-
> The annoying teenage Ralph Alden spotted Gust sauntering down Asturia’s marble paved docks and turned to the rest of the noble scions present with a grin. Sir Lucius amongst them, his younger brother Sir Rik, Sir Mark Est Ravn and his younger brother the ever-serious Sir Shane, the ‘fat knight’ Sir Rupert Holt and Sir Colin Davenport from Armium, along with his young brother William, Ralph’s best friend at the tourneys.
>
> “Tell them William!” Ralph urged and the youngest son of King Davenport assumed a solemn expression afore complying.
>
> “What scared the princess off her horse during the Spring’s Hunt?” he asked and Gust stopped dead on his feet with a mean scowl.
>
> “The pig?” Sir Rupert chanced goblet in hand, his eyes on the young ladies taking their afternoon walk at the well maintained private beach next to Asturia’s lavish docks. One could see the sails of the boats heading for the distant island of Valeria, the weather was that clear.
>
> “It was a boar,” Sir Shane corrected him.
>
> “No it was Gust,” William chuckled. “She ran to get away.”
>
> “Don’t be an idiot,” Sir Lucius admonished him and turned to his guffawing brother. “Stop doing that shite Ralph.”
>
> “The man’s a brute and I’m to blame?” that smart shit argued feigning innocence.
>
> “Hey, it’s true,” William insisted trying not to laugh. “They say when he brought the boar’s head back as an apology, she talked to the head afore sending him away!”
>
> Gust grimaced and Sir Mark saw him standing aside grinding his teeth, all pent up rage boiling inside and cleared his throat to stop the taunts from spreading.
>
> “Be thankful Sir Gust can take a joke lads,” the Duke of Midlanor’s firstborn said looking at him warningly. “Wine, sun and a festival looming makes fools of people,” he added and his brother nodded with a prayer to Uher.
>
> Gust grunted and breathed out slowly.
>
> “You’ll enter the games Gust?” Lucius asked, probably to steer the conversation away.
>
> “I will,” his brother Rik intervened eagerly, seeing Gust wasn’t particularly interested in talking to any of them.
>
> “Rik the brick,” William taunted and Sir Colin, his brother cuffed him once upside the head.
>
> “Enough, see to the horses,” he told him.
>
> “The mares too?” the smart mouth quipped with a pained grin and Sir Colin yielded with a sigh.
>
> “Them too.”
>
> “Let’s run to the stables Ralph,” William said rubbing his head and winked at the younger Alden. Sir Shane got up after they trotted away towards the beach, the complete opposite way of Duke Holt’s stables.
>
> “I’ll visit the temple,” Shane said breaking the awkward silence. “I can hear the prayers have started. It is good opportunity to cleanse our hearts afore the games.”
>
> “That’s Naossis’ priestesses,” Sir Rupert Holt corrected him. “But they can put on quite the upliftin’ show it’s true.”
>
> “Well that sounds interesting. Are married men allowed inside?” Lucius said lightly and everyone laughed, but for Gust who stooped near Sir Mark’s ear and hissed.
>
> “Next time, keep to your blasted side of the road and out of my way.”
>
> “I tried to help Gust,” Sir Mark replied patiently. “It’s a tourney, we’re not really going to fight.”
>
> Gust hated this sneaky, condescending double talk. Never fancied their humor, or gossip. Abhorred participating in fake brawls as he called them, even when his father ordered him to do it.
>
> “Tourneys are for cunts and fools,” he grunted and stood back to glare at all of them. “If I want to fight, I need no arena, or its rules.”
>
> “Rules are important Gust,” Lucius, who ironically would lose a brother years later to someone that didn’t think the same, reminded him and Rik who would get maimed in the same event nodded agreeing.
>
> Fools the lot of them.
