The Lady's Man (17 page)

“I think I can speak for all seven chapters when I say all of us have encountered roaming packs of the undead in one form or another. Undead necromancers raising more undead to act as their armies. It has disturbed us all deeply, which was why we welcomed your call for a meeting this day.”

What call Yorik wondered? Ascollia had said that a message had been sent to say they were coming, but not that it was a call for a meeting.

“It is why we asked for it, and your concern is most certainly ours as well. It is already clear that the Dark One has much knowledge of our world. More than could have been expected considering how long ago he was first entombed. Our most senior wizards believe that with every new dark spellcaster who has fled into his dark prison to join him, he has gained a little more knowledge and strength outside it. It is also apparent that he can now reach out and harm us, though it surely costs him a piece of his soul every time he does so. But his hatred and desperation are so great now that he ignores his own suffering and risk.”

“Though his attacks are small at present, we can expect further and larger attacks as our enemies grow in numbers. For this is only the beginning of a much greater battle ahead. One that will envelop not just the human and elven lands, but also those of all other races as the Dark One seeks to destroy all life. He will need to do that to unlock the wards holding him in, for as we all know from the most ancient scrolls, he shall not escape while there are any to oppose him. The dragons have gone and now we stand in their stead, as opposed to his freedom as they once were. He has surely realised that he cannot persuade us; therefore he must destroy us. All of us.”

Yorik started at hearing that and then stared at his companion. Ascollia's logic was completely sound, but what he was suggesting was also insane. What use would it be for the great demon to finally free himself by destroying the world which he wanted to rule, if he had lost all of his soul to do it and then gained nothing to rule? But then the Dark One was a demon, the very definition of evil, and he desperately wanted his freedom. If this was his only chance, what else could they have expected of him?

The question that kept running through Yorik's mind though was how they could be absolutely certain that it was the Dark One himself who was creating these undead things? Certainly the elves seemed sure, and it was true that that the undead could serve his purpose. It was also true that he could think of no one else with the power to do what he was being accused of. But he'd not seen a scrap of proof that it was right. Could there be another he wondered? Perhaps even another within the same prison where the Dark One was held? One with no life and no soul to lose, unlike the Dark One? After all many other evil wizards including necromancers, had entered into the same otherworldly prison, some of them even voluntarily as they thought to grow in power on the other side. They thought to overthrow the great demon himself and steal his throne. Yorik kept his thoughts to himself though, knowing he was unworthy to speak them in this most august presence.

“Yimene has also said much the same not twenty days ago, and he has also foreseen that the Dark One will begin with attacks around Stonebow, intended to drive away any threats by awakening the undead dwarven armies. We sent three riders out immediately after the foretelling to look for any sign of the undead, but we have heard nothing back as yet.”

Yorik didn't know who Yimene was, but he knew the speaker to be Commander Latray of the West Brookland chapter. His face was embossed on many of the books on military strategy he'd been forced to read as a student.

West Brookland wasn't one of the six cities. It wasn't even a part of New Vineland. It was a free city a hundred leagues north and west of Doverion. The Commander had travelled over three hundred leagues to make this meeting, a sign of just how seriously the Order was taking this matter. And if Stonebow was the enemy's first target, he could understand why.

Stonebow was an ancient dwarven city of the dead, abandoned thousands of years ago when the ore had run dry. The dwarves had long since moved on, but behind them they had left a grave of tens of thousands of dwarven warriors, all perfectly preserved by the dry air of the caverns. Apparently they had been at war with the local elves, as well as rival clans, for the entire five hundred years they had held it. But worse was the fact that the dwarves had always been opposed to saying the ritual prayers for the dead. A pity for if they had it could have prevented their dead being awoken. It was also unfortunate that instead of burying their dead they left their bodies to be mummified in the dry air of their deep caverns. In short, there was an undead army in excellent condition in Stonebow, just waiting to be raised.

There was also a problem in stopping them. For aside from the fact that the enemy could keep raising the dead again and again until they were completely destroyed, Stonebow lay across the Broken Valley Mountains, a full five leagues of nearly impassable terrain. There was rumoured once to have been a path through it, and another pass over the range itself, but its location if it still existed, had been lost to time. So they would have to cross them on foot.

A force of knights and paladins could scramble over such rocks in a day or two, but they couldn't bring horses or provisions with them. The undead however, had no such problem as they didn't eat, didn't rest, didn't wear clothes, and didn't ride horses.

