The Shadow of Dread: The Bladeborn Saga, Book Six, page 54
“Strong host,” remarked Sir Torvyn Blackshaw. “Lord Ghent was not lying.”
“Stronger now,” declared his cousin Mooton. He made a triumphant hooting sound. “Looks like we got here in time, lads. Are you ready for a war!” The Blackshaw men gave out a roar; Norwyn, Regnar, Radcliffe and Sir Bulmar. All of them were eager for blood and battle, and from what they’d heard they would have their fill.
Ahead, the twin portcullis gates were lifting, rattling and groaning as the great godsteel chains and bars rose up. Between them, the drawbridge was being lowered across the moat, and a mounted host was preparing to cross. “Seems like they got our letter, Borrus,” said Sir Torvyn. “They are sending a welcoming party for you.”
“For us, Torv,” Borrus replied. He looked around at the rest of them. “For all of us,” he declared. “This welcome is for all of you too.”
Noble words, Emeric thought, if inaccurate. The host had travelled a long way together, and over that time steel-strong bonds had been built between them, but all the same there was no mistaking who this welcome host was here to honour.
The Beast of Blackshaw rode up beside him on his enormous destrier, a snorting black monstrosity as temperamental as he was. He had a knowing smile on his face. “Nervous, Manfrey?” he asked.
Emeric feigned ignorance. “And why should I be nervous, Mooton?”
The huge knight gave a grin and pointed forward. “You see those banners in green and brown. And the sigil. Now maybe it’s just me, but that crossed hammer and sword seems awfully familiar, no?”
“I am aware of them,” Emeric said, flatly. They had known since they crossed south at the border, and spoke with Lord Ghent of the Undercloak, that a Tukoran army had marched down here under the command of Prince Raynald Lukar. Naturally, that had led to suggestions from his companions that it might be a good opportunity for the exiled lord to have his exile ended, his castle returned to him, along with all its attendant lands and incomes, and the title of ‘lord’ established before his name. Borrus had joked that they had all been calling him ‘lord’ as a courtesy. If he should receive a pardon, however, it would become a requirement.
But Emeric was not interested in hearing it. One day, perhaps, but now? No. He had other more important concerns and was not certain a prince could enforce such a decree. “The world is teetering on the edge of doom, Mooton,” he merely said. “What good will my lands and titles be then?”
“Teetering, yes, but it hasn’t fallen yet, Manfrey. And it won’t, now that we’re back to turn the tide.” Mooton smashed a fist against his chest, the uncouth battle gesture of all large, boisterous men. “Vargo Ven and his horde best beware. The Beast of Blackshaw is back, and thirsty for a taste.”
Their hooves pounded hard at the packed dirty road, kicking up clods of wet earth as they went. For once it was not raining, broken clouds rippling through the skies like grey tattered banners, and through them the sun was shining, gleaming off their armour.
Borrus had come prepared. When they stopped at Eastwatch a fortnight ago, he had discarded the armour he’d taken from Lord Merrymarsh’s chests and garbed himself in a fresh new suit of plate. “My spare set,” he’d called it. His favourite plate had been taken to the Steelforge, he’d said, when he voyaged south with the Varin Knights Lythian Lindar and Tomos Pentar, but he had another special-made suit of armour awaiting him in the fort. It was a fine suit, Emeric had to admit, each segment fitted and smoothly linked, enamelled in shades of blue and green with the great blade-antlered elk of House Kanabar emblazoned on the breastplate in a thousand tiny godsteel studs, his helm crested with the same. His cloak was rich lambswool, trailing proudly at his back, finely chequered in the colours of his house with the elk worked in golden threat. And at his hip, Red Wrath, his ancestral blade, which had, Borrus decreed daily, a great need to sup on dragon blood. And one dragon in particular.
Emeric decided to recede a little down the column, leaving Borrus and the Blackshaws to savour this moment alone. Behind, Captain Turner was riding with his men, followed by Sansullio and his Sunshine Swords and the Silent Suncoat too in his torn yellow cloak, frayed and stained in old mud and blood. The sellswords wore cloaks to cover their glittery armour, and cowls to shield their skin. Everywhere they went, they drew looks and scowls and suspicious glances, and here it would be no different.
