Leslie Moore - Griffin's Destiny

“But, Father, Raidu is going up to the west ridgeline. He’ll want me to go with him.”

“I don’t care. It’s time you had some experience on your own. Raidu can do without you for one day. He’ll just have to fetch and carry his own gear, now won’t he?”

“Yes, Father,” Kaisik murmured, but Raidan couldn’t tell if he heard relief or worry in the boy’s voice.

A sudden noise broke the quiet. Someone pounded on the outer chamber door, shouting with great urgency. Kaisik sat up on his pallet, eyes wide with alarm. Raidan jumped up and reached the door in three quick strides. He jerked it open to reveal a man dressed in castle livery, standing at the threshold.

“My lord Prince, come quickly! There’s plague in the castle! My lady needs you now!” the man cried. His fear stung Raidan like a cloud of angry hornets.

The prince rushed to pull his boots back on. “Stay put!” he growled, jabbing his finger at Kaisik, then turning back to the servant he ordered, “Take me to your mistress!”

The servant led the way through a series of darkened back corridors into the part of the castle frequented only by the staff. Muttering about “the end times” and wringing his hands, he kept glancing over his shoulder as if to assure himself Raidan still followed.

The two men rushed through the castle’s cavernous kitchen, lit only by the crimson glow of banked fires, and came to a hallway lined with wooden doors, most of them thrown open to reveal plain, serviceable furniture. At the far end, a whispering, weeping clutch of castle folk clogged one of the doorways.

“Step aside!” cried Raidan’s guide. “Step aside for his Highness!” The servants melted against the walls, their heads bowed. The air thrummed with their fright. Raidan stepped into the room, and Odata greeted him with a curse and a question.

“Goddess’ tits! What are we going to do now?”

This is not good, not good at all,” muttered Sen Sakehera. He paced the length of Odata’s small study in quick, jerky strides. “You’re the physician, Raidan. Is there anything we can do to stop this from spreading?”

“Yes, but it’ll make defending Tono nearly impossible,” the prince replied. “We’d have to seal up the castle.”

In total, three castle dwellers had already fallen ill: a housemaid, a kitchen drudge, and the guardsman Raidan had been called out to examine.

“What if we isolate the sick and anyone who came in contact with them?” Odata suggested.

Raidan nodded, impressed with the lady’s grasp of the basic scientific principle of quarantine. “Yes, that would be ideal, but there’s no way to know how many people may have been exposed, since we still don’t know exactly how this disease is spread. It would mean losing most of your kitchen staff and at least half of the castle guard. No, it’s just not practical.”

“What if all the lords and their staffs move out and set up camp outside the walls,” Sen said. “That way, at least, we’ll lessen the risk to the most vital among us.”

“I agree,” Raidan replied. “The castle guard will stay inside, of course, as will most of your serving staff, Odata. The only persons allowed to go in and out will be us three.”

“Then let’s get started,” Sen said.

The evacuation of the castle proceeded without any problems. The large tent Raidan shared with Raidu and Kaisik became the new command center.

After he had settled in, the prince’s first order of business was to survey all the captains about any unusual sickness they may have observed among their units. Fortunately, none had anything out of the ordinary to report, but this did little to ease Raidan’s mind. The exact nature of the contagion remained a mystery; despite the many hours the prince had spent trying to unlock its secrets, he found himself no closer to understanding when and why the plague would strike. He had to assume the entire army stood at risk, even though, so far, no soldier had actually fallen ill.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, submerging the valley in muggy darkness, small groups of scouts assigned to the high ridges moved out of camp, winding their way across empty fields that should have been sown weeks ago. Even if the elves prevailed, hunger would stalk the land like a gaunt specter, for there would be no harvest come summer’s end.

In the royal pavilion, Raidan, Sen, young Kaisik, and Sen’s son Sadaiyo sat down to a cold dinner of roasted duck and apples. Several of the prince’s aides had also been invited, including Mai Nohe. The day had been long and hot, and all were weary, none more so than the prince himself. So many tasks remained to be done. One last war council had be convened and all the lords given their final orders; a fresh source of fodder for the army’s horses had to be found; there were dispatches to be written and sent back to Sendai-Raidan feared he would never sleep again.

“I’ve made my choice of who is to command the diversionary force at the pass,” the prince announced after everyone had filled their plates. He turned to look at Sen.

“It has to be you, old friend,” the prince said. “Only you have the necessary experience and instinct to pull this off convincingly. The Soldarans must believe the ruse and follow you into the valley. Otherwise, our entire plan will fail.”

Sen took a gulp of wine, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and glanced at his son. “We’ll make sure the Soldarans run straight into our trap like rabbits to the snare.”

Sadaiyo Sakehera’s eyes gleamed and a tiny smile curled his lips.

“Our scouts have started for the ridges, Highness,” Mai Nohe reported. “They should all be in position by midnight.”

If the Soldaran generals were canny, and Raidan had no doubt they were, he knew they had sent their own scouts to reconnoiter the ridges as well.

“For our plan to remain viable, the Soldaran scouts will have to be allowed to report back that there’s only a small garrison here to defend the valley,” Raidan said.

“Every one of our scouts is mage-trained in detection and memory alteration,” Sen responded. “All the humans will remember seeing is a whole lot of dark and a few torches on the castle walls.”

“Mai, I believe you have a report on the state of the provisions,” Raidan prompted as he refilled his wine goblet.

“Yes, Highness,” Mai Nohe replied. He wiped his hands on his breeches then pulled a scroll from the leather satchel at his feet. Unrolling the paper, he scanned it for a heartbeat, then cleared his throat and spoke. “We have enough grain, meat, and…”

“Father, a human scout’s been captured!”

Everyone turned to look at Raidu as he burst into the tent, flushed and out of breath.

At the same moment, a commotion erupted outside. Someone cried, “Make way for the lady!” and a female voice, calm and perfectly audible above the racket, commanded, “I am here to see Prince Raidan. Let me pass.”

Raidan found himself on his feet with no memory of having left his chair.

Goddess’ tits, what’s she doing here?

The tent flap lifted and the King’s Companion swept in, trailing an agitated clot of guards and fellow mages in her wake. “My lord Prince,” she murmured and sank into a deep bow.

“Lady Sonoe…I confess, I’m surprised to see you,” Raidan responded. “Why have you left my brother’s side?”

Something feels wrong here , Raidan thought. He took a step forward and offered a hand to assist the sorceress as she rose to her feet. As his fingers closed about hers, a wave of vertigo struck him. He staggered a little, then shook his head like a man ridding himself of the last vestiges of a dream.