The Stoneholding

Sharp-set to reach Ashwood Hall before nightfall, they pushed on numbly through the Deer’s Slunk, a lonely stretch of royal forest threaded with tangled thickets and beaver meadows which made it a well-favoured refuge for game.

Frysan lapsed into a daydream, his senses lulled by weariness and hunger and the confident knowledge they had come almost to the end of the first and most critical leg of their journey. One night’s welcome rest in Ashwood Hall and then tomorrow they would set out again, taking backcountry trails in order to achieve safe haven in Arvon’s highlands.

Frysan stifled a yawn. Getting away from the Silver Palace with the Queen and Prince had been surprisingly easy and uneventful. Between Eldor’s modest detail of men and the Life Guardsmen hidden under the tarp in the wherry, they had managed to overcome the small contingent of soldiers placed by Baldrick on night watch in the grounds above the King’s Stairs, taking them unawares. The only casualty was that headstrong fellow who had ignored Eldor’s call to surrender and had brought the hunting horn to his lips to blow an alarm. Eldor had choked him of his wind with a well-placed arrow. Determined to play the hero, that one. Cost him his life. Frysan shook his head and grimaced. And the two men-at-arms who controlled the postern gate, they had shown precious little fight, letting themselves be locked into a small armoury closet with scarcely more than a murmur. Hard to blame them, faced as they were with the naked steel of Lightenhaft—a sword with a highly persuasive edge, even when it didn’t glow.

Frysan’s left hand slipped to the pommel of the blade that hung by his side, his fingertips tracing the finely tooled leather and metal of the hilt. A wonderfully wrought piece of work. Like any Arvonian, Frysan knew the ancient lore attached to Lightenhaft, that it underwent a transformation only when wielded by one of royal blood and anointing. The King had found it by chance just over a year ago. He recognized the sword for what it was as soon as he laid eyes on it.

It had been a great discovery—to find the sword of Ardiel, the first High King of Arvon, when for countless ages it had been thought lost. Queen Asturia had explained the story of the sword in detail to Frysan earlier. The times being what they were, the Queen bade her husband tell no one, but to keep the famous weapon hidden, a secret shared between the two of them. Better to hold it in reserve, she had argued, depending on how events unfolded. Thank heaven Colurian had been content to heed her advice. It helped matters that by that stage even he, for all his earlier blindness to what was happening in Arvon, had begun to suspect that the Mindal harboured treasonous ambitions.

Frysan fought to stay in his saddle. Exhaustion swept over him in waves.

The worst part of the escape from the Silver Palace had been having to hoist the body of the dead King over his shoulders and carry it out of the bedchamber to the royal barge even as he kept a firm grip on Lightenhaft in readiness. He had laid down the King’s body only for the few minutes it took to deal with the guards at the postern gate.

Once he and his fellow Life Guardsmen, together with the Queen and her baby, had all boarded the barge moored at the King’s Stairs, they eased the high-prowed craft out into the wider reaches of the river. More than once they had been forced to douse their torches and sit at anchor in a reedy bend of the Dinastor in an effort to evade the Mindal’s patrol boats. They manoeuvred the barge upriver by slow stages under power of its oars as far as the Queen’s Hythe, a sheltered landing in a calm sidewater. There the party disembarked amid fields and forests well outside the city of Dinas Antrum. They were met by their escort, a platoon of Frysan’s comrades led by Mactrin, Eldor’s second-in-command.

Frysan had never understood what Eldor saw in the fellow—a brooding grumpy soul with mutton-chop whiskers and a dogleg nose in a furtive cockeyed face, always disgruntled about something or other, forever cursing the air blue under his breath.

Mactrin’s troopers, in all a good score of them, were mounted on horses and dressed unobtrusively in leather jerkins and leggings, like simple men-at-arms. They had brought a covered wagon, so crude, with its ill-greased wheels and rickety side-panels, that it seemed hardly fit for a woodcutter or charcoal burner, let alone the Queen of Arvon and her newborn son. Still, it had allowed the two Life Guardsmen who had been charged with procuring it to slip out of Dinas Antrum in disguise and make their way to the Queen’s Hythe without drawing unwelcome attention to themselves.

