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‘Nonsense,’ said Anigel. ‘I smell only muck and wet leaves and the spoor of harmless tarenials – and someone’s oversweet perfume, which is giving me a headache.’ She called out the carriage window to the middle-aged peer she had caused to be summoned. ‘Lord Karagil, pray bring me a mount at once, and have my Oathed Companions attend me. I will ride for the rest of the day.’
‘This is very unwise,’ Immu said grumpily. ‘One shouldn’t take chances when spawn are about.’
The Fronial Master was equally dismayed at Anigel’s decision. ‘The Oddling nurse is right about the Skritek, my Queen, for our scouts have come upon fresh sign. It is unusual for the horrid offspring of the Drowners to range this far east, but –’
‘Obey me,’ said the Queen, her voice low and pleasant but her intent unshaken. ‘If my Oathed Companions cannot protect me from Skritek spawn, then it is time they turned in their swords and took up fancy needlework. I shall first visit with my Royal Husband, who is in the advance party.’
‘Stubborn stubborn stubborn!’ said Immu to Anigel, using the overfamiliar manner of venerable retainers. ‘It is indecent for a gravid royal woman to go off galloping amongst a cavalcade of soldiers and teamsters – even if there were no danger from spawn.’
‘Nevertheless,’ Anigel said blithely, ‘I am going.’
Immu besought the noblewomen. ‘Will not one of you ride with the Queen?’
But the ladies only made excuses and continued to remonstrate. Finally, Immu said, ‘Then I will go myself!’
Anigel looked upon the Nyssomu nurse with some doubt. ‘You may certainly ride pillion with me if you insist, dear friend. But I daresay it will be most uncomfortable for a small person such as yourself, jouncing along at my back.’
Lord Karagil suddenly brightened. ‘I have an idea that may serve all purposes,’ he declared, and rode off. He returned anon with two grooms, one leading a white fronial caparisoned royally for the Queen and the other bringing the she-beast’s gentle, half-grown colt, fitted out with an improvised saddle and bridle for Immu.
Happily, Anigel put on boots and a cloak. Accompanied by twenty knights of her Oathed Companions, and with Immu following resignedly on the long-legged colt, the Queen rode forward along the line of march until she reached the vanguard. There she found King Antar and his commander-in-chief, General Gorkain, dismounted at one of the new bridges that spanned a swollen tributary of the River Virkar. They were conferring with two aboriginal scouts clad in the livery of the Two Thrones. Lord Marshal Lakanilo and numbers of other noble officers sat their steeds close by, waiting upon the royal pleasure. They wore only light helmets and cuirasses beneath their raincloaks, as did the Oathed Companions, the King, and the General. A troop of well-equipped men-at-arms and a single knight in full battle-armour had gone down to the riverbank, where they prepared to board a large raft manned by two human boatmen and a Nyssomu guide.
King Antar greeted his wife and the other comers courteously, then showed Anigel the map he and Gorkain and the scouts had been studying.
‘One of those infernal viaducts Haramis warned us about lies some six leagues downstream from here,’ Antar told her. ‘Soldiers under Sir Olevik’s command have volunteered to guard it while the main body of our train passes by. They will travel on that raft.’
‘But what can our brave men do,’ the Queen asked in a low voice, ‘if villains should pop through the magical doorway while they are on watch? Soldiers cannot fight magic, and surely there will be no time to barricade the viaduct effectively.’
‘No, my Queen,’ General Gorkain admitted. ‘In truth, all that Sir Olevik and his force can hope for is to divert any invaders for a brief period, selling their lives dearly while their Oddling comrade bespeaks us fair warning.’
‘They are brave hearts,’ Anigel murmured.
‘There is small chance of an attack by Star Men so soon,’ Antar reassured her. ‘Nor is Orogastus likely to assail a huge, well-armed column such as ours. We are merely taking due precaution.’
‘Within two tennights,’ said one of the little Nyssomu scouts, ‘our Folk dwelling in this part of the Mazy Mire will have secured that viaduct, as the White Lady and the Lady of the Eyes have commanded. We will heap a tall mound of stone and soil over the site and set a guard.’
‘It will be very hard for Star Men to emerge unnoticed from a viaduct after this is done,’ said the other scout. ‘They will have to resort to powerful magic to dig their way out. This we will surely detect, and then sound the alarm in the speech without words.’
Anigel looked again at the map. ‘It seems there are no more viaducts near to the road until we reach the mountains. We can be thankful for that.’
