Shadow of a Dark Queen

Roo listened and was about to say he heard nothing over the pounding of his own heart when a faint movement, as if someone shifted his weight, could be heard, the softest rustle of cloth upon cloth. It was in the general direction Erik indicated. Roo nodded.

Erik moved like a hunter stalking prey. There was something very wrong in all of this. Rosalyn would never have come away with any boy to the orchard, for there was only one reason to be here. Rosalyn was still a virgin, of that Erik was certain, still too young to have a lover. Some girls, like Gwen, matured early and enjoyed the company of older boys, while others were shy. Rosalyn was not only shy; once outside her father’s inn she was intimidated by the company of any boys besides Erik and Roo. Even the most innocent compliment would bring a blush to her cheeks, and when the other girls started talking about the town boys, she would excuse herself in embarrassment. Erik knew in his heart she was in danger, and the silence of the orchard frightened him. If another couple had been making love anywhere within this grove, sounds would carry this quiet night.

Abruptly, both boys heard a sound that made their hair stand on end. A girl’s cry split the night, followed by the sound of a fist striking flesh, then silence. Erik leaped toward the sound. Roo hesitated an instant, then followed.

Erik ran without thought toward where the sound had come from. Then he saw Rosalyn, and his world froze for an instant. The girl lay back against the bole of a tree, her face bruised and her dress in tatters. Her blouse was torn from her, exposing her breasts, and her skirt was ripped away, with only a tattered rag around her waist. Erik could see blood running from her nose and she was without motion. Erik felt something hot and blinding rise up within him.

A sense of movement, rather than anything really seen, caused Erik to move to his right, saving his life. A searing pain erupted in his left shoulder as Stefan’s sword point pierced it. With a cry of agony, Erik felt his knees go weak from the unexpected shock. Then Roo flew past his friend, driving his head into Stefan’s stomach. Erik almost fainted when the sword point was wrenched from his shoulder. His vision swam and his stomach knotted, and he had to force himself not to lose consciousness. He forced himself back to his feet as he shook his head to clear it. The sound of Roo’s panic-stricken plea for help brought him back to alertness.

In the dark, with only the middle moon shining through the branches, he could see Roo wrestling Stefan on the ground. The smaller lad had surprised Stefan, but that advantage was now gone. Stefan was using his superior strength and size to force himself atop Roo. Only the fact that his sword was designed for fighting at arm’s length saved Roo’s life. Had Stefan held a dagger, the boy would surely be dead.

As Roo called his name, Erik ignored the terrible pain in his left shoulder and with a single step came up behind Stefan. He grabbed his half brother around the waist and yanked him up in a massive bear hug, a primitive cry erupting from his own throat. Stefan’s breath exploded from his lungs as the young smith’s powerful arms closed hard around his chest; the sword fell from Stefan’s hand as he was lifted abruptly off Roo. Held above the ground, all he could do was kick helplessly backwards at Erik and claw at his hands.

Erik stood like a man possessed by an avenging spirit as he attempted to crush the life from Stefan. He couldn’t take his eyes from Rosalyn, who lay in mute tableau, a testimony to Stefan’s cruelty. Erik had seen her naked as a child, for they had bathed together, but not since they had grown. The sight of her breasts, her own blood dripping between them, was something obscene to Erik. Lover, husband, child should have touched that flesh, with nurturing love. His Rosalyn deserved better than the rough handling of a jaded and cruel noble.

Roo rolled to his feet, his dagger pulled from within his shirt. Murderous anger flashed in his eyes as he stepped forward. Stefan struggled with hysterical strength and Erik felt his grip loosen. As Roo reached them, Erik heard a distant voice shout, ‘Kill him!’ and as Roo drove home the blade, Erik realized the voice commanding Stefan’s death was his own.

Stefan stiffened and bucked once, then went limp, and even when Roo yanked free his blade, the son of the Baron did not twitch. Erik felt his skin crawl with an otherworldly sense of disgust, as if he were holding something profoundly unclean, and he let go. Stefan fell limply to the ground.

Roo stood over him, holding the still-bloody dagger, and Erik saw rage-was still in his friend’s expression. He said, ‘Roo?’

Roo blinked and looked down at his blade, then at Stefan. He wiped the blade on Stefan’s shirt and put it away. Frustration and anger still pumped through Roo’s mind and body; in need of another target to vent them on, he aimed a vicious kick at Stefan’s body. The toe of his boot struck ribs, breaking them. With a final gesture of contempt, he spit on the corpse.