And the wagon would hold together long enough to bring a woman and her child to the Summer Palace, even on this stretch of ill-kept trackway—a less frequently used approach to the palace grounds, one normally reserved for the King on his hunting forays. It had been decided that, as they drew nearer to their destination, they should swing off the main road and take this route northwards into the Deer’s Slunk. That way Frysan and his men could make a discreet reconnaissance of the Hall first, check to see if it was all clear, starting with the abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage nestled in a coppice on the edge of the Slunk, where if all went according to plan Wilum would be waiting for them.

Frysan rode ahead in advance of the rest of the escort as pointman and scout. He made yet another effort to stave off sleep, straining to keep his eyes open. The trouble was that, after the tumult and strife in Dinas Antrum, the wooded depths of the Deer’s Slunk reminded him too much of his home far away in the highlands of Arvon. He thought of his wife and infant son. It took the edge off his watchfulness, gave him a deceptive sense of security.

Otherwise he might have noticed with alarm the thick veil of brush overgrowing the trackway on either side, crowding it with a ghostly profusion of corpse plants, their creamy paleness like a winding sheet in the lengthening shadows cast by the trees in their shrouded autumnal colours. Not to mention the weasel on the moss-grown log preparing to spring viciously on a hapless rabbit that stood mute and rooted to the spot, too frightened to squeal or run from its doom. Or the sudden absence of birdsong.

Frysan glanced back wearily at the wagon as it clattered over the stones, its driver slumped with fatigue, while a packhorse plodded alongside. Smiling to himself at the thought that they had kept one step ahead of the Mindal and its armed thugs, he heard a crack as of dry kindling being snapped. His roan gelding lurched out of control. As he was whipsawed forward, something sped, flew past him, brushing the nape of his neck.

Instantly he recognized it for what it was—an arrow. If his horse had not happened to step into a frozen rut and stumble just at that moment, the arrow would have ripped a hole in his face instead of crackling to a stop in the brittle autumn foliage of the trees beyond. Pitched out of his saddle, he tumbled headlong into the thick clump of bushes crowding the edge of the pathway.

“To arms, to arms! Ambush!” Eldor’s shouts were the last words he heard before a sharp blow to the head sent the world around him spinning into darkness.

The moans of wounded men… his fellow Life Guardsmen… and others at hand too, a great many others, speaking harsh words in a strange tongue. Swords being slid from scabbards… soldiers tramping the undergrowth… the hustle and bustle of movement. A baby crying. And cold, how he was stiff and cold. Voices at hand. Who was that?

Groping his way as through a slowly thinning mist, Frysan struggled to lift himself up on an elbow, dazed and groggy, so deep in a laurel thicket that he felt smothered. The stiffness. It was all he could do to summon any real response from his limbs. And the jabbing pain in his ribs. The hilt end of Lightenhaft. He was sprawled awkwardly over the sword. Shifting his weight with a grunt, he moved the weapon.

How long had he been unconscious? A few minutes maybe? Couldn’t be hours—impossible. He should have worn a heavier cloak.

They had been attacked. That much was clear. He shivered.

The ambushers had carried the field. Torches and lanterns everywhere. Too close.

He sensed danger and stifled a groan as fresh throbs of pain flooded his wakening brain. Gingerly he touched a gash just above his temple.

“So what is the final count, Guardsman? Have we caught them all in our net, your comrades-in-arms? Good fighters, they mounted a stout resistance, it must be said to their credit.”

Frysan tensed. Someone stood near, his words carried by the stiffening breeze. Strange sort of accent. A cultivated, formal Arvonian garnished with a sinister oiliness. He could not place it, although in his mind’s eye he imagined the speaker as a slender elegant figure—but dangerous, smoothly dangerous.

“Not surprised. I trained most of them, never got no credit for it.” It was Mactrin. “As for netting them all, there’s one man missing.”

“Which one is that?”

“Frysan Wright… Wee Tot I calls him.”

Never to my face, you snivelling piece of worm-meat. Frysan bit his lip.

“Aye, Wee Tot, the esteemed leader of our happy little troop of loyal Life Guardsmen. The one what donned the draper’s rags and snatched away the woman and her babe. He’s got to be hereabouts somewhere. Can’t have gone far, that’s for sure, what with the lake and a pond blocking his escape on either side, not to mention them guards of yours.”

“It was an ideal location that you chose for us to make the ambush, Guardsman.”

“Didn’t I tell you it was near perfect?”

“Nevertheless… if this captain of yours did manage to escape?”