-
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Sir Gust De Weer,
Raven of Dawn
Anne’s Raven
Part I
-Of Rules & Fools-
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Cameltoe Peninsula
Third week
The giant desert cobra rose up, scaly skin a perfect gleaming black, the rhomboid-shaped head the color of sand and its extended hood a garish red. Gust got his boot out of the stirrups just as his horse collapsed on its knees fatally poisoned. It neighed once afore giving up the spirit, the dosage it’d received monstrous and the five meter long serpent hissed, forked tongue twirling between the half-a-foot fangs in its mouth.
Damnation.
Gust dropped to a knee, the sand burning like an oven underneath and reached for his mace, the angle not favoring the longsword. The desert cobra watched him swaying back and forth calculating the distance and then lunged forward in the blink of an eye to bite him, aiming for his face. Gust swung hard, missed the bloated pumpkin sized head and caught the king of the desert snakes a handbreadth below, where its neck darkened in color. The cobra jaws snapped shut, missing its target and poison saliva sprayed the area forcing Gust to jerk his head aside to protect his eyes.
The giant serpent hissed and coiled to attack again right away. Gust considered rolling to the side, afore realizing he’d sunk into the soft sand deep enough to dig his foot out in time.
So he decided to go with the steel mace option again. The desert cobra opened its mouth three times more than what it seemed even remotely possible and then flew away, leaving a cloud of fine dust and sand behind.
Literally.
It shot up in the air abruptly, higher and higher until it turned into a speck on the sky.
Then it came back down, spraying blood out of its eyes, elongated body twisting right and left and crashed on the desert sands in a small explosion of material, twenty meters ahead of the rising Sir Gust.
“Where in Tyeus Spear did that thing go?” Sir Mael cursed riding to him a minute later.
“Under the sand,” Gust grunted and gave his horse a frustrated kick.
“It’s dead milord,” Klaas noticed.
“BANG GOES THE WATERMELON!” Bugs croaked landing with a thud next to the dead horse and gave it a couple of serious jabs with his beak, piercing the skin and drawing black blood. “SHITE!” The raven declared twisting his large head this way and that standing as tall as Sir Mael’s horse chest. Fiend had managed to survive another journey. ‘It’s not the horse’s fault all the time’, Mael frequently teased –much as it was possible for one to tease Sir Gust- ‘horses like women favor a different type of touch.’
Now the experienced knight and priest of Tyeus may know a thing or two about horses, Gust thought, but it was doubtful he had a clue about women, since he was a known celibate.
Not because the god of War expected it of his disciples, but because Mael never allowed any distractions to interfere with his duties in the order. Sir Jan Reuter that did allow himself female company, approached with the local Cofol scouts and the young Cofol boy. Solt still sporting his bandaged arm in a sling, following the knight around all the time.
“A god darn grove in the middle of the desert,” the knight from Colle grunted, face cracked and weathered hidden behind a dirty cloth cover.
“That’s the third one,” Mael commented and wiped his equally weathered face with a thick towel he kept tied on the pommel of his saddle. “It’s the nothin’ in between that ruins the place and the fact that every bloody thing livin’ in the desert likes water, so we don’t get to sleep wit our eyes closed.”
“You always sleep wit one eye open Mael,” Jan Reuters teased.
“Well, I ain’t a fool like you, is the why. Have you seen the size of that thing?” Mael retorted.
Gust frowned not finding it funny, but Sir Jan appreciated the friendly banter and guffawed along a bemused Solt, but it was Bugs loud chuckling that unnerved everyone and forced them to stop.
Bugs snorted and then stopped realizing he was chuckling by himself. The Raven eyed the knights and squires watching it mystified, afore offering them the strangest piece of counsel.
“FOOLS,” the Raven had yelled. “BRING THE SHOVEL!”
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Gust used a soaked cloth to cool his torso, passing it over his shoulders and nape. He pushed his long white hair back and stared at his dagger for a moment thinking about shaving the white stubble off his face. He was still testing the sharpness of the blade on the hairs of his left arm, when Sir Mael approached carrying his plate and mail shirt, dripping wet.
“Plenty of water, we just have to keep the camels away,” the knight rustled finding a shade under a palm tree. “Horses don’t approach when they are near.”