Suddenly the anger drained out of Erik. ‘Roo?’ he repeated, and his friend turned to face him.

Erik’s expression was one of confusion and Roo’s a mask of equally confused anger; a third time Erik said his friend’s name. Roo finally answered, his own voice hoarse with excitement and fear. ‘What?’

‘What have we done?’

Roo looked blankly at Erik a moment, then looked down at Stefan. Instantly what had just occurred registered on him. He rolled his eyes heavenward and said, ‘Oh, gods, Erik. They’re going to hang us.’

Erik glanced around, and the sight of Rosalyn shook him back to more pressing needs than concern over his own fate. He crossed the distance between Stefan’s body and hers and knelt beside her. She lived, but her breath was shallow and labored, and he moved her to a more upright position. He watched helplessly, not knowing if he should cover her up, or see if he could stop the bleeding from her nose, or what. Then she moaned slightly.

Roo appeared with a fancy cloak, obviously Stefan’s, and covered her. ‘She’s in danger,’ said Erik.

‘So are we,’ answered Roo. ‘If we stay, they will arrest us and hang us, Erik.’

Erik looked as if he were about to pick up Rosalyn, but Roo said, ‘We must get away!’

Erik said, ‘What do you mean?’

Roo said, ‘We’ve killed the Baron’s son, you idiot.’

‘But he abused Rosalyn!’

‘That doesn’t give us a warrant to execute him, Erik. Do you want to go into court and swear that this was only about Rosalyn? If it had been anyone else in the entire world but your own half brother …’ He left the thought unfinished.

‘We can’t leave her here,’ said Erik.

The sounds of men shouting echoed through the night. ‘She won’t be undiscovered for long. This orchard is going to be swarming with the Baron’s soldiers in a few minutes.’ As if to punctuate the observation, Erik could now hear distinct voices as the men advanced toward the orchard.

Roo looked ready to run at a moment’s notice as he looked around the glade. ‘We didn’t have to kill him, Erik. If we are put in the dock and made to testify, we can’t honestly say we had to kill him.’ Roo put his hand on Erik’s arm as if to drag him from the scene. ‘I wanted him dead, Erik. You did, too. We murdered him.’

Erik found it almost impossible to keep events clear in his head. He knew he had felt something close to murder in his heart as he wrestled with Stefan, but now that was a distant memory, and events were jumbled.

‘I’ve got my money, here’ – he indicated his travel bundle – ‘so we can make for Krondor and buy passage to the Sunset Islands.’

‘Why there?’

‘Because if a man lives for a year and a day in the islands and commits no crime, he’s pardoned for whatever he did before he came there. It’s an old law from when the islands came into the Kingdom.’

‘But they’ll be looking for us.’

Rosalyn stirred, with a faint moan of discomfort. Roo leaned down and asked, ‘Can you hear me?’

The girl didn’t answer. Roo said, ‘They’ll probably think we’re going to Kesh. A man can hide in the Vale of Dreams and get across the border without much trouble.’ The vale, the border between Great Kesh and the Kingdom, was a no-man’s-land of smugglers, bandits, and garrisons along both sides of the frontier. Men came and went and few questions were asked.

Erik moved his shoulder experimentally and felt light-headed when a stabbing pain answered his movement. ‘This isn’t right,’ he said.

Roo shook his head. ‘If we stay here, we will be hung. Even if we had twenty witnesses, Manfred would make sure we were found guilty.’ Roo looked around as a distant shout split the night. ‘Someone’s coming. We have to go now!’

Erik nodded. ‘I should go back to the inn –’

‘No,’ said Roo. ‘They’ll expect that. We must go down the old western trail. We’ll go all night and cut into the woodlands at daybreak. If they send the dogs after us, we had better be across a dozen streams or more before noon.’

‘Mother –’ began Erik.

‘She’ll be safe,’ Roo interrupted. ‘Manfred has no reason to trouble her. You were always the threat, not your mother.’ A shout from the far side of the orchard caused Roo to swear. ‘They’re on the other side already. We’re trapped!’

Erik said, ‘There!’ He pointed to an old tree both had played in over the years. The centerpiece of the old orchard, the tree was heavily shrouded in leaves and might offer possible haven.

They crossed the short distance to the tree and Roo said, ‘How’s your shoulder?’

‘Hurts like blazes, but I can move it.’

