The High King: A Tale of Alus (32 page)

Serra had been surprised that it had taken the queen so many days to find only three more girls besides her though. She would have thought that, even with the absurd actions of the queen, most girls of the castle would have wanted to join her easily. It hadn't been the case, however.

Julia, a servant girl still fairly new to the kitchen staff, had been their first to join. Serra had known her well enough for nearly two months as one of her duties had meant going to the kitchen for Krulir's meals. She had taken her time returning and met the raven haired beauty as she took over Serra's former jobs.

The servant girl had been hesitant at first as most of the young women they had spoken to were. But with a little coercion from Serra and the glamour of serving the queen, the girl finally gave in and followed.

Two others had been found after an extensive search of the castle. Julia seemed over her initial fears by the end of the second day, she had noted. Phoena, a lovely red head who had actually been covered in grime from working in the soldier's stables, had been hard to find but not hard to convince to drop her work and her dung encrusted clothes. With a long bath and even scrubbing from the other three women, they had finally made her not only presentable but truly a beauty to behold.

The third girl had been brought to their attention from an unexpected source. Laith had informed them that a girl had been given into slavery by her own father at the court on the second day of looking. The merchant had been driven into debt by a bad market and the harsh taxes that Merrick had laid upon him. The man was never wealthy enough to join the guild apparently and suffered the fate that had befallen many others already.

Alyanna had led Serra and Julia to the slave pens. Laith and Aban were joined by a third guard named Taylin for this trip. The slave pens had gathered the reputation of enslaving people too slow to escape at times and it was also on the seedier side of the capitol city where thieves and bullies were said to attack the innocents. The women had been glad enough to find the girl called Adain and leave before the greasy men had been able to lay more than one or two hands on any of their skins. One man had tried hard enough to lose a hand to Taylin's sharp edged sword.

The girl had been worth the effort, both Alyanna and Serra believed. Once she had been taken into the castle and been given a warm bath. The girl's talkative nature slowly began to come through. A lovely little blond with sparkling green eyes and good sense of humor, Adain had a figure to set any man's heart afire. She would have surely fallen into dangerous male hands at the auctions.

The others seemed trustworthy enough to Serra, but this day a task had fallen to her that the queen had felt only she could be trusted to handle. With Laith to guard her, Serra had been sent out of the castle to the soldier's barracks and offices. Alyanna had learned that a well respected lieutenant of the Cadmene cavalry had been injured enough to be returned to Hala's infirmary. Serra had been given a message to bring to the officer in the hopes that he could get word to Alyanna's brother, Relnar.

The pretty little blond shivered as dozens of soldiers from the practice yard eyed her revealed form. Serra tried not to look at them even as she could feel the warmth of a blush rising from her chest into her face. The girl hoped no one would notice. Perhaps it would be mistaken for a bit of sunburn.

Finding the sheltering hallways of the infirmary, didn't mean the attention was over unfortunately. Now heads began to turn as more of the doctors and wounded watched her entrance. The blush was subsiding as Serra regained her composure. A doctor with a grey beard and bald pate clothed in the grey of his order walked over to confront her before she could go too far. To her, it was almost like watching a pair of eyes and hands moving towards her from a stormy cloud.

"Young lady, what do you think that you are doing here and naked yet?" he demanded gruffly. His eyes betrayed that her beauty wasn't missed, just ignored by the old man.