“I’ve noticed,” Gust replied and sheathed the dagger, deciding not to attempt a shave without a mirror. He still hadn’t healed properly from the arrow cut above his eye and didn’t want to risk another infection. As Sir Jan had said, whatever the Cofols had used made a valiant effort to poison him, but died in the attempt. Gust hadn’t found that funny either and Sir Jan blamed Solt for suggesting it. The knights thought he was being lenient to the boy and used him as shield from time to time. “Can we use that?”
“How are you going…?” Mael sighed and stared at the men of Scaldingport enjoying the oasis lake’s waters with enthusiasm. The mercenaries and the First Foot doing the same. Gust realized he knew most of those men quite well by now, more than a year into his campaign. A difficult person to approach at the start of their journey, he now found himself being more patient with mundane annoyances. “They like each other,” Mael commented looking at the officers and knights escorting them, his mind on practical matters per usual.
“Lesia pretends to love Uher and us Issirs want to believe it,” Gust said with a grimace. “Wyncall is gathering support.”
“You heard the rumor?”
“Difficult not to,” Gust grunted. “You think there’s truth in it?”
“Robert losing the baronship? Eh, difficult to believe it.”
“Lucius turning rebel is even more unbelievable,” Gust commented.
“Wife dead, brother and sister dead, father as well,” Mael argued. “The younger brother taking his throne on top, the man snapped. He done it afore with little provocation.”
“You don’t know that,” Gust countered. “Losing the throne isn’t small provocation.”
“That happened after he’d attacked the Crulls, Gust,” Mael replied. “Lady Janneke being Queen of Regia is no small feat for Scaldingport.”
“Got nothing to do with Scaldingport,” Gust replied. “Unless we get to fight for her.”
“You don’t think your father was behind it?” Mael probed, while cleaning the ‘Glowing Spear’ pendant with a cloth.
“Too obvious,” Gust grunted. “What he gotten out of it? And Janneke on a contested throne? She can’t hatch a plot to save her life and Jeremy… him I don’t remember at all.”
“Lucius wouldn’t—”
“You know what?” Gust grunted. “I don’t much like talking about my sister’s old prospects, or my father’s problems. Seeing as you are so eager to postulate, why has my father kept the stuff in Badum from us?”
“He wanted you to stay the course,” Mael replied and got up.
“That’s bullshit. Knowing about Robert for sure would’ve helped here.”
“And expose your father’s plans.”
Gust sighed and cracked his neck right and left.
“That’s the reason he wasn’t behind Janneke’s ascension. It was luck, or something else. Now here and in this situation, the Old Crow has just passed the turd to me.”
“A test of skill,” Mael said and Gust snorted. “He always gave you leeway,” the knight added.
“Have you lost your mind? You were there when he chewed me up for missing the tourney!”
“He could have stopped you from going hunting Gust,” Mael said and glanced at the men screaming at the snakes coming out for an afternoon swim. The lake emptied pretty fast of people. “But he didn’t. By the way, why did you go?”
Gust reached for his longsword, but paused afore heading towards the shores to help out.
“You know this,” he grunted. “Why ask me now?”
Mael grimaced as if not wanting to say more.
“I fear it might be important,” he finally replied with a sigh. “I never seen a light injury stopping you afore.”
Mael was right on that. It had nothing to do with his injury. Gust could ride on a leg and joust with one hand tied behind his back.
> There is water in Cameltoe Peninsula, if you knew how to find the paths across the cracked land. Located near the dry mountain range and the rises, the small oasis could support a merchant travel stop, but no such thing existed. The local camel herders knew the spot and used it, but this was a barren empty path and an inhospitable landscape.
“The Great Desert was worse,” Sir Vegenuur said riding alongside him a week later, deep in the night. The guides leading on their camels, lit lanterns showing the following force the way. Gust who had just helped bury another man and two more animals snorted. “It’s true,” Vegenuur insisted seeing his reaction. “By the second month, everyone had turned into skin and bones,” he reminisced. “We couldn’t stop to bury anyone and in the nights, things came out of the sands.”