Roo didn’t hesitate but scampered up the tree. He moved as high as he could, leaving the slightly heavier lower branches for Erik. By the time Erik was out of sight, torchlight and lanterns could be seen coming close.

Roo shook for a moment as he lost balance, then regained it, and Erik was now almost sick with pain, fear, and disgust. Stefan’s death was still unreal to him; he could see the dark shape of his body on the ground and expected him to rise up in a moment, as if this were all some mummery put on at a festival.

Then a soldier with a lantern saw Rosalyn. ‘Master Greylock! Over here!’

Through the leaves, Erik could barely make out the figures that rushed to where Rosalyn and Stefan lay a few yards apart. Then he heard Owen Greylock’s voice. ‘He’s dead.’

Another voice asked, ‘How is the girl?’

A third said, ‘She’s in a bad way, Swordmaster. We should get her to the chirurgeon.’

Then Erik heard Manfred’s shout of rage. ‘They’ve killed my brother!’ An almost inaudible oath and a sobbing cry was followed by ‘I’ll kill him myself.’

Erik caught a glimpse of Owen Greylock’s slender form between the nearby leaves and heard the Baron’s Swordmaster say, ‘We’ll find those who did this, Manfred.’

Erik shook his head. The three soldiers who had seen him and Roo run after Stefan and Rosalyn would certainly place them at the scene. A soldier said, ‘I know there was bad blood between the bastard and your brother, but why did they beat the girl?’ Erik knew then that they had already been identified.

Erik felt his anger rise again. A familiar voice said, ‘Erik wouldn’t harm Rosalyn.’ Nathan was there!

‘Are you saying my brother did this, Master Smith?’

‘Young sir, I only know that this girl is as gentle a soul as the gods have placed upon this world. She was a sister to Erik and one of Roo’s few friends. Neither boy would harm her.’ Then he pointedly added, ‘But I can certainly imagine them killing anyone who did.’

Manfred’s voice rose in anger. ‘I’ll have no excuse for black murder, Master Smith. No member of my family would do this.’ Manfred raised his voice to a shout of command: ‘I want every man on his horse and combing the countryside, Swordmaster. If those two murderous dogs are found, I want them held until I can join whichever soldiers find them. I don’t want them hung until I’m there to watch.’

Nathan’s voice cut through the muttering of the gathered soldiers. ‘There will be no hanging them out of hand, young lord. That’s the law. And as you are a member of the family that is wronged, neither you nor your father can sit in judgment; when caught, Erik and Roo are to be bound over to a King’s justice or magistrate.’ Then Nathan’s tone became warning. ‘Erik is a guild apprentice, so if you really want troubles, young sir, try to put my apprentice into a noose without due writ.’

‘You’d bring the guild into this?’ asked Manfred.

‘I would,’ answered Nathan. Erik felt tears gather in his eyes. Nathan, at least, understood why this had happened. ‘I suggest the young lord returns to his father’s side. Someone needs to break this grave news to him, and it should be someone he loves.’ To drive the point into the ground, he said, ‘It should be you, young sir.’

There was a stirring and a weak cry from Rosalyn, and Nathan took command. ‘Master Greylock, would you ask two of your lads to carry the girl back to the inn?’

Greylock gave instructions and began issuing commands to search for Erik and Roo.

They remained in the tree while soldiers fanned out in all directions, and said nothing to each other until it had been quiet for some time.

Then slowly they dropped to the ground, and crouched, ready to bolt should any noise indicate they were discovered. At last Roo said, ‘For a while we have luck on our side.’

‘Why?’

‘They don’t think we’re behind them. As they widen the circle to find us, there’ll be more places we can slip through. Any local farmer would think of the old western trail, but Greylock’s probably never heard of it; all his trips west have been by the King’s Highway. For a while we can worry about soldiers in front of us, not behind us.’

Erik said, ‘I think maybe we should give ourselves up.’

Roo said, ‘You may have Nathan and the guild to protect you, maybe, but I don’t. Manfred will get me hung before the sun sets on the day they find me. And don’t think he’s likely to worry about the law much if it dawns on him that you’re now a threat to his inheritance, not Stefan’s.’

Erik felt a sinking in his stomach. Roo whispered, ‘You’ve made him Baron next, and I don’t think he’s going to want you around to thank you, Erik. We’re dead men if we can’t make straight to the Sunset Islands.’

Erik nodded. He was still light-headed and in pain, but he rose to unsteady feet. Without another word he followed Roo into the darkness.