It will not be safe for them, no matter what Borrus says, Emeric thought. The Barrel Knight had claimed they would be safe under his protection, and true, they had been so far, but travelling the road was different to settling in a city, especially one that bristled under the imminent threat of attack and housed a hundred thousand men all armed with swords and spears. It just takes one sword, one spear, he knew.
There was a great deal of chattering going on among the sailors. They were pointing out this banner and that flag, marvelling at the scale of the fort, chuckling at the bridge itself, which looked terribly skinny compared to the fortress and city it linked. Mostly, though, they were interested in the approaching host, riding out with their banner-bearers and knights, a royal welcome for the Lord of Rivers.
“That’s Lord Rammas there,” he heard Jack say. “I saw him once, when he came to Marshbank. Sturdiest looking lord I ever laid eyes on. All muscle and grunts, that one.”
Emeric knew Lord Elton Rammas, the Lord of the Marshes and acting Warden of the East, they’d heard. That would change now, of course. “I fought him in the melee at a tourney once,” he told them. “Lord Rammas is about my age. Though that was over fifteen years ago, when we were barely more than boys. Still, he was thick with muscle even back then. A brutal warrior. They build them differently around here.”
“Our Jack can attest to that,” piped in Gill Turner, his flaxen beard blowing in the breeze, tan cloak snapping at his back. Jack was indeed a strapping man himself. “You reckon he’ll remember you, lord?”
“I would doubt it. I was thin as a reed back then and did not have this beard.”
Nor the cares I carry now. Emeric had been a boy lord then, still not yet free of his teens, lumbered with the rule of a famed, if fading, house after his father’s death in the war. It was a life he’d lived for only a few short years, before his exile at the hands of Modrik Kastor. He clenched his jaw at the memory. It was bitter, even now. The disgrace of it, standing there before the great and good of Ilithor, hearing his ‘crimes’ be read out in the throne room as Janilah Lukar sat there, passing his judgements and decrees. Lord Modrik Kastor had stepped up and spoken himself of Emeric’s ‘unseemly behaviours’, as he termed them, with his southern staff; a grating charge, sickeningly hypocritical. Few knew back then of the horrors that unfolded between the walls of Keep Kastor, but Emeric did, and no doubt that was part of the reason Modrik wanted him gone.
All I did was fall in love with a southern girl, Emeric thought. And Modrik and Janilah conspired to see me banished for that ‘sin’. It just so happened that both of the bitter old men were grandfathers to a certain prince. And Mooton wonders why I will not beg a pardon from him. Why should Raynald wish to overrule that charge when it was his very grandsires who sent me away?
“Who’s the one in pink and blue?” came the voice of Captain Turner, drawing Emeric from his thoughts. “Little feminine, isn’t it? And that field o’ flowers…”
“That’s House Amadar,” said Brown Mouth Braxton. “They’re from the Heartlands. The flowers represent the plenty of the harvest.”
“The rider’s got to be Sir Rikkard,” Jack said. “He’s the Amadar heir, isn’t that so, my lord?”
Emeric nodded, pushing those dark memories of his past aside. “Rikkard Amadar is the last living son of Lord Brydon, yes.” He looked at the man riding next to him. His banner bearer held a flag of greyish blue and white. The coat of arms was a steel gauntlet, crunched into a fist. “What do you make of that one, Gill? Is it more to your liking?”
The sea captain squinted and gave a nod. “Aye, that’s more like it. Simple. Powerful. Very Vandarian. House Oloran, no?”
“Correct. Do you know who the rider is?”
“Sir Killian,” said Jack o’ the Marsh, who was very well versed on banners and sigils, lords and knights and the ranks of the landed gentry. “He’s heir to his father Lord Penrith’s seat. They call him Goldmane for his golden hair.”
“Goldmane?” chortled Turner. “Well, might as well start calling you Redmane then, Jack. And Borrus’d be Baldmane.”
“Or Nomane,” Jack put in.
That got some laughter from the men. Emeric managed a smile.