“Things,” Gust said with a grimace.
“Giant creatures and ghosts hidden in the ruins,” Sir Vegenuur elucidated.
“We ate that snake, killed about a dozen more, I didn’t find as tasty and kept their skin back in the Oasis,” Gust commented. “Have you any mementos of these things Sir Vegenuur?”
“You have to see them Sir Gust,” the knight defended his story. “Of course nothing could scare the Raven,” Gust grunted and searched the sky for Bugs. “Quite the turn in our fortunes though,” Sir Vegenuur finished with a smile.
“You have to be more specific Vegenuur,” Gust said and reached for his flask of water amidst his saddle bags.
“From almost dead, to riding with the famed Sir Gust De Weer towards Eikenport where the Princess resides,” Sir Vegenuur replied. “End the civil war afore it spreads and return as heroes.”
“What about the Khan?”
“Let others deal with him, plenty of stuff to do in Jelin.”
“Like what?” Gust asked after he poured water in his mouth.
“Take back Krakenhall.”
“There’s a lot of road from where we are to Krakenhall,” Gust countered crooking his mouth. “Plenty of things could change until ye make it there.”
“A Northern wench will never be accepted by the king.”
“The king will cry more than speak words for years Vegenuur, by that time that wench would have control of the Duchy,” Gust told him. “As long as everything works and people profit, each day shall make it more difficult to dislodge her.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“He’s right you know Sir Vegenuur,” Wyncall budged in. The Captain had approached them from the back end of the procession and was listening in to their conversation. The long lines of men and animals extending for almost a kilometer from start to finish. “The Duchess has kept the trade routes open and upheld all contracts, even with enemies of her father.”
“Not everything is about contracts Captain!” Sir Vegenuur argued.
Wyncall stood back on his fancy saddle with a frown.
“What else is there in the realm?” He asked with a glance at Gust.
“Real life,” the hale knight replied.
Wyncall crooked his mouth, the thin goatee he had on kept nicely trimmed despite the journey. This, Gust thought impressed, is a man carrying a mirror.
“What’s the difference?” the Captain of the ‘Three Hundred’ asked. “Whether we call it realm, or life.”
“In the latter, truth and lies matter,” Gust retorted with an angry grunt. Mirror or not, the captain still smelled like a rat.
At the front of their line, one of the guides turned his camel around the moment he reached the top of the dune and raised his lantern high above his head.
“What this?” Sir Vegenuur asked and looked to find an aide to send him up the slope. Sir Prust signaled for one of the squires to ride their way as fast as possible.
Gust kicked his legs and sent the horse into a trot leaving the two men behind intending to find out himself.
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Sir Mael smacked his lips and gave him the spyglass. Gust looked through it at the lights clearly visible in the night. Small lights from torches and bigger ones from firepits.
“That’s Eikenport?” He asked not making much beyond the ancient stone wall of the city, facing the desert.
“I reckon it is,” Mael replied.
“What’s wit the lights? Is there a festival?”
“Way past the date thank Tyeus. We don’t want to deal wit that,” Mael commented and Gust glanced at him surprised.
“Would the mercenaries move against the Cofols?” He asked him tensely moving on, sensing the knight wouldn’t divulge anything more useful on the matter.
Mael licked the front of his teeth, his face barely visible in the moonlight.
“Why would the prince bring her here?”
Gust checked to see if anyone was in earshot. “I never believed this part,” he murmured and then turned his eyes again on his longtime friend. “You didn’t answer Sir Bolte.”
“Milord, I believe I have,” Mael replied.
“Speak clearly.”
“I don’t think the prince would,” the knight said and accepted the spyglass from Gust. “And we don’t know their agenda.”
The mercenaries was his meaning.
“Nor Robert’s,” Gust grunted.
“Robert changed his mind and turned south, after he received the message,” Mael said. “That much is obvious. Why he did it is another matter.”
“He told us.”
