R. Salvatore - The Dame

“And no one’s fall is more relished than the defeat of he who thinks himself invulnerable,” said Tyne, the youngest of the group, to approving nods from Kirren Howen and Laird Ethelbert.

“Young and proud Milwellis will turn south,” Ethelbert said. “Delaval and his commanders have come to think this our last stand. The son of Panlamaris, hoping to secure a prominent seat for his father and his town, will not be left out of the victory.”

“And when he does turn?” asked Kirren Howen. “How long do we hold?”

“We know the terrain east of Pryd Holding,” Ethelbert explained. “Laird Delaval does not. His generals are not well versed in the eastern reaches of Honce. The same is true, even more so, of Milwellis of Palmaristown.”

“As long as we can, then,” Kirren Howen replied, and Laird Ethelbert smiled and nodded, fully confident in these men who served him. Kirren Howen would not allow Ethelbert’s army to be smashed by the bulk of Delaval’s forces here in the middle of Honce; they were not here for that purpose.

“We hold faith that our journey to central Honce will not be in vain,” Myrick the Bold asserted, and there was nothing but supreme confidence regarding Laird Ethelbert and these unknown ulterior motives in the old man’s words. He bowed low, as did Tyne and Kirren Howen, and Ethelbert took his leave, signaling for Palfry to remain here with the commanders.

In another clearing not so far away, the Laird of Ethelbert dos Entel met with a second group of warriors, a half dozen men and two women of darker skin and black hair and blacker eyes. It was no secret among his ranks, or among his enemies, that Ethelbert had hired mercenaries from the deserts of Behr, but this group was another matter altogether. Their leader was a petite woman with deceptively soft facial features, a disarming wide, white-toothed smile, and dimples that could melt a man’s heart at the same time that her sword-or even her bare hands-could dismember him. And, oh, how she could dance, Ethelbert mused, the turning and weaving of those supple limbs enough to melt an old man’s heart.

Her name was Affwin Wi, the Eyes of Bursting Sunrise, given to her by her masters at the Walk of Clouds, home of the Jhesta Tu. Affwin Wi had been known among that order not as a creature of introspection or quiet meditation but rather as something akin to the sudden explosion of light when the sun peeked above the eastern horizon, an excitable and impetuous sort. These characteristics had gotten her into trouble among the introspective ascetics who sought to teach her. Jhesta Tu was an art of mind and body: Affwin Wi’s masters feared that she possessed too little of the former and an abundance of the latter.

She had left the Walk of Clouds as a young woman, only a few years before. Again, contrary to Jhesta Tu teaching, Wi had taken on the role of teacher for the similarly fiery men and woman standing around her.

“Laird Delaval continues his advance?” she asked Ethelbert now.

“He cannot surrender the center, and Pryd Town is the center,” the old laird replied. As Ethelbert spoke Merwal Yahna walked over to stand beside Affwin Wi. Ethelbert noted that the rest of Affwin Wi’s disciples, amazing warriors all, shrank back as this one passed. He wasn’t a large man, and the loose fit of his soft black silk clothing did not reveal his tightly packed muscles. Only his clean-shaven head could perhaps be construed as imposing-that and his eyes, narrow, small, and intense.

Watching the sureness of the Behrenese man’s stride and the pure grace of his movements reminded Ethelbert of the value of this gift of deadly mercenaries the Sheik Kali-kali-si of Jacintha had given to him.

“Laird Delaval intends to meet me on the field with every warrior he can spare, and he can spare them all, so he believes.”

“But he has not arrived to join them in this glorious victory?” Merwal Yahna asked, his voice measured. The deference Affwin Wi showed him by allowing him to speak was yet another testament to the man’s rank.

“He is not well, by all word, and desires to heap praise and stature upon his buffoon of a nephew. No, my warrior, Delaval will not be on the field.”

Merwal Yahna’s small eyes lit up, and he gave a slight nod. A quick glance around by Laird Ethelbert told him that he need say nothing more, that the plan was understood and now in action.

Ethelbert bowed to these fearsome disciples of Affwin Wi and took his leave.

He would sleep well that night.

He stumbled through the blinding storm, the cold wind whipping his cloak wide, the persistent snow rushing in around his armor. He stumbled and nearly fell, but knew the group behind him, nearly ninety men, depended on his continuing forward against the harsh elements. He shielded his eyes, futilely, and leaned forward against the wind, driving on.

But the ground gave way before him as he walked right over the edge of a chasm he could not see. His cry diminished as he dropped fifty feet to where the snow and ice cushioned his fall enough so that he did not die immediately. Twisted and broken, unable to draw in enough breath to scream out, he tried to hold faith that his brothers would get to him with their healing stones.

He died alone that night.

“He’s gone over!” a monk had cried when Brother Juniper fell. “Ropes! Brothers! A stone of levitation!”

“Turn east and trek the length of the gorge!” Father De Guilbe ordered, his tone accepting no debate. “Brother Juniper is lost to us, and many more will perish if we do not find shelter from this accursed storm! East, I say, and with all haste!”

They did find shelter, meager though it was, amidst a tumble of boulders and a few thin evergreens. With frozen fingers, the servants of the brothers moved about the area, digging out any piece of wood they could find, breaking branches from the trees. Brother Giavno held his hands in front of his face and blew into them, trying to get feeling back into his fingers. He stood at the back of the camp, a wall of rock climbing up high behind him to the north. Before him, the servants dumped their thin loads of kindling.

Giavno waved the next brother in line over to the latest pile and presented him with two gemstones, serpentine and ruby.

The younger brother placed the ruby down and clutched the serpentine close to his chest, offering prayers to Blessed Abelle and reaching into the gemstone magic until an aura of bluish white light glowed about him. Shield in place, he bent and retrieved the ruby, then thrust his hand into the kindling pile and called forth its fiery properties.

The fingers of pine branches exploded to flames, but they didn’t last and could not fully take hold on the thicker, wet wood. The brother called upon the ruby again and again until finally the flames caught. Still holding the serpentine shield, he left the ruby for Brother Giavno and carried the burning pile to his appointed section of the encampment.

“There is little shelter for the light of our fires,” Brother Giavno warned his only superior among the group, Father Cambelian De Guilbe, a giant of a man, larger than life, standing well over six feet and weighing nearly three hundred pounds. De Guilbe’s girth seemed all the more remarkable because the rest of their group had thinned considerably during the years away from Vanguard and Honce. De Guilbe was almost a decade older than the middle-aged Giavno but possessed of no less vitality. Indeed, with Giavno’s own head more skin than hair, many who regarded the pair could not be certain which was the older. “The hill behind us blocks a view to the north. The chasm to the south perhaps protects us from attack, but the flames we need to stave off the cold this night will be seen for a long way.”