Page 24 of The Ivory King

“Whenever you are ready, my lord, we have a long ride to the citadel of Celinthe,” V’alor said as I breathed in the salty air of loss. It clung to everything like moss on shaded trees. I lifted my head to look at him. A flash of emotion appeared in his gaze, then was quickly buried. “Your grandfather wishes us to leave with all haste.”

“Yes, I know, but…” I turned to look up at him. The inner bailey was busy but cloaked in sadness. Puddles and piles of wet horse shit covered the ground. “V’alor, you know that this is not what I want. I do not love—”

His jaw twitched. “What we want and what duty dictates we must do are sometimes vastly different. You should cover your head with your hood, my lord, as we will be skirting the Glotte Woodlands as we follow the Vilhall River north to Tolso. Bandits are thick as fleas on a hound’s back in the Glotte and your hair will signal you are nobility.”

“Perhaps I should shore it off like one does a sheep so that I look the part of a common man. Mayhap if I wear my hair short, I may escape the virago that my life has suddenly become and I can live the life that I wish to live with the man who I love!”

He drew in a long breath. “Cutting your hair will do nothing to change your blood or the path that Ihdos, in all his wisdom, has set your feet upon. Now, my lord, we should sit on our saddles. We have a long trip before us.”

I nodded, then slung myself onto Atriel’s saddle. Tezen studied me with black eyes as water droplets ran down her small helm to drip onto the beeswax-coated cloak she wore pulled around her shoulders.

I watched V’alor mount. My chest felt tight as he gave me a cursory glance as if I were nothing more than a parcel to protect. Which, upon reflection, he did view me as that. A valuable parcel, yes, but a bundle just the same. Pasil straddled his mare and then took the lead. I was next, with V’alor at the rear to guard my back. We left the castle with our heads down, the skies weeping on us once more, and began the journey to fetch my bride. Never had a trip been so heatedly hated as this one was, but we rode on. As duty dictated.

That night we found rest at a small inne at the edge of a tiny village called Bickel’s Burrow. The Glotte woods sat on the other side of the mighty Vilhall River that roared out of the ground at the base of the Witherhorn in Tolso and flowed into Mother Moth. There the waterway crashed over the falls into the dark Eatosan Lake. Rain now fell in stinging walls of water again, the sea storm circling around and around above us, dousing Melowynn with so much water the roads were already badly rutted. The Vilhall was angry, climbing up to tease its banks, the water churning and muddy.

A large bridge, arched like a cat’s back, stretched over the river. The innkeeper, a round dwarf named Berta, informed us that crossing any of the bridges that spanned the Vilhall wouldsurely see us robbed, beaten, and left for dead but with the recent storm that was still dropping rain in sheets again, most of the smaller roads would be impassable so that we may need to cross here and let chance take us in her hands.

Since we had no wish to end up dead, surely we had seen enough death to last us all for a season or two, we also needed to travel. Waiting for washed roads and flooded streams to dry was not an option. We would have to cross here and take our chances. V’alor was not happy with the thought.

“If you must travel near the Glotte, I suggest you hire a guide to steer you clear of the tribulations that lay in wait near the woodlands. I can send my boy after Beiro, who’s one of the best guides for miles. His feckless father used to run with the bandits, still does if what Beiro tells over his cups is truth, so he knows each camp and trap like the back of his hand.”

“Is this Beiro a drunkard?” V’alor asked as I dunked hearty bread into a bowl of rather good stew. I ate only because I must. There was little enjoyment from the hearty fare.

“Oh no, he just likes to drink now and again,” Berta replied as she leaned her ample bosom to the bar where we sat. “Can’t blame a person for wanting to drown their sorrows in some ale or between spread legs.”

“I think much the same,” Tezen announced as she emptied her thimble-sized travel stein. V’alor gave her a look. Pasil sat on his stool, eating heartily, his attention not on the conversation but on the front door.

“So where is this Beiro to be found?” V’alor asked.

Berta sighed when V’alor’s eyes did not drop to the meaty breasts about to fall out of her blouse. She tucked a wild strand of black hair behind a rather large ear.