“Aye, that’s what he did.”
Mael was being vague on purpose.
“Have Jan rest men and horses,” Gust ordered him.
“The Captain would want to reach the city tonight,” Mael looked at Gust intently. “Sir Vegenuur might back him.”
Ah.
“Vegenuur isn’t in command,” Gust snapped angry. “Rest the men, check their gear.”
“Robert might have given him orders in advance. Vegenuur had been knighted by Lord Joep, he won’t budge and a High Baron’s rank stands above yours,” Mael insisted. They both had their suspicions on what was going on, but it was one thing to suspect foul play, another to speak it in the open without concrete evidence.
Some lines you don’t cross.
“You sound like my father,” Gust grunted. “Trust me, it ain’t a blasted compliment.”
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“That’s preposterous!” Captain Wyncall protested. “My men are ready to ride into the city posthaste Sir Gust!”
“We wait for first light,” Gust repeated keeping his tempers checked. Punching in the face of their ally right in the middle of a council, would be considered impolite in most civilized circles, despite the pleasure it would bring him. “Then we will ride in the city calmly so we don’t provoke the locals to do something foolish.”
“The city is under our control Sir Gust,” Wyncall said clenching his jaw. “The Cofols are staying in their district. It’s a small force that won’t lift a finger to stop us.”
“You seem mighty sure about it,” Gust argued. “Wouldn’t they refuse to give up the princes’ wife? I would be very angered if they didn’t in his place.”
“The Prince is busy with Sir Robert,” Wyncall countered, not using Robert’s title. “The Cofols don’t have the princess anyway.”
Gust stood back and breathed deeply afore letting the air out.
“Who does?” He rustled sternly.
Wyncall snorted and crooked his mouth, not wanting to answer.
“The pirates,” Sir Vegenuur said and Gust glared at the knight from Badum and Sir Prust who was with the First Foot’s heavy Cavalry eyed him warningly in return. Gust who didn’t appreciate receiving taunting stares from random fools turned on the stocky Knight.
“The pirates have Princess Elsanne?” Mael intervened annoyingly.
“That is the report,” Wyncall admitted. “D’Orsi might have dealt with it though, it’s been weeks since.”
Dealt with it?
“Anyone has a map of the city?” Gust asked them, receiving blank stares. “How strong are the pirates?”
“They have control of several neighborhoods,” Wyncall explained.
Neighborhoods?
Gust glanced at the frowning Mael. “Do they want ransom?” He asked not knowing how to handle this, especially since despite learning more, he still didn’t feel they were being fully transparent.
“They are working with her,” Wyncall replied. “Sir Gust, this is an insurrection to the Throne of Kaltha!”
The man being from Lesia, Gust failed to see how this was any of his darn business. But the first thing the mercenary had said was even more peculiar to his ear.
Elsanne is working with pirates? Gust couldn’t wrap his mind around that.
This was even more ridiculous a notion from a rebel Lucius going mad and killing people right and left.
Elsanne would never turn to violence and she abhorred those that did.
As for working with criminals…
For what? Did she really wish to sit on the throne so much?
“We enter the city at dawn the earliest,” he decided.
“Sir Gust!” Wyncall protested again, but he stopped him raising a hand.
“Nothing I’ve heard, changed my mind,” Gust added sternly and stared at the men around him. “Those that feel differently are free to challenge me. We have a couple of hours to spare and I need the training.”
Gust watched them for a moment walk away towards their men in silence, then asked Mael who stood next to him all wound up.
“You believe what he said?”
“About the princess consorting wit pirates? Nay, I don’t,” Mael replied. “The problem is, I can’t see why they’d lie about it for starters.”
“What’s the second thing?” Gust asked him and reached for the helm he’d secured on his saddle.
“They were ready to take you up on yer offer,” Mael retorted with a grimace. “And people don’t do that, unless they’re fools, or bloody desperate.”
“What are you saying?”
“Don’t show them yer back,” Mael said. “I’ll get the Crows ready.”