To battle them in the mountains was a tactical nightmare. If they were to meet in battle in the mountains it would not go well for the Order as the terrain limited their combat capability. On the other hand to wait for them on this side of the mountains was to let the enemy build a massive army to attack them with – another equally poor strategy. The third option was to meet them on the other side of the range and cut off their lines of retreat if they were fast enough. But that would require them to fight the undead with limited resources in an ancient dwarven stronghold. Still, if they could even get that far before being attacked – or worse ambushed in the mountains – it was the best of the three options. Assuming they could even do it and not get caught in the mountains themselves on their way there. All three options were suicide, and he listened to the commanders discussing those same problems in front of them.

The surprise was that despite the danger, the commanders seemed to be preparing themselves for the battle, which at least meant that Ascollia and Genivere were going to get the aid they had asked for. The Order was going into battle at the behest of the elves. An hour before he wouldn't have considered such a thing possible. But then an hour before he wouldn't have believed most of what anyone had said in this chamber either.

“Yet it must be done.”

As his thoughts had wandered Yorik suddenly realised that the commanders had reached a decision. It seemed they would fight the battle of Stonebow. In fact he suspected that they had made the decision even before the three of them had entered the chamber. But that didn't mean they were happy about it. He watched Commander Latray's head fall as he voiced his agreement, while all around other eyes sank to the floor in despair. What they were doing went against all that the Order had strived to achieve in the last five centuries. It would require the services of every paladin, knight, squire and cleric that they could lay their hands on, and even if they won, the chapters would be decimated by the battle. At best the Order of the Lady would take centuries to rebuild and they would bury many friends. And if the elves were right, this would only be the first battle in a war.

“I will send a message through Father Rayburn here, asking the entire chapter of West Brookland to make haste to the town of Briarton. I will ask them to spend every gold coin we have in stock to buy plenty of fresh horses and fast wagons on the way, but it will still be four long weeks till they arrive even if they leave tonight.”

Four weeks was optimistic at best to cover three hundred leagues even though the roads were good, Yorik thought. Moreover the horses would be of little use once they arrived. And that didn’t take into account the fact that the message would have to be sent by pigeon and there would be several more days involved in that. But at least it was a target. And West Brookland was the furthest chapter from Briarton. The others would have a quicker time of it.

No sooner had Commander Latray spoken then the others agreed with him, and in front of Yorik's amazed eyes, arrangements were made to empty all seven chapters of the Order, something that had never been done before. But it was only logical if they were to fight such an enemy. Certainly they would need them all, and more. Seven chapters, meant roughly nine hundred paladins, twelve hundred knights, at least as many squires and spell-swords, and perhaps two thousand clerics. It was a sizeable force, but against tens of thousands of undead dwarven warriors, not enough. Then the unbelievable became stranger still.

“And I through Genivere here, will send the same message to all seven chapters of rangers, to join you in Briarton. It is finally time for the two halves of our Order to stand as one. May the Lady grant us all her protection.”

Seven chapters of rangers? Would the elves never stop surprising him? Yorik had been too busy wondering how there could even be a single elven Order of the Lady to wonder about numbers. But apparently they too had seven chapters, making him wonder if they also had similar numbers of soldiers.

Rangers, if what he understood from the elves was correct, would be a valuable addition to any force. Their main weapons were the long bow and lighter blades, and they could enhance both with their magic, much as he could his great sword and crossbow. In fact they used the very same spells. Their armour though lighter than that of a paladin was more flexible, allowing them greater movement and speed, and they were natural horsemen and woodsmen. They could provide either covering fire or hit and run assaults more easily than could even the best paladin with his crossbows.

The rest of the meeting went by in a blur for Yorik as he watched the entire Council start drawing up their plans of attack, and working out their total numbers for every possible scenario. For much of it he just felt numb, as he suspected, did many of the others. Despite their words, many of their eyes looked glazed over as if they couldn't quite believe what they were doing. But from a soldier’s perspective, Yorik at least felt vaguely more easy.

With the three thousand elven rangers giving solid covering fire with flame arrows to well over two thousand knights and paladins, the battle was at least winnable. And with their wizards' magic added to that of the clerics, even if it wasn't, the enemy would certainly know he'd been in a fight. The Dark One would be taught a lesson.

If it was the Dark One.

Chapter Eleven.

It was late, ten bells had rung, and the commander's private meeting chamber was quiet. The candles on the mantle burned softly in their glass canisters sending golden light flowing throughout the room. The windows were shut so any noise from the outside was muted. And the fire crackled away merrily in the corner of the room, making everything warm and comfortable.

The peace was something that seemed a blessing to Commander Elron as he sank into the buttoned leather comfort of an armchair and sipped at his brandy. After the day that had been he needed some quiet. A chance to relax and think on what had happened and what would happen because of it. In the end he wasn't as young as he had once been, and he valued peace these days as he never had before. Maybe that was a sign of him slowly growing older and wiser. Maybe it was just a sign that he simply wasn't as wild and exuberant as he once had been.

