R. Salvatore - The Dame

Shiknickel’s call of “Hold yer feet!” stopped them cold.

Shoot it dead!” one man cried, but Dawson held his hand to belay that order and to keep everyone calm as they stared at the powrie barrel boat, nearly stopped and splashing in the rough waters barely thirty yards off Lady Dreamer’s starboard bow. A red-bearded dwarf crawled from the conning tower, holding it fast as he settled his feet on the concave deck, waves rolling over the wood.

“Mcwigik,” Cormack and Milkeila said in unison before Dawson could mutter the same.

“Yach, ye dogs, and know yer good deed’s not been forgotten,” the dwarf hailed them as Lady Dreamer fast closed on the barrel boat. “Ye keep on running with yer partner there, and we’ll be giving a good poke to them two that’re chasing ye, not to worry.”

Dawson swallowed hard and looked to his companions.

“Good Mcwigik, and the best to yer kin!” Cormack yelled, taking the cue and moving up beside Dawson.

“Aye, and Bikelbrin’s below!” the dwarf replied.

“How many boats have you?” Cormack called.

“More than a few, and good ones. Ye wanting them’s wearing that flag as them’s chasing ye put to the bottom? Hope ye do, because that’s where they’re going, don’t ye doubt!”

“You will let the ships under the flag of Dame Gwydre pass?” Milkeila dared to ask.

“Aye, a debt repaid, and fun repaying!”

Mcwigik gave a great laugh then as Lady Dreamer glided past, a chuckle filled with such wickedness that Dawson, Cormack, and Milkeila were glad to have him on their side.

“We should tell them to be gone from the gulf,” Cormack said quietly to Dawson.

“Aye, but that’s giving the waters to Panlamaris, now ain’t it?” the older Vanguard sailor replied.

Ahead, the Palmaristown ship keeled over, dropping sailors into the cold waters. Like sharks, a trio of powrie boats rushed the scene, dwarves scrambling on the decks, serrated knives in hand. Dawson and the others on Lady Dreamer watched in revulsion as one poor woman was hauled up by the hair onto the side of the powrie boat, her throat quickly slashed open. Powries swarmed over her, slapping with their berets.

The three on Lady Dreamer glanced back to the boat carrying Mcwigik, already pedaling fast to the south to intercept the Palmaristown ships.

“Weren’t a thing we could do to stop them, anyway,” Dawson mumbled. Given the carnage just ahead, his justification rang hollow even to him.

“Every choice we make, every battle we fight, takes a piece of my soul,” Cormack said and leaned heavily on the rail.

Lady Dreamer and Shelligan’s Run continued to the northeast under full sail for a long time, long after the two ships giving chase broke apart under powrie rams, long after the screams of more Palmaristown men and women rent the early spring air, long after the remaining Palmaristown ships, hugging the coast, turned and fled west.

Finally, the two Vanguard ships dared to separate, Shelligan’s Run turning north to deliver Gwydre’s message to Vanguard, Lady Dreamer turning straight east on their critical mission to ally with Laird Ethelbert.

There was no cheering on either boat for their improbable escape. Nearly every sailor on both of the ships more than once uttered the justification that “the Palmaristown crews would’ve shown us no mercy.”

They had to say that, and had to believe it, given the sight of powries with knives slaughtering helpless crewmen as they splashed about in the dark and cold waters. They had to say that, because they had left fellow men of Honce to the merciless, brutal dwarves.

They had to say that, and so they did, and like Cormack, every one of them lost a little bit of his soul.

Prince Milwellis grabbed the man by the front of his threadbare tunic with one hand and hoisted him up to tiptoes. “And where did you find this food?” he demanded.

The man’s eyes darted all about as if he was searching for an escape route. But the whimpering sounds that came from him showed that he realized there was no way and nowhere to run. A former soldier in Milwellis’s ranks, he and a pair of his companions had been caught in the forest, settled around a substantial stash of food they had procured from area villages. Caught so completely by surprise, the poor fellow’s companions were still sitting, soldiers towering over them.

“We didn’t… we didn’t know what we was to do,” he finally blurted.

“You are a soldier of Palmaristown. I am your prince. What more do you need to know?”

“Please, lord,” the man gasped as Milwellis pulled the tunic up a bit more, tight against the bottom of his chin. “When the demons came north-”

“The demons?”

“Ethelbert’s demon warriors!” one of the other two blurted. The soldier standing over him kicked him hard in the ribs for daring to interrupt.

“Aye, them demons,” the man in Milwellis’s grasp quickly added. “We saw them come down from the hill. They killed the knights, and we were next. And we tried to fight-” His response was cut off into indecipherable garbles as Milwellis, outraged by the reminder of the loss of his elite warriors, tugged him up even harder, and growled as he did.

“Please, lord!” he gasped.

“You battled them?”

“Tried, lord.”

“Tried?”

The man whimpered and Milwellis threw him to the ground, turning on the other two, particularly the one who had interrupted earlier.

“We couldn’t fight them,” the man stammered. “We couldn’t see them. Just men dying. Screaming and then dying. And they were above us in the trees! All about us-as if there were ten thousand of them!”

“Ten thousand? How many were there?”

“Just a few,” the man he had thrown to the ground squeaked in response. Milwellis turned back on him, hands out in confusion.

“Demon warriors,” the other one added.

Prince Milwellis took a deep breath. “Pull the lines in tight and strengthen the flanks,” he instructed his commanders.

“Back to the north?” Harcourt asked quietly, moving by his leader’s side.

Milwellis shook his head. “Back to Ethelbert dos Entel,” he said. “Back to Ethelbert’s lair.”

“We’ve no support from King Yeslnik,” Harcourt reminded. “He has left the field.”

“More the glory for us, then.”

“You don’t fear Ethelbert’s demon warriors?”

Prince Milwellis looked at him hard, and Harcourt chuckled.

“Do you disagree?” Milwellis asked honestly.

“Keep the lines tight,” Harcourt recommended. “Laird Ethelbert has a few tricks, but in the end, the weight of the army will win out. It’d be a great thing for your father to put our enemy back in his box.”

“And better for Palmaristown since Yeslnik fled the field,” said Milwellis.

“King Yeslnik, my prince,” Harcourt teased, and both men laughed.

Strong Prince Milwellis stroked the growing beard on his face and looked to the south where lay, five days’ march away, Ethelbert dos Entel.

Nothing,” Bannagran assured Reandu one warm morning in Pryd Town. “Not an Ethelbert soldier to be found.”

“And not a Yeslnik one, either,” Master Reandu replied.

Bannagran gave him a look of mock anger.

“And that is a good thing,” Reandu pressed on anyway. “The folk of Pryd have time to get their gardens and fields in, perhaps. It would do my heart good to see an easier summer this year than last.”

“You’re glad to have your young brothers home at Chapel Pryd,” Bannagran said.

“And our laird, who is needed at this troubling time,” Reandu replied.

Bannagran nodded, knowing well that Reandu’s compliment was heartfelt.