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Bugs flew away, the large bird disappearing in the reddish dark sky. Wyncall moved first, his mercenaries following after him, then Sir Veneguur and his heavy cavalry. Sir Jan Reuter that was with Scaldingport’s men-at-arms stared at him, face dark and his mount nervous. Gust nodded and kicked his legs to start his own horse going, a dark brown stallion that had seen better days. Sir Mael’s warhorse the proud Fiend rode next to him, trotting confidently.
The ancient walls approached them. Cracked in places, torn down in others and with the desert sands gathered and sloping at the heavy granite stones thick base. The parts of the walls still standing a polished light grey, almost white, with a bit of red where the light of dawn touched them.
There was smoke and fires still burning in the city, the racket of many horses approaching drowning all other sounds and the wind coming from the sprawling port and near shore scorching hot. Beyond the city walls and the part ruined exotic buildings, a shocking expanse of green sprouted starting at the sea and traveling west over the horizon. The river Felmond and its famed Zilan bridge named after an Emperor.
Sir Gust entered the city riding at the front and was struck immediately by the smell of rot, burning wood and human filth. There were dead loitering the streets, slain men and women. Soldiers and civilians. Men wearing mercenary armor, or any type of armor. They were butchered horses and animals in every alley, upturned carts with produce, dwellings burned out completely and sturdier stone buildings still standing but smoking. Others fire hadn’t touched at all. Swords, spears, shields and knifes scattered about.
He stopped his horse trying to grasp the level of carnage he was facing and everyone stopped behind him. The moment the final riders came to stop, the noise of battle reached them. Yells, screams and prayers.
“On me!” Gust ordered and started riding down the street coming from the still standing desert facing gates they’d crossed. It was leading them towards the port, but they never reached there, as a city corner later the road was blocked by Sir Vegenuur’s cavalry.
“What going on?” Gust yelled at the knight, spotting him amongst the others.
“Wyncall charged his lads to break out a group of mercenaries,” Vegenuur reported nervously. “There’s been some heavy fighting here Gust.”
Gust grunted and pushed his horse through the packed heavily armoured riders. Sir Mael following behind him. The mercenaries were involved in some brutal fighting amidst the narrow streets that went every which way. The old city has been rebuilt rather haphazardly at some point here, he thought.
“Sir Vegenuur, who’s fighting here?” He yelled back at the frowning knight watching from his horse undecided.
“Ahm… I have no idea Sir Gust,” Sir Vegenuur replied.
Well these are not Cofols, Gust thought looking about him. “Let my men through!” He ordered the knights and heard Sir Jan asking the same thing behind the rows of heavy cavalry. This is no place for horses, he decided, but kicked his legs anyway and approached the disputed street.
A mercenary rider trampled a rough looking armed brigand with his horse, but got hit with an axe by another, the blade cleaving him to the bone and went down. He got hacked to pieces in moments from more brigands jumping out of the alleys. Gust clicked his tongue and sent his horse forward. The brigands saw him approach and then glanced behind him at the many riders watching the exchange undecided.
“What’s going on here?” Gust barked in Common. “Why did you kill that man?”
A brigand stood back, bloody axe in hand and eyed him.
“They attacked us first,” he said. “Who are you wit mate?”
“What?” Gust grunted. “I’m Sir Gust De Weer, of Scaldingport you imbecile!”
“I’m Flint Longfinger. Ye far away from home mate,” the man replied undaunted. Gust blinked and spotted several more brigands appearing from the side alleys. Wyncall has rode his men into a blasted trap, he thought with a grimace.
“Gust,” Mael warned him.
“I’ll ask you a query mister Flint,” Gust rustled narrowing his eyes. “You’ll have one chance to answer it.”
“That so? What’s the query?” Flint asked.
“Do you have the princess?” Gust didn’t want to lose any more time with them.
“What did he say?” One of them asked, eyes bulging out and large, his mouth crooked. He looked half-dead, but the cutlass in his hand was no joke.
