Blood in the Valley Read online

  Apparently, that was not the case.

  Illah sat cross-legged at Jayce’s side. A whetstone sang across the edge of her saber, the steel catching strange highlights and refracting them into her thoughtful features. Danelle reclined just below them, her head laid across a pillow of stacked packs. She glanced Illah’s way occasionally, the dark not quite hiding her irritation.

  The Yntuil warrior-priestess troubled him, too, in more ways than one. That she’d happened into his path at this moment, with her traitor on her heels, the barbarian Skinners with him, and Morug seemingly churning it all along—it’s too many coincidences. A Zerraxian Acolyte of the Sun, as he’d once been, didn’t believe in coincidence.

  And aside from that, looking at her caused trouble within him of an entirely different sort—another part of him he’d thought banished.

  “Aez’atta’toa,” Jayce murmured. “You know, my Elvish was shaky, even in the best of times, but I can’t make anything of that. Dodso was right; you made it up.”

  “I did not,” Illah replied with a smirk. “It’s in the Eld Tongue, actually. It was an office to the old Emperors in the glory ages of Mauvynn. It means literally ‘Keeper of the Chamber Pot’.”

  Jayce burst into laughter and even Danelle snorted. “Oh, my,” Jayce said between chortles, “if you’d told Dodso to what duties Danelle and I are now bound, he might have been less cross with us!”

  “Yes,” Illah agreed, but the smile left her face. “I regret that he took our leaving so hard. And I regret, maybe even more, that Vohl was so angry.”

  Jayce nodded, trying not to think of the hurt in his friend’s face at their announcement. “Well...you ought not to worry about Vohl. He’s a man to whom the stronger emotions come quickly. When he’s let his mind slow down to thinking again, I’m sure he’ll come around.”

  “I don’t want to go, not really,” Illah said. She looked into Jayce’s eyes and reached out a hand to touch his. “It has been...nice, being amongst a group to whom I feel like I belong. I hate to break us up like this.”

  “You belong amongst the Yntuil,” Jayce said. “And no one can blame you for serving their needs first.”

  “Yes, I belong,” Illah said wistfully, “and I don’t. You can’t understand how it was to be half-human amongst the Fey kind. Always there was the disdain for my mixed parentage. I suppose that’s why I chose the path of the Yntuil; they are outsiders of a sort.” Her lip curled with a hint of bitterness. “An outsider amongst outsiders.”

  “Oh, I can understand,” Jayce said softly. “Try walking down a crowded street in Eredynn with this face and these eyes.”

  “I know you do,” Illah said. She gripped his hand in hers.

  Jayce noticed Danelle sitting up below them, saw the sudden flare of anger in her eyes, saw the expression change as she looked above them and called out, “Master Rhenn!”

  Jayce and Illah’s hands came apart reflexively as they turned to see Vohl behind them, fists planted on his hips, the poor light making his face hard to read. Jayce tensed, wondering if another confrontation was coming.

  “I...” Vohl cleared something heavy from his throat. “I came to see you, before you were gone.”

  “I’m glad, Vohl,” Jayce said, scrambling to get to his feet. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry.”

  Vohl didn’t immediately reply and Jayce could sense a sudden tightening about the man. But the tension passed as Vohl waved a hand dismissively. “Forget it. I’m the one who should apologize for...well, for me being me.”

  “I heard someone say you were thinking of coming with us,” Illah said hesitantly.

  “Well, as much fun as trekking to Whisper Pass sounds...” Vohl said, seeming to consider it. He snorted and shook his head. “Nah...I’ve got better things to do.”

  “You’re going to stay with Dodso,” Jayce said.

  “Someone has to stick around and make certain the fool doesn’t get into even more trouble,” Vohl replied.

  “I don’t see how much more he could cultivate.”

  “It’s Dodso,” Vohl said with a shrug. “I’m sure he’ll find a way.” He stepped closer, was visibly struggling with himself. “You are my friends, and you deserve my blessing, even if I didn’t want to give it at first.” He glanced back and forth between Jayce and Illah before looking between them, downhill at Danelle. “You’ll make certain to keep them safe, Danelle?”

  Jayce and Illah chuckled, but Danelle’s reply was hard. “My Master will be safe with me.”

