Dennis McKiernan: Into the fire

Phais turned rightward and held out a shushing hand to Tipperton. Quietly she dismounted.

Tip did likewise, carefully and silently swinging a leg over and down.

Moving toward the Dara, Tip listened and looked and tried to hear and see everything all at once. And as he passed a wide ramp pull-way leading up from the river to the pier and across to the collapsed ruins of a dockside warehouse, from within the wreckage a giggling babble and weep sissed forth.

Tip turned toward the warehouse ruin and signalled to Phais it was here. And he waited for her to arrive.

Together they crept in among the shatter and char, and found whence the hissings came: from 'neath an overturned barge. And as Bekki and Loric and Beau came in among the rubble, Phais and Tip knelt and peered under. And in the shadows they saw- "Lord Tain!" gasped Tipperton.

The white-haired man was holding the frozen corpse of a burnt woman and muttering into her ear.

As weeping and babbling and hissed secrets came sissing from under the barge, Bekki stood up and growled. "I say we kill him now."

"What?" blurted Tip.

"He fled from the field of battle and deserves nothing more than a coward's death."

Loric put a hand on Bekki's shoulder. "Aye, my friend, he did flee from the Rupt at Mineholt North, yet he was advisor to Prince Loden, hence justice is King Enrik's tc do and not ours."

"King Loden, you mean," said Bekki.

Tip frowned up at Bekki. "Prince Loden?"

Bekki shook his head. "Nay, Tipperton, Loden is now king. Enrik is dead."

"How do you know this?"

Bekki gestured at the upturned barge. "Craven Tail says so."

"You understand the tongue he babbles?"

Bekki nodded. "It is Riamonian."

"What is he saying?"

Of a sudden Bekki's eyes softened, and he sighed sadly.

"What is it, Bekki?" asked Tip.

"He just now said her name."

"Whose name?"

"The corpse he holds: it is Lady Jolet, his daughter."

In that moment Beau came back into the rubble, his satchel of medicks in hand. "Is he still under there? I need him here to treat him."

Bekki shook his head. "He is too fear-stricken and won come out."

"Then I'll go in," said Beau.

"Nay, Beau," said Loric. "Thou dost not know what h may do, for his wits are gone."

Beau looked at Phais.

"Hast thou aught to set madness aside?" she asked.

Beau shook his head.

"Then thou canst do no good, whereas in his state he may do great ill to thee."

"Nevertheless…" said Beau.

Bekki ground his teeth and said, "Wait, I will try to ca him forth."

Bekki squatted and peered under the edge of the barge "Radca Tain, wychodzic."

Lord Tain held the corpse and rocked and whispered on

"Radca Tain, proze wychodzic."

Still there was no response from Tain.

Bekki turned to Beau. "He does not know we are here.

"Then I'm going in," said Beau, and before anyone could stop him he scrambled under the edge.

"Tipperton," snapped Bekki. "Set arrow to bow and hold against Tain. If he makes an ill move, kill him."

"But I might hit Beau," protested Tip.

"Not so," said Phais, "for thine aim is true. And Bekki is right. Tis better to slay a madman than to lose a friend."

Hastily Tip nocked an arrow and knelt and made ready should Lord Tain try to do ill to Beau.

Bekki squatted at Tip's side.

Still Tain muttered on.

"What is he saying?"

Bekki took a deep breath. "Among his babblings he now speaks of a Dragon, Sleeth, wreaking havoc."

"One of the renegades," whispered Phais.

"Now he tells that King Enrik is dead," continued Bekki, "killed by Dragonfire."

Beau opened his medick bag and took out a small jar: a salve. He applied it to the burn on Tain's forehead. The man did not note the buccan's ministrations.

Still Bekki translated, sifting information from babble: "Again he says Enrik is dead, but adds that Lady Jolet now bears Enrik's child in her womb, a child who will be the one true heir."

Phais gasped, "Oh Adon, she was with child." Phais reached out and took Loric's hand as tears brimmed her eyes.

Bekki looked up. "He believes that all the princes of Riamon are now slain: some by Dragon, some by cold, and he deems Loden and Brandt could not escape death at the hands of the overwhelming Horde in the battle at Mineholt North." Bekki shook his head. "He does not know Lady Jolet is dead, and he speaks of the child, the prince, the king to come from her loins."

Under the barge Beau spoke softly as he wound a bandage about Tain's head, yet the counsellor babbled on.

"Again he tells of Sleeth and the ravaging of Dael and speaks ill of those who fled from the city, calling them cowards all. Pah! As if Tain himself were not a runaway coward."

Beau closed his satchel, and Tipperton gasped and pulled the arrow to the full, for Beau tugged on Tain's sleeve, trying to draw him forth from under the barge. "Watch out, Beau," called Tip, "he's likely to do you harm."

Beau looked at Tip and then back at Counsellor Tain and tugged again, saying, "My Lord Tain, we must leave now, the kingdom has need of you."

But Tain did not note the Warrow's presence and sat and rocked and keened.

Finally, shaking his head, Beau took up his satchel and came out from under.

Tip exhaled a sigh of relief and relaxed his draw.

Southeasterly along the Sea Road they fared and away from the ruins of Dael, for none would stay in that city of death, none but the dead and the mad. And all along the tradeway they passed among the frozen blizzard-slain.

Ere they had departed, Bekki had led them to a market square, and there they had managed to find in the rubble a frozen slab of bacon, a whole side of venison, a number of grain-sacks of oats and two kegs of pickled herring, along with several sacks of beans. Some of this they packed on their horses, but most they bore back to Counsellor Tain's shelter and set it there for him to have. Too, they left him with a found oil lantern along with flint and steel. As for firewood, there were many unburned splintered timbers he could use, though none of the comrades thought he would. As Bekki said, and they all agreed, "He is mad and in his madness knows only what he mutters."

And they had ridden throughout the ruins and searched for other survivors, calling out for any who might yet be alive… but nothing stirred and no one answered and so they had ridden away, having done all they reasonably could.

And now they fared down the Sea Road among the frozen dead.

Loric gestured about. "This is why the Horde marched past Dael and set siege to Mineholt North instead."

"I don't understand," said Beau.

"Modru knew Sleeth would attack here and so did not cast his Horde against the walled city."

"But that was months back," said Tip, "and Lord Tain babbled of Sleeth attacking just ere the blizzard came."

"Modru is master of the cold," said Bekki. "He waited for his season ere loosing Sleeth to set fire to Dael, to crush its walls and batter down its dwellings, and he sent the blizzard flying on the Dragon's tail, for without shelter any survivors would die in the grasp of its frigid blast."

"I say," chimed in Beau, "d' y' think that's why he set siege to Mineholt North, to cut off that place of refuge should any make it through?"

Bekki shrugged. "Who knows the mind of Modru? Not I, Beau. Not I."

They set camp alongside the road, in a stretch where no frozen dead lay. And as they huddled about their nightly fire and sipped hot tea, Tip said, "It's my understanding that Drakes are vain, selfish, arrogant, and very powerful. How could Modru command such a creature to destroy Dael?"

"Perhaps he bribed him with a treasure," said Bekki.

"A treasure, eh?" said Beau. "What do you suppose it was? Or for that matter, what did he offer Skail of the Barrens to attack the Dwarves at Drimmen-deeve?"