The two parties were converging quickly now. Another banner-bearer among the host bore the Pentar flag and sigil, though the knight was not one that Emeric knew. Old Lord Porus had had many sons and nephews, so he supposed it was one of them. A few others completed the ensemble, knights and retainers of princes and heirs, all men of high birth and noble standing. It was the sort of company Emeric had once endured, rather than enjoyed, company in which he had never felt particularly comfortable.
I was an outcast even before I was exiled, he reflected. He had sat with these men at balls and banquets in his youth, fought them in the joust and melee, but would any of them recall him? His name, yes - oh he had a famous name. But him? Well, he had cause to doubt that. It was Sir Oswald they cared for, he thought sourly. I was never more than a curiosity to them. A middling lord with a famous name who never quite fit in.
By the time the two hosts came together, Emeric had found his way right to the back, mingled in with the sailors and the sellswords, to better go unnoticed. Borrus dismounted his barded warhorse in a single leap and marched forward to embrace his friends. “Killian, you old dog!” he roared, all but pulling him down from his horse, crunching him in his embrace. “Rikkard, get that little arse of yours over here and give me a hug!” Rikkard Amadar got the same treatment, smiling all the while.
Lord Rammas did not get a hug. Instead he went to a knee. “My lord, this is yours.” He reached up, presenting what looked like a brooch; Emeric was so far back it was hard to see through all the horses and heads. “Your father wore this, as Warden of the East. Now it is yours. May you wear it well.”
Borrus took the brooch with great solemnity. “Thank you, Lord Rammas. You may rise, my friend.” He gripped forearms with the muscled lord, shaking firmly, then turned toward the other knights and lesser lords, nodding to each, addressing them if he knew their names, before advancing toward Prince Raynald. “Your Highness, I am honoured to have you here in East Vandar. You marched with quite a host, I hear?”
Raynald was a handsome youth of eighteen who looked much alike to his father, Rylian, with warm waves of auburn hair, a strong jaw and cheekbones, and those piercing green-brown eyes that were all the rage in his family. His sense of courtesy was richly attuned, as rich as the armour and cloak he wore, glorious in green. “Thirty thousand swords, Lord Kanabar,” he said, with an upward tilt of the jaw, a proud expression. “I look forward to fighting alongside you, as you once fought alongside my father.”
Borrus liked that. “Well said, young prince. And days we will see restored.” He paused in a weighty moment. “I was greatly saddened to hear of his death.”
The boy prince dipped his eyes. “As was I, when I heard of your lord father’s passing at the Bane. A great man. But I’m sure you will match him.”
“Not if that beard’s anything to go by,” Mooton whispered, with a grin. Unfortunately, Mooton Blackshaw’s whispers were like another man’s roars, and everyone heard. Borrus turned to him with a glare. He had not been free of a bit of lighthearted mockery over that beard, which was not near as thick and red as his father’s had been. “I’m just saying…” Mooton went on, shrugging. “All your hair’s on your chest, Borrus, everyone knows that.”
“Forgive my cousin, my lords,” Sir Toryn interrupted, from atop his horse. He smiled to lighten the air. “He is rather clumsy with his tongue at times, though he more than makes up for it with his ferocity with axe and blade.”
“Cousin? You are Sir Torvyn Blackshaw, then?” Raynald observed. “The knight who spent all those years in that southern pit?”
“Decades would be more accurate, Your Highness.” Sir Torvyn smiled, the model of grace, though his face still twitched and jerked on occasion, a symptom of his trauma. “Without Lord Borrus I would not be here.”
Emeric looked at Borrus, wondering if he would take the praise himself, but the big man knew better than to steal another’s thunder. “I was present,” he said, “though that honour goes to Jonik. You will know him as the Ghost of the Shadowfort, Prince Raynald.”
“Yes…I did hear of that…”
“My lords.” Sir Rikkard stepped forward. His armour was silver, with a shade of light blue worked into the metal of his breastplate. On his back he wore his Varin cloak. Emeric found it interesting that he chose to represent the order and not his house. He glanced around at the skies with a wary look in his eyes. “Perhaps we ought to continue this inside the walls. There have been some dragon attacks of late, and they may come at any time.”