  Jayce frowned at the girl’s inexplicable moodiness but decided now wasn’t the time to address it. He extended his hand to Vohl. “Goodbye, my friend.”

  Vohl accepted his grasp. “You, too.” He looked at Illah. “The Loving Imp will always have a room for you, if you’re ever in these parts again, My Lady.”

  “I will look forward to the fleas,” Illah replied with a broad smile that made her look ages younger.

  Vohl guffawed and extended his free hand to her, clasping forearm-to-forearm, Yntuil-fashion.

  Calls from the Remordan Flitter drew their attention and the three broke the contact. “Time for you to go,” Vohl said with a sigh.

  “Here,” Jayce said, stooping to his pack beside Danelle, fumbling about and retrieving a candle in a pewter holder etched with arcane sigils. He handed it to Vohl. “Take this.”

  “I’m...touched, Jayce,” Vohl said, eyeing the object incredulously.

  “Keep it near you. And don’t light it.”

  “A candle I can’t light?” Vohl frowned at him. He smirked and said with heavy sarcasm, “It’s a lovely gift.”

  “It’s enchanted, you idiot,” Jayce replied. “It will allow me to contact you, even across vast distances.”

  “Well, thanks,” Vohl said, now serious. “And best of luck to you. I mean that.”

  Jayce scooped up his pack and shouldered it, Illah and Danelle doing the same behind him.

  “I know you do, Vohl.”

  THE MAIN GATE OF EREDYNN groaned open and the Valley Legion sallied forth into a dawn hazy with mist that lingered spectral-like between swells in the countryside. An overcast sagged low above, pelting the procession with icy pricks of rain while distant thunder grumbled in the heavens.

  Vennitius shifted in the saddle, his bulk, hidden under gold-chased lamellar, unaccustomed to riding after so many sedentary years. He glanced over his shoulder at the army, breathed deep of the damp air and felt a little better. He rode at the head of the Cavalry Cohort, trotting four-abreast and aglitter in lamellar, polished conical helms draped with chain mail aventails, mounts fully caparisoned, and lances held high. Behind them tromped the infantry, five abreast and menacing with hands on sword grips and shields shouldered for the road.

  At the battlements of the city wall, town folk gathered, some waving handkerchiefs and calling out farewells, but many others watching in stoic-faced silence. Vennitius noted the sag of the cavalrymen’s gaily-colored pennants in the stagnant atmosphere and felt a bit of his mood sink into the sour knot of his hangover-ridden stomach. They’ll be cheering upon our return, with goblin skulls adorning those lance points, he thought sullenly.

  Aigann rode at Vennitius’ side atop a timid, speckled gelding that shied often from the sour-tempered warhorses. He gave the beast a slap on the neck to steady it and asked, “I wonder again if this is the best course.”

  “You’d let the goblins get all the way to our gates before responding?” Vennitius growled.

  “I didn’t mean that,” Aigann replied. “But the Legion does not need the Strategos of the Valley at its head.”

  “We’ve already gone over this,” Vennitius said. He looked at the other man, saw his unease. “Look, we’ll hardly be gone a week. Goblins have risen out of the wilderness to harass our settlements before, always to be trounced by any organized force.” He chuckled. “The sight of the Legion arrayed in full battle-array will probably be more than they can stomach.” He added with a hint of sorrow, “It�
��ll hardly be a battle, at all.”

  “And Dodso?”

  “You can handle him,” Vennitius said. “Any further requests to disband the Expeditionary Force are to be met with silence. When I return, we’ll begin that scaling-back you and I discussed.”

  “He may become emboldened, upon hearing of what transpires at Candolum.”

  “Then draw up the papers for his arrest.” Vennitius shook his head. “Gods, Kodror! You quaver before the responsibility like a virgin on her wedding night! Do I need to entrust the city to someone else?”

  Aigann blanched. “Absolutely not, sir.”

  “Good.” Vennitius, seeing his aide’s continued discomfiture, patted his shoulder. “It’s not my first battle, Kodror.” He grinned and took another deep breath of air. “I’m actually looking forward to it.”

  The column topped a low rise south of Eredynn, still in sight of the city but looking down along the highway as it dipped low to run parallel to the Aleil River. A clot of ragged figures scuttled northward out of the mists, accompanied by a horseman from the Cavalry Cohort, lightly-armored for fast-riding and scouting.