• Chapter Four • Fugitives

Erik fell.

Roo turned and helped his friend back to his feet. In the distance, the baying of hounds could be heard, accompanied by the clatter of horses.

The boys had been running on and off since leaving the orchard the night before, with no more than a few minutes’ rest at any one time. Erik’s wound refused to stop bleeding, though the flow was slight. Still, it throbbed and burned with heat and he felt himself grow weaker by the hour as they worked their way down out of the low mountains of Darkmoor.

The area west of Darkmoor and north of the King’s Highway was still fairly underpopulated. Rocky terrain with little to recommend itself to farmers, much of the land had been timbered out but left unplowed. Thick stands of trees gave way to a sea of stumps, only to be replaced by unexpected rocky ridges. This region was rich with gullies, ravines, dead-end canyons, and low, flat meadows. Despite their having run down any number of streams, the sound of the dogs had been carrying on the wind for hours. And as Erik weakened, the sound was getting closer.

As the morning sun crested the peaks behind them, Erik said, ‘Where are we?’

Roo said, ‘I’m not sure. When we left the old wagon trail, I think we turned around a bit. The sun’s in the right place, so we’re still heading west.’

Erik looked around, perspiration streaming off his forehead. He wiped it away and said, ‘We’d better keep going.’

Roo nodded, but after three or four fumbling footsteps, Erik collapsed. Roo tried to help his friend up. ‘Why’d you have to be so damn big?’

Erik gasped for air and said, ‘Go on without me.’

Roo felt the hair rise upon his neck and felt panic slash through his stomach. Finding strength he didn’t know he had, he forced Erik to his feet. ‘And have to explain to your mother how I lost you? I don’t think so.’

Roo silently prayed that Erik could hold on long enough for them to find shelter and hide from the dogs. Roo was terrified. One of the heartiest lads in Ravensburg, Erik had stamina almost as legendary as his strength among the boys he grew up with. His ability to work from dawn to dusk since the age of ten, his ability to carry iron ingots to the forge, his ability to withstand the constant weight of draft horses leaning on him while being shod – all had given Erik an almost superhuman stature among the townspeople. His weakness was as alien to Roo as it was to Erik himself. Roo found it far more frightening than anything else that confronted them. With Erik at his side, he felt he had a fighting chance to survive. Without Erik, he was helpless.

Roo sniffed the air. ‘Do you smell something?’

Erik said, ‘Only the stink of my own sweat.’

‘Over there.’ Roo motioned with his chin.

Erik put his hand against his friend’s shoulder and rested a moment as he sniffed the air. ‘Charcoal.’

‘That’s it!’

‘There must be a charcoal burner’s hut upwind.’

‘It might mask our scent,’ said Roo. ‘I know we can’t go much farther. You’ve got to rest, get your strength back.’

Erik only nodded, and Roo assisted him as they moved toward the source of the smoke. Through light woods they stumbled as the sound of the dogs grew louder by the minute. Erik and Roo were not woodsmen, but as boys they had played in the woodlands near Ravensburg enough to know those searching for them were less than a couple of miles behind and coming fast.

The woods thickened and grew more difficult to navigate, darker shadows confusing their sense of direction, but the smell of burning wood grew stronger. By the time they reached the hut, their eyes stung from it.

An old woman, ugly beyond belief, stood tending a charcoal kiln, feeding small cuts of wood into it, banking flames as she ensured the wood burned down properly; too hot, and she’d have ashes.

Seeing the two young men suddenly appear out of the gloom, she shrieked and almost dove inside the rude hut beside which her kiln rested. The shrieking continued and Roo said, ‘She’ll bring them down on us if this keeps up.’

Erik tried to raise his voice over her shouting. ‘We mean you no harm.’

The shrieking continued, and Roo added his protestation of no evil intent to Erik’s. The woman continued to shriek. Finally Erik said, ‘We had best leave.’

‘We can’t,’ answered Roo. ‘You’re on your last legs now.’ He said nothing about the wound, which continued to weep blood, despite the rags pressed against it.

Stumbling down a small incline to the charcoal burner’s hut, they confronted a simple piece of hide that served as a door.

Erik leaned his weight against the mud-covered wall and pulled aside the leather door. The woman huddled back against the bale of rags that served as her bedding, shrieking all the more.

Erik finally shouted, ‘Woman! We mean you no harm!’

Instantly the shouting ceased. ‘Well,’ she answered. her voice as raspy as a wire brush on metal, ‘why didn’t you say something?’

