The Sapling Cage, page 24
“Lorel!” Lane shouted. I turned around just in time to see Lane barrel into me. I staggered back as she hugged me.
“I stayed in Ledston until the coming war drove us all out as refugees,” I whispered into her ear.
“Everyone, meet Lorel,” Lane said, turning to the crowd. Not very many people were paying attention, but some were. “Lorel of the Lead. She’s like a sister to me.”
A few knights raised their wine in my direction.
“You took my advice?” Lane asked. “You ran?”
“Not quite,” I said. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
I wasn’t suggesting a tomb, but a tomb is where we ended up. Lane led me through the back door into the crypts. She took a lantern down off the wall, led me through a maze, and soon we were in a stone room dominated by three sarcophagi that looked as old as a mountain. Lane hopped onto one and sat.
“You’re so muscly!” she said. “You ran off to become a girl and look at you now.”
“Look in the mirror,” I replied. Lane had grown. She likely would never be as tall as me, but she wasn’t the runt she’d been only a few months prior. She’d put on muscle, a lot of it.
“So what do you mean not really, about running away?”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t think I can tell you everything,” I said. “But … I’m still with the Order of the Vine. I haven’t run away.”
“The witches are in the city?” Lane asked, looking concerned.
“That …” I stammered, “that’s what I probably shouldn’t tell you.”
“Lorel, you’re my best friend. You also basically saved my life. I’m not going to betray your trust.”
I told her everything. I told her everything that had happened since joining the witches, about the other whelps, about helping Hex escape. About all the running, all the fighting. Talking with her, I felt emotions tumbling out, emotions I hadn’t even realized I had.
“Wait, so you kissed someone?” she asked, once I was done.
“That’s the part you focused on?” I asked. “But … um … yeah.”
“That’s so great!”
I blushed.
“Anyway,” she said, tapping her heels against the sarcophagus, “I’ll trade bones with you. It’s the least I can do.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Araneigh already offered, though.”
“Yeah, but I’m your best friend,” Lane countered.
I didn’t want to argue about that, about any of it.
“It’s a moot point,” I said, “because Dam Willow’s the only one who knows the ritual, and she’s a blighter.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s fair.”
“Are the Tower Knights working with the blighters?”
“No!” Lane said. “Well, I wouldn’t honestly know. It sounds like Sir Taelin is. I bet that’s who you saw. He got injured on patrol, he almost died. Then he showed up to dinner tonight looking like a man reborn, and he’s out there in the common room right now getting drunk.”
“Where was his patrol? Who attacked him?”
“I mean, they don’t tell us anything,” Lane said. She had a half smile on her face I’d seen a thousand times before. It was so familiar that I missed her desperately, all of a sudden, even though she was right there with me.
“So where was it?”
“He was out in the highlands, a ways west of here. Small town, used to be bandit-controlled.”
“Set Porlock?”
“Yeah, how’d you know that?”
“That’s one of the closest towns to where Dam Willow lives.”
“Oh,” Lane said. “Oh. That’s bad.”
“Is your whole brotherhood working with the blighters, do you think?”
“I don’t think so? Taelin’s kind of a wild one. Acts on his own a lot. And you say the blighters are helping Helte, but we’re the only knights left that aren’t backing Helte.”
“Besides the Ilthurians.”
Lane sneered. “The only real knights. The Ilthurians are just brigands who happen to wear tabards.”
I didn’t want to argue with her. I did anyway. “Since when do you hate brigands?”
“I’m a knight now.”
“So are Ilthurians.”
“Okay, whatever.”
We’d only spent a few months apart, but the past few months were far and away the longest of my life.
“We should tell Sir Hamal,” Lane said. “The First Knight of the King’s Tower. He’s honest to a fault. I think if you took away his honor, he’d just be an empty suit of armor. He’ll listen, at least about the blighters. There’s no way he’d join in a revolution. But he would try to stop the blighters, especially if they’re infiltrating his ranks.”
