The Sage Knight Read online

  “How goes it, Mender?” He used the old nickname that had stuck since their army days.

  “As good as can be expected,” Menendil replied quietly. He glanced at the stranger and then looked Norgril right in the eyes.

  The other man knew what he was saying. It was not safe to speak freely, and even if what they said when whispering could not be heard it would draw attention to them.

  “I’ll have one of your meat pies, too,” Norgril said. “The beef and ale one.”

  His voice was loud enough to be heard through the inn, and the conversation, such as it was, normal enough so as not to arouse suspicion.

  Menendil placed the pint down on the bar and some coins slid across the polished surface in return.

  “There’s a batch of pies just cooking out back. I’ll check how they’re coming on, but they should be just about ready by now.”

  Norgril moved away from the bar to find a table, and Menendil went through the curtained door that led into the kitchen. His wife was there, just at that moment pulling out a rack of pies from the oven with thick gloves.

  “Perfect timing,” he said.

  “Aye, I heard the order. But mark my words, that friend of yours will get us into trouble. He’s one as has the look to him of a child poking a dog with a stick. He can’t just walk by and let it sleep.”

  Menendil knew that was true. “He’s the same as me, Norla. We were both in the army, and we both served in an elite unit. It’s not in us to ignore what’s going on. Our training screams against it.”

  Norla did not answer that. She was not happy, but she let things be. Norgril was not the first of his old friends to drop by. Instead, she plated the pie, poured on a healthy dollop of sauce from a pot on the stove and handed him the plate in silence.

  He knew better than to argue the point now. She did not like his old friends dropping by because she knew it would lead to trouble, but when push came to shove he knew she hated what was happening in their beloved city as much as he did.

  He took the plate back out into the main room of the inn, and was surprised. The suspicious stranger was gone, and Norgril sat now where the other man had been. It was a good place, far enough away from the others in the room that if they spoke quietly no one would hear what they said.

  Norgril grinned at him, and Menendil placed the plate on the table and pulled back a chair to sit down opposite.

  “He must have got bored sitting here and listening to idle chatter,” Norgril said. “Either that, or there was someone better to spy on.” He took a sip of ale and reached for the pie.

  “It’s still hot,” Menendil warned. “Give it a moment.”

  His old friend hesitated. Then he looked around the room and leaned in close over the table.

  “Have you heard the latest?” he said in little more than a whisper.

  “No. No one has been in here yet that I’d talk to.”

  “Well,” Norgril said, “The Shadow Flyers have been seen in broad daylight now. At least over the palace and the city walls. Rumor says it’s to discourage people leaving Faladir. They know if they do they’ll be found.”

  Shadow Flyers was a term some folks used for elù-draks, but Menendil preferred the old name that had come down from legend.

  “But that’s the least of it.” His friend took another sip of ale, and there was a hint of outrage in his eyes. Maybe a touch of fear as well.

  “What else?” Menendil asked, but he was not sure he wanted to know the answer. He himself had seen elù-draks circle the Tower of the Stone from his own bedroom window in the deep hours of the night. Not to mention strange lights from the small and barred window just below the tower’s pinnacle where the Morleth Stone was held. That the creatures of evil were now seen in daylight was even more worrying, but there was obviously worse to come.

  “The king tolerates no dissent,” Norgril went on. “That we already knew. Murder has become commonplace. But now he’s gone further, killing those of his own blood.”

  Menendil’s stomach lurched, and he felt a wave of nausea. He knew where this was going, and it sickened him.

  “We know that other members of the royal family have met with accidents. One was killed hunting. Another fell out of bed while he was sleeping and broke his neck. But now murder is no longer even disguised. The last were rounded up last night and executed by sword. All except his youngest brother.”

  “He escaped?”

  “No. He did not. The king thought him the leader of those who would depose him and raise a new king in his stead. The younger brother therefore faced a worse fate than the others.”

  “What happened,” Menendil asked quietly.

  “He was found trying to hide in a cellar. The king interrogated and tortured him. Personally. What he said isn’t known, but it’s doubtful he revealed any plots of rebellion. The royal family have long been watched, so no one would have had any dealings with them. It would be too obvious and too dangerous.”

  “And after the interrogation?”

  Norgril closed his eyes. “He was hung, upside down, from the palace gate. And the king killed him with his own knife, cutting his throat. The body will be left there for a week, I’m told.”

  It was not really a surprise to Menendil. He had seen this coming. Yet somehow it still shocked him. But he tried to think about it calmly, and what it might mean for the rest of the city.

  Things would get worse. That he knew. Evil that was unchecked grew strong and bold. Now that it had removed the greatest threat, someone who might rally men to a banner, it would move on to another target. But there was no target left now who could rally a proper rebellion. The royal line was expunged. The six knights had once been beloved, but they supported the king and there was blood on their hands in service to him. Menendil’s own father had been a knight many years ago. Had he been alive now, the shame of what they had done would have killed him.

  “How do we know this is true?” he asked.