A ragged cheer now arose from the Oathed Companions as the raft with Sir Olevik and his men pushed off from the shore. ‘May the Flower bless you,’ the Queen called, sketching the sign of the Trillium in the air beyond the bridge railing, ‘and bring you back safely to our company.’
Those on the raft responded with spirited cries of their own, brandishing their arms. Then the raft rounded a bend and was lost to sight behind a dense stand of trees.
The advance riders resumed their slow progress through the rain, with Anigel and Antar riding side by side amidst the troop of knights, and Immu trailing behind the Queen. Coming after them at a fair distance was a parade over two leagues in length: volumnial-drawn wagons loaded with baggage of the court, more carts carrying food and supplies, fine coaches and carriages bearing the nobility and civil servants, royal officers and knights on fronial-back, and nearly a thousand other retainers both mounted and afoot. Double files of soldiery plodded along on either side of the main column, and the sound of their singing came softly through the swamp to the ears of those riding ahead.
The Queen was well content now, making proud inspection of her mireway. What had been from time immemorial an indistinct and hazardous track only negotiable in the Dry Time (and then only by those possessing local knowledge or the secret maps of the Master Traders) was now a handsome paved road. Its elevated bed, formed of alternate layers of crushed rock and massive logs from the Tassaleyo Forest, stood three ells or more above the swamp and was surfaced with cobblestones. Wooden bridges had replaced the old fords over streams and rivers, save for the crossing of the broad Virkar at the edge of the Dylex country, where there was a ferry. Hostels with guardposts, sited a day’s journey apart, provided secure places where smaller parties of travellers or merchant caravans might rest; but the huge royal train perforce camped on the road itself, with only the royalty and elderly or infirm nobles taking shelter beneath hostel roofs.
The middle section of the mireway that the entourage now traversed was more narrow than the rest since it had been so difficult to build. Twisting nearly a hundred leagues between Bonar Castle and the Dylex city of Virk, this part of the road crossed a wilderness devoid of human habitation. Soaring trees and dense tangles of thorn-fern, vines, and nearly impenetrable vegetation hemmed in the mireway and even overhung it in many stretches, so that it sometimes seemed to Queen Anigel that they rode through a green tunnel curtained by misty rain.
The advance party made a halt at midday, eating cold food and resting while a welcome sun broke briefly through the clouds, causing the roadway to steam. But by the time the riders remounted storm clouds had returned, together with a rising wind. Nevertheless Anigel found herself dozing in the saddle as the patient fronials moved slowly onward, their antlered heads bobbing, the tendons in their legs clicking, and their splayed hooves clip-clopping on the mossy stones. Overhead, the leaden sky became more and more oppressive, although the heavy rain held off.
The Queen was jolted into wakefulness when occasional whiffs of stomach-turning stench began to contaminate the wind. No one was much surprised when General Gorkain came riding back through the ranks of knights and saluted the King and Queen before delivering grim news.
‘A scout reports freshly scoured raffin bones on the mireway ahead, and the cobbles show sign of Skritek spawn. We will halt here in order to close up the gap between our advance group and the main body of the caravan. The Lord Marshal and the Oathed Companions will provide Your Majesties with close escort, and foot-soldiery will come forward to accompany us until the danger is past. I have also sent a messenger to summon Crown Prince Nikalon and Princess Janeel. It is no longer safe for them to range up and down the procession casually with their young friends.’
‘Very well,’ said Antar. ‘You may carry on.’
The General touched his helm-visor in salute and spun his fronial about. But before he could ride away there were shouts from the knights ahead. ‘Spawn! Spawn on the road!’
Gorkain swore and spurred his mount forward, drawing his two-handed sword. Marshal Lakanilo and a dozen Oathed Companions closed in around the King, the Queen, and Immu, lances couched, while others of the elite group followed the General.
An excruciating foul odour spread through the air. For a time everyone was quiet and the only sounds were distant hoof-beats, the creak of harness, and the hiss and patter of the rain.
Then Immu whispered, ‘See there!’ She pointed to a dark slough at the right of the mireway, half-screened by thornless fodderfern twice the height of a man.
Rising from the scummy water were dozens of glistening white shapes, some nearly the size of a human body, others much smaller. They resembled odious fat worms or grubs, lacking obvious heads but having stubby limbs equipped with razorlike claws. Their foreparts lifted as they reached the narrow verge beside the roadbed, revealing wide open mouths with green teeth that dripped venom. The blind monsters swayed from side to side questing for prey, which they tracked with their keen hearing.