“He sleeps at his uncle’s farm in the stables. Last farm on the left as you head west. Shabby place, filled with rutting sows that got no pens. The whole of the Vahorn family are wastrelsaside from Beiro. If you go out, just pass the homestead and rattle the stable doors. Thin redheaded elf with more freckles than a spotted duck is who you’re looking for. He’s hard to miss with that fire hair of his. Tell him Berta sent you. That might ensure he don’t bury an arrow in your eye.”

She winked, then ambled off to fill a few tankards of ale for the locals.

“We shall seek out this Beiro in the morn then. Perhaps the storm will have moved off to the western coast as they tend to do, and we shall be able to forgo adding a stranger to our company,” V’alor stated. We all agreed to his plan. Hewasthe guardian of the heir of the vills of Renedith, after all. Ihdos, how I wished we could keep our current titles…

Sitting by the fire, hood up, I listened to the villagers griping about the rich and how the king cared little about those he taxed so heavily. Obviously, word of Mirolar’s death had not spread to the outlying villages and small towns, and so they were free with their criticism. I listened closely, for if this trip was successful, those concerns would fall on my shoulders. Not just the worries of a few thousand who lived in Renedith, but hundreds of thousands.

The mere thought of it made me queasy. I pushed away what remained of a bowl of rabbit stew and went to my room. Alone. Pasil, V’alor, and Tezen had a room next to mine and swapped shifts outside my door. I lay in a strange bed listening to the winds howl and the rains batter the stout window and allowed myself that night to weep. For all the losses that had befallen me. It was greedy and shallow and unbecoming a Stillcloud, but my heart was heavy. The tears rolled silently down my cheeks to the pillow under my head. No one heard, only Ihdos, and he seemed set on his plans despite my prayers this morning for him to reconsider. Gods rarely took the whims of their followers under advisement. They were muchlike Umeris in that way. Yet we still prayed. Odd how divinity held us in its grip by simple promises of a possible reply to our whispered petitions.

I feared my faith was going to be sorely tested over the next few weeks.

Morning came, soggily, with winds that tore at hats and hoods and rains that grew fierce, then eased only to grow fierce again. Our horses were already sickened of the mud and rain. Atriel was in a mood as she did not care to be wet, and I had to keep a firm hand on the reins lest she try to nip at Sirdal or Gwedel, or those who rode them.

We rode west, following the lone muddy road from the center of Bickel’s Burrow. The fields of golden wheat and standing corn had not fared well in the gales. Much of it lay flat on the ground, lying in puddles that would mold the harvest quickly. Whoever sat on the throne would be looking at a meager harvest for the entirety of the southeastern parts of Melowynn.

Swiping away the knowledge that that person might be me, I plodded along with a dour pixie and two silent guards. A traveling pack of merriment we were not.

The Vahorn farm slowly came into view. Berta was right. At least forty huge sow hogs roamed about freely, little piglets of all colors and sizes at their sides. The home looked to be abandoned, for nary a candle glowed inside on this dreary day. Rain lingered on my lashes. I cleared them off as we passed the house and cut across the sloppy yard to the barn. This building looked to be in somewhat better shape. New boards on the sides and an attempt to paint said boards had been made.

“Wait here,” V’alor dictated. I nodded as water ran down my cloak to soak my hands. Atriel snorted and stamped. V’alor slid from his saddle, moved to the barn door, and hammered upon it. Pasil shifted his mare closer to me as Tezen did her best to get airborne but was blown back into my soggy chest.

“Argh! This wind sucks on the dark one’s orifice!” she snarled, pointed teeth bared as she slid down to land on my saddle horn.

“Flight is impossible today,” Pasil said as a tree to our left moaned and groaned in the wild winds.

“No shit!” Tezen barked as she climbed up my cape as if she were scaling the Witherhorn Mountains, using a strand of sodden hair that had worked free from my cape as a rappel line. I’d seen her do this a hundred times to Kenton, using his braids as ropes, but this was the first time she had done so to me. “May I sit inside your hood, Your Grace?”

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