  Praetor Paelito came up alongside Vennitius and Aigann. “What is this?”

  The column slowed as the small band neared. The haze thinned, permitting a view of the group, mud-caked women clutching babes whose squalls carried eerily in the clammy climate, men grouped at even intervals around their charges, clutching staves uneasily, despite the approaching military might.

  “Hail, Strategos!” the cavalryman called, trotting ahead of the group with a free hand to his breast in salute. “Praetor, these folks claim to be out of Candolum, fled just ahead of the goblins.”

  Vennitius eyed the threadbare party. “The Gods’ Blessings upon you, good citizens. What words have you of our friends to the south?”

  “The gods have forsaken us their blessings,” one of the women muttered before being cut off by glares from the men. A tall brute, the apparent leader, replied, “Thousands of goblins, sire! Candolum is surrounded by now.”

  “Thousands?” Vennitius exchanged glances with Paelito and a cringing Aigann. “We’ve heard of large numbers, but surely you are mistaken?”

  “Not so, Strategos,” the man replied, casting furtive looks south along the highway. “The band that moved to cut off the town to the north may have been only hundreds, but there were many times that to the south of Candolum.”

  “They burned everything,” the woman who’d spoken before added. “They killed any caught out in the open.” She made feeble signs to the deities. “And there were many left behind. We were lucky.”

  Vennitius considered the information, locking gazes again with Paelito before clearing his throat of tightening unease to say, “Well, it looks as though the road has been hard for you, good people. Move on to Eredynn and find safety.”

  The woman might have snorted as the weary band trudged on, but Vennitius chose not to give it credence. With them out of earshot, he asked the cavalryman, “Have you seen any signs to lend their rumors weight?”

  The soldier shook his head. “Nothing, sir. The rest of my detachment rode on; they may have more to add before long.” He glanced at the departed band. “They were badly shaken, sir, and I though I doubt not the horrors they saw, I wonder at their grip on reality.”

  “Thousands,” Aigann muttered. “Few of these free farmers can even count to a hundred.”

  Vennitius didn’t bother to meet Aigann’s gaze, unwilling to let him see the annoyance burning in his stomach. “Back to the city with you, too, Procurator,” he said. “You will have word of our victory within days.”

  “Glory to you, sir,” Aigann replied and wheeled his mount about to go.

  With the hoof beats of Aigann’s horse fading away, so too did Vennitius’ vile humor. He favored Paelito with a grin. “Well, Praetor...thousands, they are saying.”

  “A thousand goblins,” Paelito said with a phlegmatic shrug, “ten thousand...it matters little; the Legion fights where it must.”

  “Agreed!” Vennitius clapped the man on the shoulder. “And if it be thousands, all the more glory we will drape ourselves in!”

  He gave his mount the spurs and the Legion rumbled south.

  Chapter Four

  Fraying Threads

  Lonadiel waited just inside the doorway to Satayebeb’s pavilion, clad in Vullian black and silver. Taken from the ruins of Vul Aronath and altered to his physique with some basic competence by a Blood-drinker smith, his suit of jagged, jet metal scale was a garish throwback to an era flaunting its hedonistic excess, complete with spikes jutting fang-like from greaves and vambraces, shoulder guards and chestplate fashioned into skull faces.

  He scowled, couldn’t help it, felt ridiculous, like a dress-up toy of his new Mistress.

  To whittle away a few moments, Lonadiel drew forth the blade she’d lovingly presented him and examined the jewel-encrusted hilt, the silvered pommel—again the leering skulls—and the Vullian-era cavalry blade, similar to a Yntuil saber, single-edged with a slight curve near the point. But unlike the weapons of his discarded Order, meant for their lightning-fast slash-and-parry style of battle, the new sword was broad and brutish, meant to hack down an opponent’s guard with the weight of its steel and its rune-etched aura of wickedness. Lonadiel gave the weapon a slow, testing swing and surrendered to a twitch of a smile, the first genuine one in quite some time.

  “You like my gifts,” Satayebeb said, emerging from the darkness further in the tent.