For an instant the riders were frozen with horror. Then one young knight exclaimed, ‘Zoto’s Stones, what detestable things! Like giant corpse-maggots!’
At the sound of his voice the Skritek spawn began humping and wriggling up the embankment toward the road.
King Antar’s longsword sang as it left its scabbard. ‘Follow me, Oathed Companions!’
He sent his fronial skidding down the steep slope, the Lord Marshal and the knights following closely after, and with a single sweeping stroke he smote one of the leading spawn in two. It disintegrated, splashing vile jelly-like ichor all over the King. The Companions spitted other bloodthirsty Skritek young on their lances or put them to the sword, crying out in anger and disgust as they were also drenched by evil-smelling fluids from the spawn bodies.
Lakanilo’s fronial fell to the muddy ground, squealing in agony, its foreleg held fast in poisoned jaws. But the Companions raced to the Lord Marshal’s rescue, hauling him to safety, slaying the tenaciously clinging spawn, and granting merciful death to the doomed antilopine steed.
It was not long before all of the larvae were either killed or fled, leaving Antar and the knights beslimed from helm to heel. Victorious cries from the road ahead signalled that the other pod of immature Skritek had also been routed by Gorkain and his men.
‘Well done,’ cried Queen Anigel warmly.
But the King looked down upon his filthied person with a grimace. ‘Only the Triune knows how we shall remove this mess from ourselves, unless we take a headlong leap into the swamp and exchange mud for spawn-slime.’
As if in answer, thunder rumbled overhead and a deluge of rain pelted down. Antar removed his helm, tilted his head so water bathed his face, and laughed. ‘Thank you, gracious Lords of the Air! By the time the main column catches up with us, we may almost be fit for civilized society again.’
‘Perhaps you should return to your carriage, my Queen,’ Lord Marshal Lakanilo suggested to Anigel. He was a tall man of sparse flesh, whose manner was grave and dignified in spite of his befouled appearance. He had been appointed to his office following the heroic death of Lord Marshal Owanon in the Battle of Derorguila.
The Queen shook her head, dismissing the suggestion that she should retire. ‘Heavens, no, Lako! With the smell of Skritek now stronger than ever, my ladies will wrap their faces in perfume-soaked veils. Frankly, my nose is less offended by the smell of the monsters.’
Princess Janeel and Crown Prince Nikalon came cantering up with a group of noble attendants and gave noisy greeting to their parents and the Oathed Companions.
‘Phew!’ cried the Princess, pinching her nose. ‘The spawn-reek is much worse up here – oh!’ She screamed at the sight of the slaughtered creatures.
‘They are quite dead, my Lady,’ the Lord Marshal said. ‘There is nothing to fear.’
Prince Nikalon had drawn his sword and his eyes were alight as he surveyed the noisome remains. ‘Are you certain, Lako? Perhaps we’d better reconnoitre the swamp. I’m ready!’ At fifteen, he had nearly attained a man’s stature and wore a helm and breastplate and military cape.
‘Ready ready ready!’ Immu exclaimed crossly. ‘Your royal parents and the Oathed Companions must now feel very relieved that such a great champion has arrived.’
‘Oh, Immu,’ groaned the Prince. The knights were laughing, but with good humour for they all were very fond of the impetuous Niki.
‘There is no need for us to leave the road,’ Antar said. ‘Indeed, it would be foolhardy for us to do so, since the water continues to rise.’
‘Well, I’m sorry I missed the fight. I never saw Skritek spawn before.’ The boy sheathed his sword and began questioning the knights about the attack, and the Lord Marshal sent off for another mount.
Janeel rode closer to her parents and the little old nurse, expressing relief when she was told that the only casualty was a single fronial. ‘What horrible things the spawn are! Is it true that they kill their dams at birth?’
‘More often than not,’ Immu said. ‘Adult Skritek have the use of reason – more or less! – but the young are ravening and mindless. If the mother is lucky, she may leap to safety as each larval offspring drops from her womb, and the spawn will feed upon meat she has provided. But it is more common for the offspring to awaken before birth and gnaw their way from confinement through the mother’s body wall.’
‘Ugh!’ said Janeel. Her face had gone white within the hood of her raincape and she would gladly have departed the nauseating scene, were it not that Queen Anigel seemed unfazed. ‘No wonder Skritek know nothing of love or gentleness.’
‘And yet,’ Prince Nikalon interposed with grisly relish, having rejoined his parents and sister, ‘the Skritek are the oldest race in the world, and sages say all Folk are descended from them. Even you, Immu!’