“He asked about the princess,” another explained, head covered with a blue sash, mouth full of gold teeth and a couple of silver.
These were pirates Gust realized.
On land.
“We don’t,” Flint replied.
Huh?
“Who does?” Gust grunted.
“Nine Lives has her, up on Garth’s district,” Flint replied.
Gust had trouble following his words.
“Why in Tyeus Spear are you fighting the mercenaries?” Mael asked them.
“They killed me family is why,” a man yelled.
“They be laying waste to the city for over a month,” another added.
“The mercenaries attacked you?” Gust asked. “Why… what about the princess?”
“We don’t know,” Flint replied. “They control the main road and the port for now.”
Gust smacked his lips and stared at the pirate crowd slowly gathering.
“I need to reach the princess,” he told them matter-of-factly. “Who is in charge at Garth’s District?”
“Now? I have no idea. You ain’t getting in there mate,” Flint said. “The mercenaries tried it, but they failed.”
“Is there a way to reach her?” Mael asked. “We are knights sent to take her back to Jelin.”
“Ah, what if she doesn’t want to go back?” Flint asked them.
“I’d like to hear it from her lips, if you don’t mind,” Mael replied.
Flint thought about it for a while. “What about D’Orsi’s men?”
“I don’t give a darn about them!” Gust grunted unable to control himself. He was trying to appear diplomatic given they were in an unfavorable spot, but he’d break through this rubble of freaks on foot if he have to.
“What sort of knight are you?” a pirate asked him and Gust glared at him irate.
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t let ye harm Anne is his meaning mate,” Flint told him, the crowd gathered around them agreeing with loud murmurs.
Gust blinked and stood back on his saddle shocked.
Harm Anne?
“Whose…?”
“Jade Eyes,” a fierce woman wearing a hat told him, with a taunting smile. “My, my yer a big one aren’t ye?”
Gust stared at the woman wearing pants and carrying a sword incredulous.
“Cat got yer tongue?”
“Gust, perhaps we should retreat,” Mael advised him, but Gust's mind was elsewhere. “Figure out what’s going on.”
“What’s to figure out?” The brash woman taunted. “You boys arr either here to help her, or yer sleepin’ wit the fishes tonight.”
> The horse neighed, a branch snapping on its head and Gust cursed knowing he’d lost her following the untrotted path. He cursed at the dog running away and stupid nervous horses. The young King bringing everyone along and the clumsy hunters that couldn’t lead a prey proper. He was still murmuring under his breath, when the path ended on a clearing amidst the trees. The branches retreating and the foliage revealing a spot where the canopy allowed the sun to come in strong and bright. Chase the darkness away.
>
> A snort and the horse was through into the open area, the grass and rotting leaves smelling of nature. The moisture covering the disturbed ground, turning the soil into mud. The tapping of small feet running, a flushed face and the girl’s eyes open wide in horror.
>
> Then hope at salvation.
>
> Underneath it all a touch of excitement at the close call.
>
> Damnation, Gust thought taken aback at the sight. He didn’t notice the horse rearing panicked, was still numb when the boar gored it and remembered to get out of the way after his back crashed on the old tree. He stood up on pure adrenalin, saw the boar turning on the screaming girl and lost it.
>
> It took him a while to realize who she was and by the time he did the boar was dead, his father was making a fool of himself and that girl had turned back into the princess.
>
> That brief moment of excitement and connection forever broken.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gust grunted and stared at the gathered crowd, afore turning his attention on the woman. “You call her Anne, the princess,” he said and the woman nodded. Gust sighed and stared at his horse’s head for a moment. “You have my word,” he finally said.
“Ah, there it is then,” the woman said with a teasing smile. “You know her.”
“I don’t know about this Mutiny,” Flint told her. “That’s a lot of men.”
“What about yer men Sir Knight?” She asked.
Gust glanced at Sir Mael and he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s your call milord. The Crows will follow yer lead.”
He turned his head next and stared at the knights waiting further back on their nervous horses, scrunched his square jaw this way and that, afore facing the woman called Mutiny again.