“No, impossible, he’s still here right enough. Must be dead or wounded for him not to be showing his smooth little face. Either way, it don’t matter. We’ll find him. Puffed up young woodcock he may be. A perfect little eight penny counterfeit taking it on himself to be captain over us older men and him but an unlicked lad. All the same, one thing’s sure, he’d never take flight to save his own hide. Not our Wee Tot. Leave the Queen and her princeling to their own? Not on your life! Not a fellow like him what with his self-important notions of honour and duty to King and country. Knowing Wee Tot, I’d lay heavy odds he’s dead or wounded mortal.”

“We must find him, Guardsman, else the agreement we have between us stands null and void. There must be no witnesses. There will be no witnesses if all these brave comrades of yours lie silent in their graves. The Mindal, astute men they are, will suppose the obvious, that it was your stalwart companions that stole away the Queen and her son. Oh, how they will fret and fume, the petty burghers of the Mindal! We must cover our tracks and bury their bodies where no one will ever discover them—”

“The Charnel Pit. So I said, right by here. A place so deep that no one’s like to find their bones in a thousand years.”

“The survival of even one man could spoil it. It would make all these elaborate arrangements of mine pointless or doubtful at best, something I will not tolerate… You are right, I am certain. No doubt the fellow is near. All the same, my men will find him. I will have them scour every inch of the area until they root him out.”

Frysan hardly dared to breathe, let alone move. Where were the Queen and Prince Starigan?

Again he considered the weird accent, so overlaid with a sneering contempt for Mactrin, the foul traitor. He could almost picture Mactrin’s shifty-eyed smugness. The intonation and colour of the man’s voice struck Frysan as enigmatic, archaic somehow, but with a creeping, shadowy quality. Different from anything he had heard in Dinas Antrum, one of the great cosmopolitan cities in Ahn Norvys. His mind fumbled and groped as he tried to place the oddly formed syllables. The frustrating thing was that there was a thread here—something tantalizingly familiar in the accent. The man’s words carried a recognizable ring. If he could just make the connection.

Like the tumblers of a lock falling into order, his thoughts slipped into place. His mind flashed back to his days as a schoolboy learning the Old Tongue. This fellow talking to Mactrin, he was like… like someone from Ardiel’s time all those centuries ago coming back and trying to speak present-day Arvonian. Hard to explain, but that’s the impression the man’s voice gave—of someone ancient and not only ancient but anciently cunning. Deviously, malignantly cunning, with a mind that bore the long subtlety of a time span calculated in centuries, not years.

“First I shall have my men finish piling the rest of the bodies onto the wagon,” the stranger said. “It will not take but a few more minutes. A tidy load of offal to tip into the Charnel Pit, once we have found your Guardsman friend.”

“He ain’t no friend of mine!”

“Good. I would scarcely have guessed it. In the meantime, I shall take a moment to see to the comfort of the dowager Queen and heir apparent, such important royal personages. We must take care to make certain they are properly prepared for the long journey ahead and not too severely inconvenienced by the conditions of their capture.”

“How about I have a look around for him myself while you’re doing what you’re doing? Starting in the bend of the road there in all them bushes, where he might have crawled in the heat of the attack if he was wounded.”

“By all means, Guardsman, make yourself useful until my men are ready to hunt.”

There was a further brief exchange of parting words that Frysan could not make out, as the wind had shifted.

Frysan struggled to his feet, slowly pulling Lightenhaft from its scabbard. Not fifty yards off in either direction, armed men clustered the road with lanterns that cast a flickering glow into the darkness. Frysan stood silent for a moment.

He considered the situation. Behind and ahead, the attackers choked his routes of escape. They had been set on by a small army, first-rate fighting men who made no mistakes and knew exactly how to plan an ambush. Besides that, they plainly outnumbered the convoy of Life Guardsmen. Cammas, Eldor… they hadn’t stood the ghost of a chance. Frysan fought back tears of grief and rage. If only his longbow had not been strapped to the saddle of the roan! He’d have no trouble sending at least one or two of these villainous wretches to a well-deserved grave. A light bobbed close along the roadway. No mistaking that gait. Skulking slowly, his sword drawn and lantern in hand, Mactrin probed his way.

“Come, come, my triple-turned knave…” Frysan whispered to himself, waiting in a crouch for Mactrin to approach nearer. Before drawing level with Frysan along the road, however, he stopped for a moment, then turned into the woods, wading through the undergrowth, so close that Frysan might have run him through without warning.