‘I thought humankind was the most ancient race,’ the Princess said.
‘We did not originate in this world,’ said the Queen. ‘Your Aunt Haramis the Archimage learned that human beings came here from the Outer Firmament uncounted aeons in the past. The Vanished Ones were our ancestors.’
‘What is even more amazing,’ said King Antar very quietly, ‘is that the Vanished Ones used the blood of both Skritek and humanity to fashion a Folk-race that might withstand the Conquering Ice.’
‘But … why?’ The Princess, unlike her older brother, had never heard the story; nor had most other people, for the Archimage had decided that it must be kept secret, except among the royal family and its most trusted confidants.
‘The ancient humans felt guilty abandoning the world their warring had largely destroyed,’ Antar said. ‘You see, Jan, the Vanished Ones believed that the ice they had unwittingly created twelve-times-ten hundreds ago would devour all the world’s land, save for the continental margins and some islands. They thought the Skritek would surely die, leaving the world devoid of rational beings. But that did not happen. The ice failed to conquer after all, and both the Skritek and the new race of hardy Folk lived on together. So did certain stubborn humans who had remained behind when the rest Vanished into the Outer Firmament.’
‘Those aborigines that we call Vispi,’ said the Queen, ‘the high-mountain dwellers who aided your Aunt Haramis in obtaining her talisman and who are now her special Folk, are the result of that long-ago experiment. They are the true firstborn, combining the Skritek and human lineage. Of course they give birth in human fashion, as other high races of Folk do.’
‘But the Vispi are so beautiful,’ Jan said, ‘while the other races of Folk are – ‘ She broke off, realizing how improper it was to speak thus before the old Nyssomu nurse. ‘Oh, Immu, I beg pardon. I did not mean to insult you.’
‘I take no offence, sweeting.’ Immu was calm. ‘To Nyssomu and Uisgu the Vispi appear unattractive. You call them beautiful merely because they most resemble yourselves.’
‘But how, then, did the other races of Folk come about?’ Janeel inquired.
‘Some were engendered through new infusions of Skritek blood,’ said the Queen in a sombre tone.
The Princess thought over the horrid implications of this, and she and her brother were silent for some time.
Then Immu added, ‘Over the ages, fresh human blood also contributed to the racial mixing. In ancient times, humans often mated with Folk. It is just within the last six hundreds that your people began to call mine Oddlings, insisting that we are inferior beings. In other human kingdoms, the disdain for us persists. Only in Laboruwenda are the Folk acknowledged to have souls, and certain of us are granted the privileges of citizenship.’
‘I will see that the nation of Raktum does likewise,’ Princess Janeel stated offhandedly, ‘when I marry Ledavardis and become its queen.’
‘Oh, Jan!’ Anigel exclaimed angrily. ‘You know I have forbidden you to speak of that matter before your Royal Father.’
‘What’s this?’ Antar glared at his daughter. ‘Don’t tell me she still fancies that Goblin Kinglet?’
‘Ledavardis of Raktum is a brave man,’ Janeel said, ‘and no more a goblin than Niki is. Even though his body is not handsome, he is noble of heart.’
‘So you say!’ The furious King spoke to the Princess through clenched teeth, and his blond beard bristled. ‘To my mind, the Raktumians are naught but half-reformed pirates, and no daughter of mine will wed their malformed King! How can you forget that Raktum allied with Tuzamen and the despicable Orogastus to make war upon us?’
‘Ledo fought and surrendered with honour,’ Janeel retorted. ‘And he has ever since then commanded his people to change their old lawless ways and behave in a civilized manner.’
‘Civilized!’ The King’s laugh was contemptuous. ‘Nothing has changed in the pirate kingdom, except now the Raktumian corsairs commit their crimes on the sly, whereas before they were bold as the vipers of Viborn. You shall never marry Ledavardis.’
The Princess burst into tears. ‘You care nothing for my happiness, Father. The real reason why you reject Ledo is your vain hope that I will marry King Yondrimel of Zinora, that scheming braggart. But you will never force me to accept him! Let him marry one of Queen Jiri’s daughters.’
‘Jan, my dearest!’ Queen Anigel hastened to intervene. ‘I beseech you to forbear. This is not the place for such discussion. Let us wait until we reach the next hostel, and – ‘
Her words were drowned out by a colossal thunderbolt. Simultaneously the mireway shook as with an earthquake, and a flash of light blinded all beholders. The rain now fell prodigiously. Shouts arose from the shocked knights, who had withdrawn some distance in order to give the royal family privacy. The fronials shied in terror from the unexpected noise, and the King forgot his anger as he strove to prevent his daughter’s crazed steed from slipping off the road into the swirling floodwaters.