"I am here on behalf of the queen, doctor. I need to see Lieutenant Baitrum."
The doctor looked at her discerningly. "He is still recovering from his wounds suffered in Maris, girl. I don't want to disturb his recovery. Go back to your queen and leave the medicine to me." He waved her off and started to turn in dismissal, but Laith was too quick for that and reached out a restraining hand. The doctor looked from hand to soldier's face angrily.
Laith was first to speak, however, "She is from the queen, so, if the man is not dying, you will lead us to him, old man, or you will need some attention yourself. This girl is the queen's chief assistant. To defy her, is to defy the queen."
The doctor took in the thinly veiled threat and shrugged the hand from his sleeve. "I had heard rumors that the queen had gathered a few naked harlots to her service. I just hadn't believed it," his sneer ended quickly as the back of Laith's fist sent the man sprawling to the floor. Stunned and disoriented, the doctor lay there trying to figure out what had happened.
Placing a hand on Serra's back to move forward, the queen's guard signaled another man of the order to them. Closing his mouth as he recovered from shock, the second doctor came forward. Serra repeated her need and this man led her there directly.
The lieutenant sat up slowly at the sight of Serra and her guard, though she thought that maybe he still hadn't gotten past her to Laith just yet. "I am Serra, the queen's servant. She has sent me to speak to you."
The man smiled from beneath a cloth wrapping that hung low enough to cover his left eye and cheek. "I thank the queen wholeheartedly for that consideration," his smile moved to a grin.
Serra couldn't stop from returning the smile with another blush. Laith laid a hand on her shoulder to remind her to speak. The guard's presence was a problem that the queen worried over, so the girl turned to him and asked him to step back and act as guard from the foot of the bed. Moving to the head of the bed, Serra knelt down on the floor so that she could speak quietly. "Lieutenant, I am not a gift for your amusement. The queen has sent me for an important reason."
The man's face sobered quickly and he nodded though the movement seemed to cause him a little pain for the effort. "I had gathered that, miss, but might I ask why you are here like this?"
Thinking of an answer quickly, she replied, "You know that the queen does not love the high king, correct?" At another nod, which brought his hand up as if to catch his head before it fell off, she continued, "She has gathered a few women to her that she can trust and has asked us to dress this way to disrupt the castle by our mere appearance. That is not the reason that I have come though, or at least not the whole reason."
Pulling a folded envelope from the scarf where the paper had been tied to her hip, Serra passed the note to the soldier. "Read this a moment. Then we must burn it. If this were to find Krulir's hands or the High King's..." she left off the threat that both knew could happen to those who defied the ruler of Marshalla.
The lieutenant quickly read the words on the parchment. His face grew grave a moment before he turned to place the paper into the flame of the lamp beside his cot. Baitrum smiled at Serra as the last of the ashes sank into the glass surrounding the sides of the lamp.
The girl started to stand, but the soldier gripped her right wrist firm enough to stop her. It wasn't a painful touch, but Serra looked at the man worriedly. Her eyes strayed to Laith whose hand was straying to the hilt of his sword. "Could you please stay a little longer and talk with me?" Baitrum asked quietly.
His look still seemed mischievous, but she wondered if he wasn't sincere in his request. Serra didn't smile, however, and the young beauty tried to pull her arm free once more. "Release me, if you wish to keep your hand attached to your wrist," Serra stated without anger.
The lieutenant caught the glint of metal as Laith slowly began to draw his weapon. There was only about six inches showing, but Baitrum recognized the threat well enough to release her. "I didn't mean to anger you," he started to apologize.
The girl shrugged and noticed his eyes drop to her breasts with the motion. "I am not angry yet, but, if you continue looking at my chest, I will be," Serra replied through firmly clamped teeth. The beautiful blond hated to be looked at like an object and was getting angry at the rude attention.
To her horror, the man reached towards her breasts quickly. Starting to draw away in fear, Serra felt him lift away the dagger pendant. Raising a hand to halt Laith's steps, she noticed his intent gaze falling on the diamonds. "Lieutenant," she began.
"I hadn't noticed this for what it is," the man whispered so that only Serra could hear, though the words weren't truly meant for her ears either. Baitrum set the pendant back between her cleavage gently and looked into her face. "I can't believe that I didn't see the pendant for what it is."
Serra looked at him questioningly. Maybe the man had nodded one too many times with his head injured as it was. Seeing the look in her eyes, he smiled shyly, "It was a gift from my family to hers years ago, you see. When she turned sixteen, my father and mother gave it to her as a tribute to our cousins."
"Cousins?" Serra whispered in surprise understanding immediately.
He nodded and winced again. "I should have known that Alyanna would trust this only to family. There have been other Cadmene knights wounded enough to return here over the last months. She could have picked another long ago."
Serra shook her head, "I think that her plans are newly conceived of, lieutenant. It may just be a coincidence of sorts."
Baitrum smiled and shook his head, an equally painful maneuver apparently for him as he groaned with pain. "No, I think that she has been looking for the right time to do this. I gather that much from her note as well as the fact that I know my cousin better than you, miss." The man sighed and lay back down. "I guess that I should have you leave that I might heal better. The queen needs me healthy."
Serra rose almost glad to leave. The hospital wasn't a place that she liked much. The girl kept worrying that she would step in some unmopped blood, since it fairly reeked with the odor in the hospital. The lieutenant sat up once more to ask, "I wasn't lying when I said that I was glad to have you visit. Perhaps you could return sometime and tell me your name."
Serra smiled politely and walked away from the man without giving in to the barely dodged question.