“Psst, psst, here.”

“Who-who’s that?” Mactrin rounded toward the voice, but too late to bring his own sword into play. “Why, Captain Frysan, you’re alive. I’ve been looking—” he stammered, staring at the blade tip poised at his unguarded chest.

“Cut the drivel, you double-faced botch of nature,” hissed Frysan through clenched teeth, “or, I swear I’ll fillet you right before your eyes.”

“B-but I—”

“By the glence, man, you’d better shut your trap!”

Mactrin recoiled and shook his head.

“That’s good. You’re not nearly as lean-witted as you look. Now let go your sword. Just open your fingers and let it drop.”

Mactrin’s sword fell from his right hand.

“There’s a smart fellow. Now then, we’ll have our talk. To begin, tell me who these men are, where they’re from, how many of them there are. Loosen your tongue, man, or I’ll gladly loosen it for you.”

“I-I don’t know. They all jabber in a language I’ve never heard, on my life, maybe a hundred of them or even two. It’s difficult to tell on a dark night like this.”

“Alright then, let’s take another tack.” Frysan fought to restrain his anger, trembling as he nudged his swordpoint deeper through Mactrin’s leather jerkin, forcing him back against a large boulder, where the lantern he still held clanged against the rock.

“Stop, stop. You’re drawing blood… I’ll tell you everyth—”

“Their leader, that strange-talking fellow you were just talking to, he speaks our language well enough. Who is he? What’s his name?”

“I swear to you, I don’t have a clue. Gives me the creeps. He’s played it tight-lipped, never named himself, not that I dare ask him. Ain’t healthy to know too much—”

“It’s not healthy to know too little either. Now tell me straight, how did you turn traitor? Where did you make contact with these men?”

Mactrin let out a sigh of resignation.

“Alright, alright. It all started with a chap in The Cranes about a fortnight ago. I’d seen him before in the place, nursing his ale and sitting real quiet and contented like mine uncle on a bench by the hearth. A foreigner, you could tell from the cut of his cloth and the broken manner of his Arvonian. If he was a spy, I thought, he’d have made a better effort to blend in. Anyway, now and again he’d flash me a smile and tip his cap like we was pals from way back. Made me think he was a pleasant sort of chap. All the same, I didn’t pay him no heed ’til he and I, we happened to stumble out of The Cranes together one night. As we was making our way down Limehouse Alley, we was set on by four or five footpads. This fellow, Delyddlo’s his name, or so he claimed, a mason by profession, he fought them off right handily, almost before I could get my own weapon free. Body o’ me, he knew how to fight. A man could see that. Why, he sent them lice-ridden cutpurses scrambling for their lives.

“Well, after that, I’m full of warm fellow-feeling for the man, like we was comrades-in-arms, and he gets real friendly, says he’s from Sifadda, a stranger to these parts, and wouldn’t I stop by with him at his place for a nightcap, meet his fellow countryman who craved company but didn’t like going to drinking holes, didn’t like jostling with all them hordes of people. So this fellow Delyddlo brought me up to his garret, and it didn’t take but a moment for me to get the notion something’s out of kilter, for his friend turned out to be the very fellow you inquired about a moment ago, the leader of this gang of men. He’s a fine-baited talker who comes right out and says to me with that fleering face of his that he’s heard all about me, about what a fine soldier I am, and that he knows full well us Life Guardsmen are busy hatching some plot or other to snatch the King and Queen out from under the very nose of the Mindal.”

Frysan, standing easier now, retracted the point of his blade from Mactrin’s chest. His anger had lost some of its white heat.

“Listen close, you’d scarcely believe what he told me next,” Mactrin continued, his voice grown solemn.

“Go on, then. What did he tell you?”

“Well, he said… do you know what he said? He said… you was a dead man!” He yelled, defiant, even as he swung out with the lantern he still held gripped in his hand, knocking Frysan’s sword aside while he leaped clear before his captor, reeling and off-balance, could recover.

“To me, to me, I’ve found him! He’s alive! He’s here! To me!” Mactrin screamed at the top of his lungs, fighting free of the bushes, heading towards the road, where already the bobbing lights loomed closer, coupled with rising shouts of alarm and command.

For a moment Frysan stood rooted to the spot. Pursuing Mactrin was out of the question.