Prince Nikalon was similarly occupied with the distraught mount of his mother. Anigel’s ramping white beast pawed the savage downpour with its split hooves and tossed its antlered head wildly. The Queen regained control only with difficulty after Niki dismounted and clung to her bridle. Several ells away, the young fronial Immu rode lay on its belly near the road’s left-hand edge, shaking with terror, while its rider urged it vainly to rise. But then Princess Janeel’s animal escaped Antar’s grasp and nearly trampled the colt and Immu as it galloped back down the road toward the main column.
Oathed Companions!’ cried the Queen. ‘After the Princess!’ And to her son, ‘Save Immu! Look – the verge of the mireway near her is crumbling!’
Prince Nikalon leapt back onto his mount and went pounding down the rain-lashed road. Leaning from the saddle, he swept up the little Nyssomu woman just as the fronial colt tumbled down the embankment and vanished without a sound into churning muddy water.
‘Bring Immu to me, Niki,’ the Queen shouted, ‘then aid your father and sister!’
Anigel could not understand why the Oathed Companions had not come to the rescue. Her sight of the knights on the road ahead was obscured by the pounding rain and the growing darkness, but she heard their shouts amidst continuing rumbles of thunder and a strange rushing sound. When Immu was safe on the pillion behind her and the Prince gone to Antar, who had halted Janeel’s runaway mount some distance away, the Queen put spur to her fronial in order to fetch the Companions. But the white beast skidded to an abrupt halt after taking only a few bounds.
‘Great God, the road!’ Anigel screamed, looking down from the saddle.
Between the Queen and her knights stretched a steep break in the mireway over five ells wide. It appeared that lightning had blasted the road asunder. High water formerly impounded on one side of the causeway was now pouring through, laden with downed trees and other floating debris. Before Anigel could recover from her astonishment another brilliant flash and a shattering clap of thunder rocked the Mazy Mire, causing her mount to stagger.
‘Hold tight, Immu!’ she cried, reining the animal’s head far to the right, so that it whirled in tight circles, squealing. But it did not panic this time and she was able to calm it at last, urging it back toward the King and the children.
Then the beast again stopped abruptly. Anigel gasped as she saw a second gap in the mireway, narrower than the first but growing wider every second as swift waters chewed away at the road’s foundation.
The Queen and Immu were marooned on a small island of cobblestone pavement in the midst of a raging flood.
‘Ani!’ howled the King, and Nikalon and Janeel cried, ‘Mother!’
Thunder seemed to give a mocking answer. The Oathed Companions stood helpless on their side of the severed road, but several carts and numbers of men-at-arms had finally reached the King. One quick-thinking fellow dashed up to Antar with a coil of rope, and both father and son dismounted and helped to fling it across the water.
Anigel and Immu also slid from the saddle, crouching at the lip of the shrinking section of mireway. Twice the rope failed to reach them; but on the third throw Immu took hold of it, screeching in triumph and nearly falling into the rising flood.
‘Come!’ the nurse cried to the Queen. ‘Knot it about your waist!’
Anigel tried, but at that moment the waters undermined the roadbed beneath and the cobbles under her feet shifted and separated. She fell into a shallow, water-filled hole, her arms and legs entangled in her long raincape. Dropping the rope, Immu scrambled to Anigel and helped to free her. Queen and nurse crawled over the treacherous, dissolving surface while the King recoiled the rope and flung it again and again across the widening breach.
But the line kept falling short, and soon the island of roadway would be entirely washed away.
‘Your trillium-amber!’ Immu screamed at the Queen above the roar of the storm. ‘Bid it save us!’
They were clinging to each other. Anigel took hold of her magical amulet with one hand, holding Immu tightly with the other. Behind them, the white fronial scrabbled and shrieked, consumed with terror. The ground melted under it and it was swept away into the torrent.
A third monstrous explosion sounded at the same time that lightning struck. Stones, broken timber, clots of muddy earth, and roiling mist filled the air, together with shouts from the frustrated rescuers.
Queen Anigel felt herself falling, felt Immu torn away from her grasp, felt strangely painless blows from the wind-flung branches whirling all around her, felt her slow slide into dark, rushing water that filled her mouth and nose, choking off her prayer to the Black Trillium.
Then she felt nothing.