  Lonadiel turned, now somewhat-used to the knotting in his throat of conflicting lust and terror at the sight of her. She wore Vullian armor as well, a breastplate of black iron hammered into the likeness of a screaming face, its despairing features highlighted in silver and eyes picked out with rubies. Sheets of polished steel sewn into a silken material that should not have weathered the ages of neglect so well covered her legs, though slits up the sides permitted ample view of thigh and calf as she sauntered towards him. A cape of black chain links whispered metallically at her back and a helm crafted like a dragon’s muzzle seemed to clamp its exaggerated fangs about her face while blonde tresses spilled down to either side.

  “You are the vision of conquest, Mistress,” Lonadiel said, sheathing his sword and offering her a deep bow.

  She tilted her head back in a cold chuckle. “Yes, and soon I will be the vision of death.”

  Being with her, in the tangible, tightening presence of her darkness, Lonadiel could not escape the feeling of holding on to a deadly animal, knowing that to let his grasp slip meant being devoured. He hid the fear with a dramatic gesture, stepping to the side and offering his lady the right of way. “Your legions await you.”

  The stretched-hide canvas trembled to the thunder of weapons pounded against shields and feet both iron-shod and bare stomping the ground. Goblinoid throats roared together, a kind of sharp, rhythmic exhale, an “uuh-uuh-uuh!” occasionally disrupted by smaller groupings winding themselves up into screams of fury. Through parts stirred in the curtain-door by the frenzy outside, figures could be seen tossing and cavorting, steel glittering in fists, torches shimmering through hazy air and highlighting slavering mouths flecked with foam.

  “Yes,” Satayebeb said with a sigh, as if disgusted she’d been reduced to leading such a rabble, “let’s see if they’re as good for dying as they are for making noise.” She reached out a hand and parted the curtain.

  The horde erupted fully at the sight of her, bawling its approval, battering their weapons and armor—and one another—with a din that struck Lonadiel like a physical thing, a stinking wind of slippery, dirt- and dung-encrusted bodies tossing in a cloud of shaken-loose dust, greasy hair, and flies. As before, they parted as she passed among them, falling prone with a giddy chorus of gnashing fangs, nonsensical babble and high-pitched howls. And as before, they closed in behind her, nearly swallowing Lonadiel in their lapping wave, whispering hate and murder at his back.

  Clenching his s
word grip, Lonadiel refused to hurry to keep up with his Mistress, chancing glances of challenge and disdain now, as he felt something of his own power stoked within him.

  The goblinoid chieftains, Blood-drinker and Foulstench prominent at the head of their tight, quivering group, waited at the open ground at the center of the horde, where the wyvern crouched, chained to a tree stump gouged to naked wood by the beast’s struggles against it. A trembling goblin stood by to release the lock on the tether. Most of its luckier kin shrank clear of the circle the monster had stomped bare in its prowling. The wyvern hissed, spittle reeking of acid and half-digested kill drooling from borne fangs to the claw-savaged earth. At the sight of Satayebeb, its protests ceased and it bowed its head to the ground, reversely-jointed legs folding its belly likewise to the dirt while wings furled at its knobby spine.

  “Mistress,” Groon Blood-drinker said, falling to one knee.

  Satayebeb passed the hobgoblin without a word, went to the wyvern’s side and drew her nails skittering across its neck. rumble issued from the beast’s chest and Satayebeb smiled, said finally to Blood-drinker, “Yes, warlord?”

  “All preparations have been made,” the hobgoblin said, “the army stands ready to storm both the walls and the barricades at the bridge to the northeast. And the shock troopers you requested, my own Clan Blood-drinker—” he nodded to a block of heavily-armed and hulking murderers “—are assembled. All await only your command.”

  Satayebeb glanced at the goblin clenching the lock to the wyvern’s chain and smiled wickedly. Lonadiel knew what was coming, felt even an instant of regret for doing nothing, before the demon-goddess twitched one of her fingers. The lock snicked loose in the goblin’s hands.

  The little brute looked down, bulbous brows knitting in confusion, then widening in horror as he looked up. There wasn’t time to scream, the reptilian head launching forward, jaw snapping shut over the goblin’s upper body, fangs scissoring through organ and bone, neck flexing to give kicking legs a sinew-snapping shake that stilled any struggle.