“He won’t listen to squires and whelps, I bet,” I said.
“That’s true.”
“I … would he listen to witches?”
“Wow. I don’t know. I mean, he might? Most everyone still thinks you all are the blighters, though. And if you show your faces—” Lane didn’t finish the thought.
“If he doesn’t believe us, he’ll kill us.”
“Yeah. He’ll kill you.”
I put my hand on the stone lid of the grave. “Well,” I said, “this isn’t the worst place to spend eternity.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Lane was right—Sir Hamal was honest to a fault. He wouldn’t agree to let witches come to his hall skulking in disguise or darkness. We marched through the streets of Oldking, all of us in our black dresses and our cloaks, while his knights rode as our guards. Or our captors. Or both, I guess.
The witches had agreed to the meeting much faster than I’d expected them to when I’d returned late the night before and told them the plan. I had come around, in the end, on the need to tell the crones. Only Dam Lament had argued against it, but not for long. It was too late for half measures, Dam Ilma had said. If Dam Willow was a blighter, she was likely the head blighter. And if she was the head blighter, then we were going to need all the help we could get.
No one tried to stop us in the street, but we saw knights of every brotherhood watching us as we walked. More menacing still, I saw some of the brigands we’d met with at Palia’s hall. No doubt they weren’t happy with us meeting with the knights.
The Hall of the King’s Tower was almost a castle in its own right, guarding the only entrance to the castle mountain. According to Lane, there was a single lift inside the mountain that ran up to King Sallow’s castle above.
Lane wasn’t with us as we walked through the street, unfortunately. I could have used her presence, her reassurance.
I had Araneigh with me, though. And Haim. And Daidi, and Henomi. And Rose. And Lament. And two dozen more witches besides. And there was ley in Oldking. Ley was strange, here in the city. Where most ley in the countryside moved in streams or mists, the ley here in the city was like ropes and threads, like wisps of hair caught on the wind.
I walked under the black iron portcullis, but I wasn’t afraid. Not even when they took our weapons. I’d seen Dam Lament kill five people with a single spell.
We met in the great hall. At the far end, a throne sat empty. It wasn’t the Cekon throne, of course. That lay empty a thousand feet above our heads.
A young knight stood next to the throne, in a simple vest of brigandine and a red tunic. I’d spent so long in the company of people without leaders—without traditional leaders, at least—yet I knew right off that this must be Sir Hamal, the First Knight of the King’s Tower. It was evident from his confidence, from the deference shown by every one of his underlings.
It turned an otherwise handsome man ugly.
Dams Alectoria and Ilma walked up to him, stopping a few paces away. There was some kind of battle going on, a battle of etiquette I didn’t understand. The knight stared at the witches, the witches stared at the knight.
“Welcome, Dam Ilma of the Vine,” the knight said. By speaking first, he’d lost, I was pretty sure. “Welcome, Dam Alectoria of the Vine. You and yours are welcome in the Hall of the King’s Tower.”
“Thank you, Sir Hamal of the Tower,” Dam Alectoria said.
Squires came in with chairs. Lane was with them. Soon, we sat in a wide circle. Thirty knights on one side, thirty witches on the other. The squires started to file out of the room.
“Lane should join us,” I said.
The knights looked aghast that I spoke. To be fair, I was a little aghast myself.
“What?” Sir Hamal asked.
Lane caught my eye and shook her head. It was too late, though. “I would request that Lane of the Lead and the Tower join us.”
Sir Hamal laughed. I couldn’t get a read on him. “Lane, get yourself a chair.”
“Yes, sir,” Lane said. The circle opened and she sat down.
“The kingdom is falling apart,” Dam Alectoria said. “Blight and the machinations of people mad for power.”
Sir Hamal nodded.
“It’s no secret that Duchess Helte will be here in a few weeks’ time. It’s no secret that she plans to lay claim to the throne.”
“Let me save us both a lot of time,” Sir Hamal said. “The Knights of the King’s Tower are neutral in all internal political affairs. We serve the kingdom, whether or not anyone sits on its throne.”