It was this pause that allowed him to hear it—just the lightest of footfalls rustling in the underbrush at his back. As he whirled around, he raised Lightenhaft point forward at mid-body and lunged with it at a dark figure coming at him in a blur, like a moving fragment of the night, clad wholly in black, a long knife gleaming faintly in the starlight. Frysan felt his thrust connect, tearing through flesh and bone, and quickly pulled his sword free, as he hovered over the body.

He looked back over his shoulder. From every direction armed men were converging on him from the roadway, chain mail glinting in the light that spilled from their lanterns, their swords drawn, egged on by Mactrin’s shrieking voice. A glimmer of light caught him, followed by fresh shouts.

Only one way to run—towards the beaver pond. He turned from his pursuers into the woods, tearing through the alders. An arrow swished through the air overhead, rattling branches and twigs. Archers. They had brought on their archers.

On he fled, scratched and torn, slashing at the undergrowth with Lightenhaft. He summoned the knowledge about the lie of the land that he had gained from the times his company of Guardsmen had been stationed at the Summer Palace, assigned to watch over King Colurian as he indulged his passion for the hunt.

If he could just skirt the ramparts of the beaver dam, he could lose himself in the woods beyond, or have a fighting chance at any rate.

The ground grew spongy underfoot. He had reached the outlying margin of the sprawling beaver pond. Soon he was pushing aside the withered stalks of cattails and crunching through shallow puddles of half-frozen water. He stopped for a moment to recover his breath. He had outpaced those who followed behind. Their lights shone dimmer in the distance.

To his right sloped a wooded ridge that overlooked the pond. Lots of cover, but too much uphill slogging. Veering left, he found it did not take long for the terrain to rise clear of the sodden bog, becoming more firm. Somewhere ahead—not too far ahead, he hoped—a wing of the beaver dam met the higher ground and closed the outflow of the pond. If he could just turn the corner of the dam and escape the confined stretch of ground between the pond and the road. A tight-sprung trap if there ever was one.

As he topped a small hillock and cleared a belt of trees, a phalanx of armed men with lights came into view. They had plugged the gap, blocking his escape in that direction. The young highlander stopped in his tracks and scrambled to retreat, outpacing the hail of arrows that thudded into the ground at his heels, as the enemy caught him in the outer range of their lantern light.

Panting, he retraced his steps only to find that the original group of pursuers had made up for lost ground. Once again they bore down on him. Running an erratic, darting course, he felt an arrow tear at his leggings and he winced. He stared around wildly. Before him loomed the ridge overlooking the beaver pond, which lay to his left. He scanned its reedy margin. No place to make for but the ridge… or else… the idea struck him with sudden force as he ran… the beaver lodge, a dark mass of thickly plaited sticks and mud a good twenty-five paces out from the shoreline.

But what earthly good would it do him? Even if he did manage to swim out to the lodge through the ice-cold water, once there he’d freeze to death, dripping wet and exposed to the elements. Besides, it would be a dead giveaway where he had headed, leaving a trail of broken ice.

He clambered across the shoulder of the ridge and entered a spinney of oak that fell away to the banks of the pond, so dense he was lost to sight, although those who hunted him washed the heights with their lantern light. Pausing to recover his wind, he glanced upslope and his heart dropped—more light poured onto the crown of the ridge from the other side, casting a crisscrossing maze of lights through the woods below.

The noose was tightening. Unless he found a way to evade them, to escape them as they beat the bushes, he would die this very night.

A kind of madness swept over him, clouding his mind. In a panic he floundered forward through the underbrush.

The ground underfoot changed, becoming clear of vegetation, smooth and well-trodden—a path. Now he broke into a run, until he reached a small clearing fringed with aspens, some of them felled, with stumps that bore the distinctive chisel marks of beaver teeth. He had descended almost to the pond, which lay at the foot of the clearing, its icebound surface pricked with the stiff dry stalks of reeds and cattails—except for a channel, made clear and straight over time by foraging beavers, which led underwater to their lodge offshore.

The whole area of the clearing resembled a sloping shelf, dropping off sheer into a steep ravine along two sides, an ideal spot for the beavers since it afforded them natural protection from their predators while on land. He, however, was trapped in a dead end. No time to backtrack either. His pursuers had drawn too close in the precious moments he had lost, swarming across the flanks of the ridge, hunting for him. Already he could make out the faint glimmer of their lanterns even through the screening trees.