But in this case the silence wasn't completely welcome. Not when it gave him a chance to think. To reflect on a very long day. To wonder what was coming. And not just about the battle ahead of them. He was a soldier, he understood battle. And given what they knew they had reached the only decision they could. So win or lose, he was comfortable with it. The other commanders and clerics had agreed; the battle had to be fought. After that there wasn't really much else to consider. Besides, the pigeons had already been sent, the orders given; there could be no revisiting the decision now. They were committed.

What troubled him was what would follow. And not just after the battle. Battle was one thing; the future of the Order was something else. And for the first time in his tenure as commander, the future was in question. The decisions that had been made this day would reshape the Order for millennia to come. And of course the major decision made was that the two halves of the Order would finally come together as one.

In some ways he was glad that that had happened. Pleased that it was happening within his own lifetime. The Order should always have been one in his view. But of course there were always the politics to consider. And politics had been the reason that the Order had been created in two halves in the first place.

The Order had of course always needed two distinct parts for the two distinct lands. They needed rangers to deal with elven lands. To ride through forests and deal with the distinctly elven problems that arose. And they needed paladins for the wide open human lands. It was simply that forests and flatlands leant themselves to very different types of combat and warriors. But that wasn't what had decided them on this path. It was the least important reason for why the decision had been made.

The major influence had been how the Order would fit into the world. Where it would find its place within the realms. The human realms in which the Order had chapters would never have accepted elves riding through their lands dispensing justice. The relationship between the various orders and the land's rulers was already difficult enough. There were some realms where the Order of the Lady rode with the blessings of the lords of the land, and some where they were considered a threat to the law of the land imposed by the nobility. Of course for their part the elves would never have tolerated humans doing the same either.

So the decision had been made that at the start at least, while the Order was finding its place in the world, human realms would be served by human paladins and elven realms would be served by elven rangers. It had also been decided that the fact that the Order had two halves would be kept hidden from the rulers of the various human realms at least. The Lords and ladies wouldn't have abided the thought that elves were in any way shaping the laws of their lands. It was for that same reason that the Silver Order did not have its chapters in any of the cities. It saved on the rancour.

The elves were less worried about such things – they didn't have inherited titles and ancestral dominions to consider and their law was collectively written. But even they had their limits. They didn't care that there were humans in the Order of the Lady, as long as those humans didn't enforce that law among their own people.

So secrecy in the human realms had been decided upon from the beginning. Secrecy that had lasted for five centuries. And secrecy that as of this very day had come to an end. He liked that. Secrecy was another word for lying, and he didn't like lying. From this day forward the lying would end.

When this conflict was over, however it ended, there would be changes made. Changes in how the Order of the Lady operated and in how others saw it. But again he thought that that was as it should be. In fact it was shameful to him that they'd hidden their nature away at all.

Still, he knew that there would be problems. The current Lord Mayor of Ender's Fall was a difficult sort and one who strongly believed that all law should come from his hand and not from the five orders. A view he suspected that had mostly come about because the Order of the Iron Hand had been making trouble for him over the years. They were slowly gaining influence, both in this city and in many others. The Lord Mayor was going to be unhappy with the Order of the Lady when he found out they too were causing him trouble. To find out that another order was riding through his realm dictating elven law in Ender's Fall would anger him. Very likely he would make life difficult for them for a while for the crime of hiding their elven half from him.

No doubt there would be courts called and questions asked. It was likely that tariffs would be imposed on their trades and the city guards would start running inspections of their chapter. All because the Lord Mayor would feel the need to show his authority over them.

Elron didn't look forward to that. But there was another more immediate problem to cause him unhappiness. He remembered that anew when he heard someone knocking at the door and looked up to see Father Rubrecht standing there.

Yorik!

There was a matter of a trial to be arranged and a judgement to be rendered. A judgement that would necessarily be harsh. He hated that. He hated it especially in this case.

The students thought he was a hard master, and he was. But they thought that he was hard because he didn't care. The truth was anything but. He did care about them. If anything he cared too much. In the end he had no family. He had sacrificed that part of his life so that he could serve the Order. And his role was to serve his fellow members as best he could. He was hard with the students because he wanted to keep them alive. He wanted to keep them on the path of righteousness. In the end since he had no family of his own, he considered them much as he would his own children. And he would not want his children to fail.