“Show me the god darn way!” Gust rustled.
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“What about Wyncall?” Sir Vegenuur asked, sucking at his cheek nervously.
“That’s his mess,” Gust grunted. “Are ye here to fight townsfolk Vegenuur?”
“These are pirates Sir Gust,” Sir Prust protested.
“Not all of them, they ain’t,” Gust replied and pointed at the bodies loitering the street.
“Is the route clear?” Vegenuur queried with a grimace of distaste.
“All the way to the inner north gates as they call them,” Gust replied. “We reach the wall, we’ll have to talk to those manning it.
“There’s a wall?”
“Aye, another district apparently,” Gust said and pulled at the reins. “We’re on the same page here Sir Vegenuur?”
“I have my orders Sir Gust,” the knight replied tensely. “As do you. We don’t set the rules.”
“Mmm,” Gust grunted and smacked his lips. “Tell yer men to follow us,” he told him and the knight from Badum crooked his mouth stubbornly.
“I’ll ride at your side Sir Gust. On the Baron’s orders.”
“Was my meaning,” Gust rustled and started his horse down the bombarded street heading west. Six blocks to their south the sounds of heavy fighting continued, same as behind them and the direction of the docks.
Rules, Gust thought, while watching the ancient buildings passing them by, still showing the signs of time and battle. He remembered the scene again and sighed. Tried to clench his left fist next, but the broken finger there hadn’t healed proper and the pain run him through, traveling from spine to the base of his cranium.
Fools the lot of them, he thought and his father chuckled slapping his hands at his hall’s table scaring the feasting crows away. His words penetrating the knight’s psyche.
An angry idiot makes a fool of himself, his father always said. But it’s the aggrieved buffoon rushing to defend a maiden’s honor that gets hanged by his entrails while fouling himself for all to see.
“Fuck you Ruud,” Gust grunted and eyed Sir Mael riding beside him, face hidden behind the helm’s crow’s beak. The knight returned his stare with a glare. “I fear I should have stayed in Scaldingport,” Gust told him and Mael shook his helmed head.
“You were always going to come here milord. Even without Lord Bach’s scheme,” the knight replied, his eyes on the approaching destroyed gateway. “Yer father just tried to squeeze as much as he could out of any type of deal.”
Hmm.
“He told you that?” Gust rustled not believing him.
“I figured it out. I know the old goat far longer than you,” Mael deadpanned. “He did say to bring you back if possible though. Given the choice between having yer brother take over and him living another fifty years to skip a generation and avoid it, Lord Ruud told me he preferred the latter.”
Of course he did, Gust thought and pulled at the reins stopping his horse just inside the smashed up gates, everyone doing the same behind him. Over two hundred and fifty horses had come down the sandy slopes, leaving a rearguard behind with the guides and their camels. He jumped down from his mount, ordered the men-at-arms to wait where they were, set his shoulders straight and started walking followed by Sir Mael, Sir Vegenuur and Sir Prust.
The two soldiers watching the gates, one of them injured, both wearing leather armour with a dog carved on it stood up nervously. Behind them a bigger group had gathered, civilians, women and children. A couple of fighters amongst them looking worse for wear. A Cofol with an effeminate painted face and three Issirs. A couple of black-robe wearing monks, one of them looking like a roughed up Lord Bach, the Baron of Colle wanted by Lord Anker’s men, presumed he was hiding in Colle behind the Royal Guard and a woman.
She wore tight leather pants, like Mutiny, a white shirt and a leather corset over it. Dirty white hair gathered behind her ears, her throat bandaged with a bloody cloth. Gust gasped his eyes blurring and Elsanne stepped forward walking tenderly, reached the two nervous soldiers and told them to move aside.
“Is that?” Sir Vegenuur asked unsure, a scroll in his hand and the Princess stared at all their faces for a long moment before settling on the tongue-tied Gust.
“I saw your Raven,” she told him simply, adding after a small pause. “It’s gotten bigger.”