He would run no more. A peace came over him. He had tried escape, but to no avail. Let them come now and he would sell himself dear, as befitted a highlander, one of the King’s Life Guardsman. He stood resigned, his back braced against the trunk of a huge linden tree, as he flexed and turned his wrist, testing the feel of Lightenhaft in his sword hand and steeling himself for the shock of combat.

He looked out over the pond again and regarded the dim mass of the beaver lodge whimsically. He sighed, savouring the calm before the storm.

But wait a minute—the plunge hole. Thunderstruck, Frysan bolted to attention, abandoned the linden tree, and strode to the lip of the clearing. There had to be a plunge hole on a ledge like this, otherwise the beavers would have no easy way down to the water. It had to be around here… right around here in line with the channel. Poking through the tall grass and gnawed aspen branches by the faint light of a slender moon and stars, he looked for the opening the beavers used in order to swim back and forth to their lodge. Glancing up the path, he saw that the enemy’s lanterns winked brighter. Where could it be? He grew more frantic. He quartered the ground like a confused hound, then finally discovered the hole, almost falling flat on his face as he stumbled on it. Scarcely more than shoulder width, it was tucked beside a rotting stump, its edges trampled by the coming and going of the beavers.

Here was his sole remaining hope of escape, a way to evade the murderous hue and cry behind him. He did not have the leisure to hesitate, to wonder if the plunge hole would prove broad enough all the way to let him squeeze his body through.

The surface of the water lay some three feet down the hole, yet unfrozen. He slipped Lightenhaft back in its scabbard and knelt at the edge of the opening, which sloped gently to the water. He sucked large drafts of air, priming his lungs for the ordeal ahead.

He launched himself headfirst, every nerve set tingling by the icy shock of the water. Scrabbling with both hands, he pulled himself through the submerged elbow of the passage and gave an inward sigh of relief. The hole’s curve downward into the pond was not too narrow or sharply angled. Otherwise, he would never have negotiated it with Lightenhaft belted to his waist—wedged, trapped, unable to retreat, left to drown. He drove himself forward and headed desperately for the pond.

He entered the channel leading to the lodge. He could tell by feel from the cattail stalks on either side of him. Every fibre of his body strained to traverse the space between him and the lodge. So near and yet so far, so measurelessly far. Above him stretched the icy rind of the pond, but to Frysan it was simply a part of the enveloping blackness. Blind, he propelled himself forward through the canal, the supply of air in his lungs affording him less than a minute to make the lodge. He felt his body heat seeping away, his air dwindling, as he swam underwater along the muddy bottom.

A moment of panic. No more reeds or cattails to guide his way. He had reached the deeper water. What if he missed the lodge? He was approaching the limits of his endurance. Frysan longed to break the surface ice and take a breath—the sheer bliss of it, one more breath before he let the vengeful cold cradle him in death, even if it meant the hot sting of an arrowhead. He could not hold out much longer. His mind grew fuzzy.

As in a dream, his fingers touched the fretted branches, a large pile of them. Now to find the opening. But how? Should he give up and surface? Only seconds of air left, and cold—cold settling in his bones and sinews like lead. He could barely move his arms and legs. Groping feebly, he sought the submerged entrance to the lodge, willing himself to dive deeper as he felt for the gap, so numb he had almost lost his sense of touch.

Then there came no resistance to Frysan’s listless, delving hands. Here was a break in the solid bulk of the structure. He summoned up the last traces of his slackened strength to push his head and shoulders into the opening, driving himself up from muddy footholds within the slanting, water-filled passage, so tight a fit that its side-walls tore at his clothes and chafed his insensible body, snagging at his sword-belt.

When his head broke the surface of the water, Frysan was nearly unconscious. Sputtering, he gulped the air, sour fetid air rank with the heady smell of beaver musk. He coughed, pushed himself forward. The acrid air burned his throat. The utter darkness of the lodge closed on him—trapped by ice, now trapped by mud. In a delirious attempt to free himself he thrust Lightenhaft once and again and again through the walls of the lodge. It caught and he shook it free. A wisp of cool air came through the holes. His chest heaved and he heard a chittering bark of alarm.

“Stay back… stay back… must hide here.” He was so cold he could barely frame the words.

Shivering he slashed blindly through the air to keep the animals at bay. With his second pass the tip of the sword made light contact, producing a whimpering squeal of pain.