“There will be a war,” Dam Ilma hissed. “And you don’t care.”
“I do care. I care deeply. And yet, I’m honor-bound to stay neutral.”
“We all seek balance in our own ways,” Dam Alectoria conceded.
“We’re not here to discuss politics. We’re here to discuss the blight. Two of your …” he wracked his brain for the right word, “whelps have made a claim implicating one of yours and one of ours. Yes?”
“Whelp Araneigh and Whelp Lorel have made that claim, yes.”
“Tell us what you saw,” Sir Hamal said.
I looked at Alectoria, who nodded. I told the assembled crowd what I’d seen.
After I spoke, Sir Hamal raised up and slammed his fist on the arm of his chair three times. A side door opened and a knight walked in. Sir Taelin. He was unarmed and unarmored, but unbound and unescorted. He stood in the center of the circle.
“Sir Taelin, were you treated for your wounds by Dam Willow of the Order of the Vine?” Sir Hamal asked.
“I was.”
“By what means were you healed?”
“Salves and incantations. Witchcraft.”
“Not by the use of blight magic?”
“I’m not versed in the various forms of witchcraft.”
“Was there a golden cage in the room with you, containing a skull and a glowing rainbow tree?”
“Not to my recollection.”
“Do you think you might have remembered it, if there had been a golden cage holding a skull and a glowing rainbow tree?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So was there such a thing or not?”
“No, sir, there was not.”
Dam Ilma stood up and walked toward the man. I’d grown used to her, half bird and half woman, but here in the city among the knights, her monstrosity had never felt more obvious.
“There’s a spell that could reach the truth of this quick enough,” she said. She ran one claw along Sir Taelin’s cheek. He flinched, not in fear, but in revulsion. “In our study of blight, we’ve run across a way to undo its workings. It would be a simple enough thing to cast this spell on this young man. If he hasn’t been healed by blight, he’ll feel nothing. Nothing will happen. If he has, the wounds will return. They’ll return worse. They’ll likely kill him.”
“Keep your spells off of me, crone,” Taelin said. His revulsion was now cut by fear. His eyes were wide with it.
“I will allow it,” Sir Hamal said.
“Sir,” Taelin protested. “It could be a trick. It could just be a spell that undoes healing, any healing.”
“I’m sure our guests have more honor than that.”
“Oh, Great Mother,” Ilma intoned, her voice dropping an octave. Thin tendrils of ley flooded into her mouth like sticks caught in a whirlpool. Most spells were muttered, if they were vocalized at all. Ilma was putting on a show. “All creatures must live their lives, all creatures must walk on the earth, all creatures must be of the earth.”
As though a cloud had cut off the sun, the chamber went dim.
“Great Mother,” Ilma said, her voice now many voices all at once, “as the cat cleans its fur, clean this man. As the stream breaks rocks, break—”
“Wait!” Sir Taelin shouted.
Ilma stopped chanting. The light returned.
“There was a sapling in a cage, okay?” Sir Taelin said. “She healed me with a stupid golden cage. How was I to know that was blight?”
“Did you?” Sir Hamal asked.
Something inside Sir Taelin snapped. “Yes. To rot with you all, yes. I knew Dam Willow is a cage magician. Anyone whose eyes are open knows she’s a cage magician. The cages are no blight. It’s the future of magic. Out of the hands of these … these … witches. Duchess Helte is going to be our queen, and she will break the Order of the Vine, and she will bring peace to Cekon. Every rotting brotherhood knows it but us.”
“Take him out of here,” Sir Hamal said, his head heavy. “Strip him of his armor, weapons, and tabard and confine him to his quarters.”
Dam Ilma retook her seat.
“Do you believe us now?” Dam Alectoria asked.
“Our intelligence says Dam Willow lives west of here,” Sir Hamal said instead of answering, “in a highland forest.”
“That’s correct.”