  Norgril looked grim. “I’ve seen the body, and I had met the prince. It was still hard to identify him though. His face was bloated and bruised from being struck. His body was covered in cuts and blood.”

  Menendil nodded slowly. His friend had stayed in the army longer than he had. At one stage, he had been a bodyguard to some members of the royal family. There would be no mistake with identification.

  “And the rest of the story?” he asked.

  “Pieced together from various contacts I still have inside the palace.”

  The inn seemed even more subdued than it had before. Norgril began to eat his pie, and Menendil sat there and thought in silence.

  The royal line was gone. Who then could the city of Faladir rally to for salvation? It was a question that made him uncomfortable. He, like all others, knew the prophecy. The seventh knight would rise to challenge evil. But could one person, alone, defeat the king, his knights, the army that answered to the king and the creatures of shadow that were increasingly seen within the city?

  He knew the answer, but he did not like it. The seventh knight would need help. There must be those in the city able to discover information and pass it on. Even, when the time came, to raise their swords in defiance. Either might get them killed though.

  But it had to be done. The way must be prepared for the seventh knight. Menendil knew he was not a brave man. Not like his father had been. Yet still, he was not a coward either.

  There were others like him too. The plan that he had been considering for some while seemed now the only way forward. He would form a group of those he trusted. He would keep it to one hundred only, so that they had a chance of remaining secret despite the spies who swarmed all over the city. And they would prepare the way for the coming of the seventh knight. Or die trying.

  3. The Lone Mountain

  Faran gazed ahead. For days, the mountain had grown up before them as they traveled, getting larger by slow increments. Now, it dominated the landscape.

  It was larger than anything he had s
een. Larger by far than the hills which had surrounded his home village of Dromdruin. It dwarfed even the great escarpment beneath which the tombs of the Letharn had been delved. It was massive, but it was still not like any mountain he had heard tell of.

  There were no other mountains near it. It was not part of a range. It stood by itself, alone.

  He could relate to that. He and Ferla were like the mountain. They were alone. They were the last of Dromdruin Village. But at least they had each other.

  They were not quite alone. Kareste was with them, and she had proved a true friend. But she was not of the village. She had not known their world before fire and sword had destroyed it. Yet Faran guessed that she too had endured great pain in her past. She kept it secret though, but the memory of it was there in her eyes and it showed at times. There was a look to the eyes that tragedy engraved, and she had it.

  Aranloth must have known her past. She was a lòhren like him. But he was dead. Dead, but not forgotten. His body lay days behind them, buried probably in a tunnel. His grave unmarked and unmourned. He would have fought Lindercroft and his soldiers, but he could not have prevailed against so many.

  Faran studied the mountain. Tall it was, the top of it wreathed in clouds. But there was no stony peak stretching up jaggedly into the sky. The mountain was dome-shaped, and the peak was a high plateau of grass, near level from what he had been able to see from time to time. Few trees grew there, but that did not seem to be because it was too high. Even the long smooth slopes coming down to the level of the plain that surrounded it were mostly bare of trees. They were grassed like the plateau, but there were signs of a road spiraling upward.

  He heard Kareste coming up beside him. “Does it have a name?” he asked. There was no need to say what he meant by it. The mountain dominated everything all around them.

  “It has many names,” she answered. “But the one most commonly used is that which the Halathrin gave it. Nuril Faranar. The Lonely Watchman.”

  Faran thought the name suited the mountain. It seemed lonely, yet resolute in its isolation. It had stood through the history of Alithoras, and there was much of that in this region. It was here that his ancestors had gathered together and served the Halathrin. Within its sight, battles had been fought during the Shadowed Wars.

  “Is the homeland of the Halathrin close by?” Ferla asked.

  Kareste pointed toward the horizon. “It lies that way, though we’ll not see the elves who dwell there. But from the top of the mountain, so Aranloth told me, their forest home is visible.”

  Faran sighed. The mountain was their destination. But it could not be a home as Dromdruin had been, and the valley of the lake after. There was only so much room in his heart, and those places already filled it.

  “Will we be welcome there?” he asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Kareste replied. “But it was where Aranloth had intended to take us.”

  She went silent then, and strode ahead. They followed her, knowing how she felt.

  Aranloth was dead. It was too hard to comprehend, but it must be faced. They were doing now what he would have done, and Kareste led them.

  Kareste did not know him, but there was a man who lived on the mountain. If forced to flee, it was to this man that Aranloth would have led them himself.

  They had been forced to flee, but Aranloth was left behind. He had told Kareste of this strange man who lived atop the mountain though. Supposedly, he was the greatest swordsman alive, except perhaps for Brand of the Duthenor. At some point, Kareste claimed, they would have come to him for tuition anyway. Lindercroft had just forced it on them sooner than expected.

  They moved ahead, following Kareste. She had changed since Aranloth’s death, and though she hid her grief well it was there at all times to see. She was silent most of the time, and her eyes were haunted. The old man was not just another lòhren to her. He had been a friend. Her loyalty to him was enormous, and his loss had changed her.

  She usually walked ahead of them, and once Faran had caught up with her to ask a question. She had had tears in her eyes, and he had not known what to say or do. What comfort could you give to the living who grieved the dead?

