the wall top and above, floating right over, almost as if he was swimming in the air.

He remained in control of his body and kept his wits about him as he crossed over the stone wall. From that bird’s-eye view, the Highwayman witnessed the chaos. Before and below him poor peasants scrambled among several small cottages, while armed men chased them and beat them down. Out of one house rushed a young warrior, his hands full of bread, a peasant woman charging after him, screaming for him to stop. One of his companions stepped up from the side and cracked her across the back of the neck with a heavy club, throwing her face down to the ground, where she lay still.