“That area, those woods, that’s the center of all this madness with monsters and missing children.”
“I doubt that’s a coincidence,” Dam Alectoria said.
“I doubt that too,” Sir Hamal said.
“What now?” Dam Alectoria asked.
“We gather every hand that can swing a blade and we ride with all haste,” Sir Hamal said. “With war on our tongues and death in our eyes, we ride for the forest. We end the monsters, we end the blight, we end Dam Willow.”
“Good,” Dam Alectoria said. “I was afraid we’d have to do it alone.”
The knights escorted us back across town, then stood guard in front of Palia’s home.
Once we were inside, I caught up with the crones as they went up the stairs. “I didn’t know there was a spell to undo blight magic,” I said.
“There isn’t,” Dam Ilma cackled. “We still barely know the first thing about blight magic.”
“But one thing I feel confident about,” Dam Alectoria said, “is that if we get ahold of that amulet you saw Dam Willow use, the one that let her work blight without harming her ability to use ley? We get that, and we can figure out a way to set Haim and Daidi right and still teach them magic.”
“Like you’ve taught any of the rest of us,” I mumbled.
“I swear to the Great Mother, when we were whelps, we had something called patience! Respect!” Dam Alectoria shouted, though she wasn’t angry.
“Don’t lie to the Great Mother like that,” Ilma said, then cackled again.
TWENTY-SIX
The rest of the alliance didn’t much like the plan. They didn’t like taking resources and people away from their assassination plot to go hunting the blight, and they really didn’t like the idea of working with the Tower Knights.
But they needed us. They needed witchcraft to pull off their attack, and they’d certainly need us as allies if a civil war broke out. So they assented.
Less than twenty-four hours after our meeting with the knights, we rode out. We were a sight to see. Every one of the thirty witches rode a black mare. A hundred brigands from eight gangs rode mules and horses or perched on the rooftops of armored wagons. Baron Ede himself came with us, him and his personal guard in gaudy bright velvets. The Tower Knights wore red tabards over their chain and plate armor, looks of grim determination on their faces. The Ilthurians, ragtag in brown, rode on massive warhorses at the rear of the procession.
By the time we reached the outskirts of Oldking, half the city had come out to see us go. Some faces flashed with curiosity, others with malice, others with hope. It would have been impossible to sneak out such a large force—almost five hundred strong, all told—without anyone noticing. And certainly, our enemies noticed too.
Clouds sat thick under the morning sun, a chilly late summer’s day. I rode alongside the other whelps, with Dams Lament and Rose our guardians, as always. At first, I was frustrated that I wouldn’t be riding with Lane—I had so much to catch up with her about—but then I saw her riding next to a boy close to her age. He was handsome and masculine, with a heavy frame. He already had a mustache and hints of a beard. Lane looked at him like he was the stars and the moon. I was inexplicably jealous, and then I was glad I wasn’t riding with them.
Hex and Espen left their fellow Ilthurians several times to ride alongside us. Espen claimed it was because his squire wanted to ride with Daidi, but it was clearly also so he could ride with Dam Lament.
Even in such large numbers, people on horseback riding on roads travel unfathomably faster than witches walking leypaths through the trees. We were expecting to be less than a week on the road. We were also expecting trouble.
The first night, we stopped in a field alongside the road. Witches put up magic tents, brigands and Ilthurians slept under the stars. Baron Ede slept in his carriage, guarded by his retinue, and the Tower Knights set up massive cloth pavilions. A war council convened in the center of the field, but I quickly lost interest as they discussed sentries and patrols. None of the groups trusted the others, which made sense enough.
Apparently, someone learning the trade of banditry is just called a baby. Us whelps and squires and babies got along fine. We didn’t have many responsibilities, so we taught each other sports and games we knew. A highland girl—a baby, though she was older than me—taught us “Which man is Mani.” We chased each other through the grass, shouting code words and tackling one another, forming loose and temporary teams. Hex won the first round, then the girl who taught us the game won the second.