  Yet despite Kareste’s grief, she had led them well. They had crossed the lake near the cabin unnoticed by Lindercroft or his men. Then coming to the shore on the other side she had sunk the boat in water deep enough that no trace of it could be seen or found by those who would pursue them when they realized they had not died in the burning cabin.

  Using mist and smoke she hid them as they moved on, although it was Ferla who had found the best path for them up out of the valley that would leave little sign of their passing if one of Lindercroft’s men was a tracker.

  It was Kareste though who led them undetected through the line of sentries atop the ridge that Lindercroft had placed. They had not been vigilant, seeing the smoke from the burning cabin far below and assuming that their leader had cornered his quarry.

  She had used mist to hide them, making it seem that it rose up naturally from the lake, and she had deepened shadows also that they flitted through until they were past all danger.

  Through woods she led them, and over rocky slopes that hid their trail. And they moved at great speed, resting seldom and pushing themselves to their limits. For elù-draks would hunt for them when Lindercroft discovered they had escaped him.

  These things had worked, and the time Aranloth had bought them with his life proved invaluable. They had seen no sign of the enemy, either on land or in the air, and they had traveled for a week. Two hundred miles they had traversed, and done so at great speed. But their lives had depended on it, and even now Kareste hastened. She sought the cover of the mountain, for there they could rest unobserved in the home of the man who lived there, and need not try to hide in the wild lands where sharp eyes from above might see them.

  “Do you think this stranger that we go to will teach us?” Ferla asked.

  “We have no guarantee that he’ll even put a roof over our heads.” Faran looked up at the mountain and frowned. “We know nothing of the man, or how he’ll react to us. But if he was a friend of Aranloth, and Aranloth intended us to go there, then I believe he will help us.”

  The land they traveled was strangely flat, given the great dome of a mountain that rose up out of it. But it was fertile, and looked to Faran like the creek flats he had known in Dromdruin. The soil was dark and silty, as though floods had deposited it here over many years. But there was no river in sight, nor even a stream.

  He thought of the old stories as he walked. Legends sprang up from this place like the grass did from the rich soil. Thousands of stories had their origin here, and then he remembered that the great river of Alithoras, the Careth Nien, ran close by.

  Close by was relative. He could not see it, and it was hard to imagine that a river he could not even see could reach the land where he now stood when it flooded. Yet the soil beneath his feet told him it was so.

  It was because he was looking downward that he saw the first sword. Mostly, grass grew tall where they went, but here and there were bare patches caused by animal trails, or where wild cattle had grazed it low or made wallows in dust or mud.

  It was a rusted thing, barely recognizable for what it was. He knelt down and touched it, and it crumbled at the brush of his fingers.

  He saw more as he went. It seemed at one point that the earth itself was made of weapons. Swords he saw, and helms and armor. There were gauntlets too, and belt buckles, harness trappings and all manner of metal objects. Some seemed new enough, and he guessed these were made of elven steel which was said not to tarnish through the long years. But most were nearly returned to the soil like the ore they came from in their forging eons ago.

  It was not weapons alone that he saw, and Ferla walked close to him now, her eyes hard and her face pale. There were bones too, long and white where the earth had revealed them to the bleaching sun. Or smooth and domed where there were skulls. And s
ome were not human.

  Faran saw many strange things. There were the skulls of elugs, which the old tales sometimes called goblins. They were nearly human, but not quite. There were human skulls too, and he guessed that his forefathers had fought here, some surviving but many dying. This was a graveyard for his people.

  But there were Halathrin also. These he learned to recognize by the better-preserved swords that often lay nearby, or by the untarnished helms that sat loosely on gleaming skulls. There were other bones too.

  Some were of beasts, massive in size, horned or tusked. Others had the elongated teeth of elù-draks. Some were long and sinuous like snakes, only the size of houses. Were they dragons? He was not sure, but all manner of strange remains he saw, and he was sure that many of them had been lost to history, and the names of them forgotten. Yet legend did say that many creatures of the Shadowed Lord remained in hiding, and he wondered what the king might draw to him with the Morleth Stone.

  Kareste fell back to join them, and her face was even more somber than it had been.

  “Touch nothing,” she warned.

  “Why not?” Ferla asked, but Faran knew that was out of curiosity alone. She had been careful where she walked, and he knew she had no intention at all of touching anything.

  “This is rumor only,” Kareste said. “But there are those who hold the old battlegrounds such as this are haunted. There is elven armor and swords here, not to mention jewels, lying on the earth for any to claim. And such things are priceless. But the stories are all in agreement. Over the years, there have been those who sought plunder, but taking up such objects they became cursed and died horrible deaths within a day. So it is claimed, and there may be truth to it. Magic and sorcery were unleashed in places like this, and even now I feel powers stir beneath my boots.”

  It was a disturbing thought, and Faran now fancied that he could feel those same forces. Foolishness, of course. He had no real skill in magic, at least compared to Kareste, but he knew that magic, once invoked, had a life of its own.