Elron gestured for the cleric to join him, hoping that he had some clearer sense of what to do about the wayward paladin than he did. The cleric didn't waste any time in entering the room, his sandalled feet making rapid slapping sounds on the wooden floor before he took a seat in one of the armchairs opposite him.

“You have some wisdom Father?”

“Actually I have a message.”

It was late and he was tired and a little worried about things, but still Elron thought he should have understood what the cleric was talking about. He didn't though. He rubbed at his eyes a little, wondering idly if he was supposed to.

“Father?”

“From Master Ranger Ascollia. Or actually from his commander.”

“About Yorik?” That just didn't seem right to Elron.

“Yes. They say that they have a foreteller, Annalisse Brial Lon who has met with Yorik. And she has said that he has a role to play.”

“A role?” Elron didn't understand, and he was getting tired of asking questions that showed his ignorance.

“In the battles ahead. She says he will be a champion in gold, but he must remain a paladin to fulfil that role.”

Elron nodded. That made sense to him. The Lady had been working through Yorik after all, something that they still needed to examine in detail. When she worked directly through one of her Order it was an important event. It might only happen to a man a few times in his life. Most of the time they operated with only a fraction of her essence. Enough to use a little of her magic and know her wonder, but no more.

But of course it didn't necessarily mean anything. She could have saved him from the demon because he happened to be there when it appeared and then had subsequently given him the assignment out of sympathy for his plight. In fact she might well have. He said as much to the father.

“I know.” Father Rubrecht nodded and then looked away into the distance. Or to what would have been the distance had it not been night. But at night with the candles all lit bringing light to the room, the glass windows became black mirrors and he really ended up staring at his own reflection.

“The scribes are with him now and we will know more in the morning. But one thing I already know from speaking with him is that he did not completely break his vows. He relented at the end, too late perhaps, but still the understanding was there. He has found his way back to the fold even if he cannot wear the gold.”

Elron agreed with that. He had seen it in Yorik's eyes. The man knew his crime and his fate. But he also knew grief for it. For what he had done and for what it would cost him. The anger and the hatred had finally burnt low enough in his soul for him to return to the rightful way for a paladin of the Order. And then there was the simple fact that he had returned at all. Many paladins died when their vows were so terribly broken. But was that enough? He didn't know.

“And there is more.” The cleric turned his gaze back on Elron. “He is a very different man to the one that left us.”

“Before he left, before the darkness struck his life, he was a more than capable paladin. He wore the gold with pride and he mastered everything he was expected to with absolute dedication. He was a credit to the Order. But still there was something missing from him. It was as if he were acting the role like a street performer.”

Elron nodded his agreement with the father as he had sensed the same thing. It had always seemed to him that Yorik had taken to the lessons and the values of the Order with a conviction born of talent rather than heart. That he would make a good paladin and a great trainer in time, but never a leader. Still he wondered – had that changed? “And now?”

“Now that something is there. He has been tested and broken, and he has somehow healed. And somewhere in that terrible ordeal he has discovered his calling. The conviction and the passion are there within him as never before. They shine from him with every look he gives, ring out from him with every word he utters. He is a man truly reborn.”

“And?”

“And he has been assigned missions by the Lady, has been filled with her presence and has become a true member of the Order in his heart and soul. We do not want to lose such a man, even without considering the foreteller's warning.”

That was true. For whatever reason the Lady had chosen to use him there was no doubt that she favoured him. And while she did not dictate who would fulfil what purpose within the Order, the fact that she favoured him carried weight. For that reason he had not considered expelling Yorik from the Order. Only removing him from his duties as a paladin. For that reason and because of the terrible tragedy that had befallen him which had led to his downfall. But those things were not enough to overlook his fall from grace entirely. And it had been a terrible fall.

“He is also a man who has failed his vows nearly completely” Elron countered. “He has given in to the demons of wrath and sorrow. He is a man who has been completely broken. And though he seems healed there is no certainty that that healing will be forever. He may break again. I cannot trust him as he is. I cannot entrust the lives of others to him.”

It wasn't that Elron didn't agree with Father Rubrecht. Even the little he'd seen of Yorik supported what the priest was saying. But he had to consider all the facts. Not just those that they might want to believe.

“And yet oddly I think now you can, more than you could before.”

The cleric seemed remarkably certain Elron thought. Maybe that was a good thing. But maybe not. He wasn't in the end a warrior. He did not understand the bond of brothers in arms. Their absolute reliance upon one another.

“In any case you don't have to. Certainly no more than before. We simply let him remain as he is, putting off his hearing until there is more time. And while this new battle plays out we watch him. He has no command of others, and if this foreteller is right he may reveal his value. Besides, this was never a duty you wanted.”