The taking of Maris wasn't going as Merrick had planned and the furniture within the High King's tent was suffering his wrath for all the good it did him. The king turned to face his two generals. Behind them stood a trio of mages looking equally cowed.

Gritting his teeth, Merrick snapped, "Can anyone explain to me what has happened here?" Without interruption, he continued, "We defeated Cadmene and Sileoth in a single season each and lost very few of our men and now...," the High King kicked over his thick wooden chair so hard that a shaving of the wooden backing splintered off the corner of his table. There were other notches in both table and chair from past tantrums, but the generals would hardly dare to interfere with their lord's ranting. In fact, they could sympathize with their lord this time, since they felt much the same way.

A rustling of the cloth at the tent's opening revealed the bent shape of a gargoyle entering the eight foot doorway of the enclosure. The dark creature stood back up as he neared the center of the tent where the ceiling was just barely high enough for him to stand. The generals gave him their places easily and virtually hid behind the dark creature to escape Merrick's attention.

"What is the word, Kar'esh?" the High King questioned less heatedly of the giant. "Can your mar'goyn'lya warriors defeat those creatures?"

He spoke of a new magic that had been placed before them that had been strong enough to drive even the dozen dragons back. Strange, stone men ranging from ten feet tall to almost fifteen feet had suddenly risen from canvas covered carts from the midst of the combined armies of Sileoth and Maris. With those unspeaking, unblinking, multi ton, stone warriors carrying iron spears more than twenty feet long and easily weighing a couple of hundred pounds each, his enemy had met and turned the attacks of knights, gargoyles and dragons every time. Arrows bounced off of stone skin, while even iron bound spears and lances shattered against the monoliths.

Only the mar'goyn'lya and the che'ther dragons had been able to destroy their stone bodies in battle so far. Using giant iron clubs and war maces, the gargoyles had been forced to dare the slower moving but deadly golems by moving close enough to shatter limbs and bodies to stop them. It took nearly complete destruction to defeat the stone soldiers and Merrick already knew that many a gargoyle and dragon had already been lost in the struggles.

Kar'esh affirmed his fears as he stated, "Nearly half my soldiers are injured or dead. The dragons have lost their leader and are now only a half dozen. Should we re-engage those creatures again, we will need
reinforcements before too long. In truth, we need them now."

"Damn them!" the king cursed and brought his fist down on the table's surface so hard that it began to crack. "Wizard Melgan, how soon can your people have more of the mar'goyn'lya brought here?"

The wizard dressed in a green robe shifted his feet uncomfortably and answered. "Three days for us to return to the portal. Perhaps a score and a half each day until our strength runs out. Within a week we could have two hundred of them in our world, but only at about thirty a day. If they fly quickly, it will take each group a day more to return here."

Merrick ground his teeth furiously. A vein threatened to burst upon his left temple from all the tension. "How many of those creatures do you think they have and how many more can they make, Melgan?"

The wizard looked very uncomfortable. "I can't say. None of my wizards know of this magic. Perhaps Quentin of the Hala council might know of this spell?"

Merrick pulled his chair back up gruffly and sat down in a pout. The king sighed in exasperation. "Find out if he knows, Melgan. If he doesn't, send him here with any wizard that might be able to help him. They'll take your place and Retens' here, while the two of you bring more of the gargoyles and dragons to our world." The high king turned to look up at Kar'esh once again. "Is our deal still intact, Kar'esh? Will they continue to fight until these last nations are conquered?"