“There’s more where that comes from, now stay back!” Frysan hissed, hoisting himself out of the bone-chilling water onto a shelf, its bed of dry bark and wood chips only two or three feet from the dome-like roof of the lodge. For a moment he simply lay there, rubbing the circulation back into his legs and relishing the snug warmth of the place.

Without warning, a dim half-light grew in the chamber, allowing him to make out where the beavers had retreated—five or six of them—a huddle of fur and frightened eyes on a ledge-like platform directly across from him, but on a higher level within the lodge. One of the beavers advanced, chittering with agitation, a big buck, threatening. Brandishing Lightenhaft, Frysan prepared to defend himself. Then, to his bewilderment, quick as a flash, the beaver turned and dove into a second plunge hole followed by the others in immediate succession, skittering over the lattice-work of wood strips and branches.

Darkness filled the inside of the lodge again, as deep as the grave. Were those shouts he heard? Once more a feeble light filtered into the place. From the outside. It came from the outside through the sword holes he had made. His teeth chattered as his body adjusted to the stuffy warmth of the place.

His pursuers had arrived on the scene and were flooding the frozen pond and lodge with the light of their lanterns. Could they know? No, they were just looking, searching the outside of the lodge and the ice around it.

Frysan listened closely, holding his breath. More cries. Again the light, but coming from the opposite part of the chamber, from where the beavers had huddled. They were checking all approaches to the dome-shaped structure, making certain he had not reached it somehow. They must be standing on that other promontory beyond the ridge, which faced the back of the lodge. Its position in the landscape would allow them to check the whole lodge area for sign of their quarry. Well, they weren’t going to see much except for unbroken ice and the vault of the beaver dwelling intact.

The darkness returned to envelop him. He could hear nothing more beyond the walls of the lodge. Cramped as he was, he undressed and wrung out his dripping breeches and tunic. Slowly he revived, no longer chilled to the marrow and shivering. After a while he put his clothes back on. No sign of the beavers he had driven from their lair. They had probably retreated to another of their dens.

For what seemed like ages he lay there recovering his strength, Lightenhaft reassuringly at hand, while his clothes turned dry from his own returning body heat. It was a waiting game now. He would have to be patient and allow them time enough to give up their search, clear out, presume he had sneaked past them somehow—at least until nightfall of the next day. No sense in hazarding his new lease on life.

Still he champed at the bit, rehashing the audacious escape he and his men had made from the Silver Palace and their bitter betrayal by Mactrin. Finally, exhausted, he drifted off to sleep, a long sleep ridden by nightmares, haunted by ghostly piteous images of his dead comrades and also more sinister phantoms—Baldrick’s evil scowl, Mactrin’s sulky face, his nameless enemy’s shadowed visage…

When he awoke he knew for certain it had to be time to break out of the lodge, its stuffy darkness now oppressive and stifling as a tomb, no longer a haven. Grabbing hold of Lightenhaft he began to hack away at the roof of the chamber, pulling at the roots and branches as they broke free from the frozen mud.

He had waited long enough. Night had fallen once again, the position of the stars showing him that it was close to midnight. He crawled out onto the roof of the structure and recoiled at the chill blast of wind that met him cloakless.

It was a cold night, much colder than the night before. Perhaps it had thickened the ice. At the base of the lodge he tested the surface of the pond warily with the partial weight of one foot, then, finding it held, with both feet. Slowly he ventured another step, then another. The ice started to crack, its hairline fractures spreading in a widening circle around him. Frysan bolted, outrunning the ice as it broke, until he clambered up the bank of the pond and fell sprawling onto grass thick with hoarfrost.

Only then did his eyes stray to the lifeless figure—Mactrin’s body, clean without a mark, lying sightless almost next to him on the grass, his face horror-stricken. The abductors of the Queen had gone their way. Frustrated in their search for the sole survivor of their ambush, they had left behind this grim token of their disappointment.

Frysan felt an upwelling of pity, pity for Mactrin and pity for his guiltless comrades—Eldor, Cammas and the other Life Guardsmen, stalwart friends all, who through no fault of their own had paid the price of another’s treason.

After lingering for a moment to cross Mactrin’s arms over his chest and draw shut his eyelids, Frysan sped on his way.

Time to seek out Wilum...

Buy the Book... by Mark James © 2004 (Cover Artwork by Ted Nasmith)

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