“Let them,” Borrus said. He looked east, as though fronting up to what lay beyond. “I hear Vargo Ven is out there. I want his head, Rikkard. I want to carve out his brain and use it as a cup, while I toast to the memory of my father.”
Emeric had a good long look at Rikkard Amadar’s face. He looked weary and careworn. “We can talk about that inside, Borrus.” He returned to his horse and mounted up. “Come. We have had pavilions prepared for you.” He set off at that, and the rest fell in to follow, the prince and greatlord heirs and highborn knights moving to the front, Emeric lingering behind with the rest, happy to have gone unnoticed until now.
The portcullis was misting softly when they passed beneath it, curls swirling around its savage spikes. Emeric found himself riding alongside Sansullio. “This is godsteel,” the Sunshine Sword remarked.
“Northern forts and cities often use godsteel in their gates and walls,” Emeric said. “Though rarely so much as this. I understand only Bladeborn can raise and lower the gates here, and the same is true of the drawbridges.”
“Drawbridges?” Sansullio repeated. “There is more than one?”
“Three,” Emeric told him, as their horses’ hooves rattled along the steel-strengthened wood of the bridge. The moat below was wide and deep, bristling with nasty spikes and stakes, half hidden in the murky water. “There is a second entrance looking east onto the plains and a third on the southern side, where the fort meets the river. Each has a double gate and drawbridge between them, same as here.” They passed under the second gate, just as the first was lowered behind them, blocking off the world beyond, and entered into the great ward. At once they were assaulted by colour and noise and motion. Sansullio, who never lost his cool, almost lost his cool.
He gave an exhale. “There are…so many, my lord.”
Yes, Emeric thought, with a twinge of concern for the sellsword. He looked across the sea of tents and pavilions, the cookfires and stables, the barrack marquees and training yards and archery ranges, the latrines and privy shelters where the nobles emptied their bowels, all contained with the vastness of the great ward of the fort at Rustbridge. The scale of it was enough to steal his breath.
“That is what a hundred thousand men in camp looks like, Sansullio.” And sounds like, he thought, as the world erupted into shouts and barks of laughter, the ring of steel and twang of arrows, the rattling of wagons and clop of hooves and the general constant din of a thousand men in motion, bustling all about them. He gave his friend a tap on the arm as the leaders continued down a wide thoroughfare. “Come, we’d best not lose the others.” He spurred his steed on, the Sunshine Swords and sailors following.
Their pavilions had been raised near the wall in the northwestern corner, close enough to the river that it could be heard rushing past outside. It was here that they stopped, handing their horses over to be taken by the grooms. “This one is not to be tied or stabled,” Emeric informed them, gesturing to Shade. The beautiful black-coated Rasal thoroughbred was not like other horses, and was not to be confined. “He will go where he pleases, do you understand?”
“Aye, m’lord,” one of the grooms said. “I’ve worked with Rasals before. I know how particular they can be.”
No one had ridden Shade since they’d begun on their journey south. Once, Regnar had tried, but that hadn’t gone well for him. There was only one rider Shade would permit onto his back.
Emeric found that he had been granted a private tent of his own, though it was small. Sir Rikkard Amadar showed him the way personally. “I am sorry it isn’t bigger, my lord. Regretfully, space is tight, as you can tell.”
Emeric had no need of further space. “I would be happy to stay with the others.” The rest of the men were being barracked in communal tents; one for the Blackshaws, and one for the sailors and sellswords. “You needn’t have troubled yourself on my account..”
Rikkard wouldn’t hear of it. “It was no trouble, Emeric. A lord ought to have his own space.”
I am no lord, Sir Rikkard, Emeric thought to tell him. But of course he knew that already. As with Borrus and the others, he was giving him the styling as a courtesy.
The heir of Amadar smiled pleasantly, then showed him a map of the encampment, which had been thoughtfully scrawled on a piece of parchment and placed upon a small table inside his tent. He pointed out where the command pavilion was, somewhere at the heart of the ward, and where Borrus’s pavilion would be. He spoke too of the nearest training circle he might want to visit, and the privy outhouse that he would be permitted to use, built into the walls with a shoot that deposited a man’s excretions out into the moat.