Erik almost laughed, he felt so light-headed and giddy. Roo said, ‘We were trying to, but you kept screaming.’

Getting up off the rags, showing a surprising nimbleness for her age and weight – easily as much as Erik’s and he stood a good foot and a half taller than she – the woman stepped out of the hut.

Roo reflexively stepped back. She was the ugliest human being he had ever encountered, if indeed she was human. From her appearance, she could possibly be one of those trolls he had heard about that haunted the woodlands of the Far Coast. Her nose was a lumpy red protrusion, resembling a large tuber, with one big wart on the tip of it, from which several long hairs grew. Her eyes could only be called piggish, and they wept from some sort of inflammation. Her teeth were blackened stumps with green edges, and her breath was as foul as anything Roo had remembered smelling that wasn’t dead. Her skin looked like dried leather, and he shuddered to consider what her body under that assortment of filthy rags might resemble.

Then she smiled and the effect was heightened. ‘Come to pay old Gert a visit, have you?’ She tried to be girlish as she combed her fingers through grey hair tangled with straw and dirt, and had the boys not been so tired and frightened, they would have laughed. ‘Well, my man is gone to the city, so maybe –’

‘My friend is hurt,’ interrupted Roo.

Suddenly the old woman’s manner changed again as she caught the sound of the dogs on the wind. ‘King’s men are hunting you?’

Roo thought about lying, but Erik said, ‘Yes.’

Roo said, ‘Baron’s men, really.’

‘Same thing. Soldiers.’ She spat the last word. ‘Well, you’d better hide.’ She motioned for them to enter the tiny hut. ‘They won’t find you in there.’

Roo helped Erik into the hut and gagged at the stench. Erik’s eyes watered and he gasped, ‘I thought Tyndal’s room was bad.’

Roo said, ‘Try breathing through your mouth.’

Gert knelt down next to Erik and said, ‘Let me look at that,’ motioning to his bloodstained shoulder.

Erik pulled aside his tunic and the rags. The rags pulled the skin where blood had dried and he gasped in pain. Gert probed at the wound with a filthy finger and said, ‘Sword wound. Seen a hundred of them. Swollen around it. Got the hot sickness in it. Going to kill you, boy, if we don’t clean it out. You got a strong stomach?’ she asked Roo.

He nodded, swallowing hard. ‘I’m here and haven’t thrown up yet, haven’t I?’

‘Ha!’ She almost cackled as she laughed. ‘There’s more to you than meets the eye, Roo Avery.’ She rose up as high as the low floor permitted and said, ‘I have just the thing to put you right. Be back in a jiffy.’

Roo lay back, glad to be resting despite the stench of the hut. He glanced around; enough gaps in the wall permitted light to enter, and he saw what looked to be a water jar with a long neck. He moved the clay vessel and heard a promising sound of liquid. Pulling the cork, he sniffed and got no odor. He sipped and was rewarded with fresh water. Drinking a huge mouthful, he suddenly realized he was ignoring his sick friend.

He put the neck of the jar to Erik’s lips and he drank several mouthfuls, then sank back into the pile of rags. A fly began to buzz around Roo’s head and he absently swatted at it.

Erik drifted off into a difficult slumber, his fatigue overwhelming his fear. His breathing came heavily, and perspiration continued to pour off his brow.

Roo tried to relax, wondering if they could trust this strange old woman but knowing that further flight was next to hopeless. Then suddenly there was the sound of barking nearby, and Gert’s shriek cut the air.

Erik came awake with a start at the sound. ‘What …?’ he began, but Roo grabbed his arm.

Dogs could be heard barking nearby and Gert shouted, ‘Shoo! Away with you!’

Then horses approached and the boys heard Gert shout, ‘Get these miserable curs away! They’ll be bitin’ old Gert in a minute.’

A commanding voice said, ‘Have you seen two men, one large and blond, the other short and dark?’

‘And if I did, what’s it to you?’

‘They’re wanted for murder.’

‘Murder, is it?’ There was a long pause, punctuated by the sounds of the dogs sniffing the area and the occasional odd yelp of inquiry. ‘What’s the reward?’

Erik felt Roo’s hand tighten on his arm at that, and the answer was, ‘The Baron’s offered one hundred golden sovereigns for their arrest.’

‘That’s a tidy bit, isn’t it?’ said Gert. ‘Well, I haven’t seen them, but if I do, I’ll want the gold.’