Chapter 7: Siege of Castle Wrigley     Chapter 9: Holy Maiden

 

Chapter 8: The Cost of an Amethyst

 

Pent and the ten other riders with him arrived at Lesil’s castle a few hours later. It was night, but the moon shone brightly. It was tall and not wide, with no moat but a fearsome gate. Fiora had led them there, watching Lesil’s army ride off from the air. Their horses were as drained as they were themselves, but Pent was adamant that he would rescue his wife that same night.

“Now, I would assume, Ceniro, that most of his army assaulted us. Probably half of the soldiers could be a problem for projectiles… Hm? Oh, I know from the military review a couple months ago. Boring stuff, but you see it comes in handy.”

“What we need to do is keep Lesil in sight,” Ceniro said, sounding more tired than ever as his group trudged along, still hours back. “Find some way for you and the horses to take a rest for maybe an hour, maybe two if we can, while seeing that he’s not… bothering Lady Louise.”

Pent thought furiously. “I could… ask to speak with him. That would work for about five minutes, maybe a little longer, but certainly not a whole hour. He wants to destroy us, doesn’t – wait…”

“What?”

“There’s a light flickering in that window, third story, left of the gate. It must be Louise! No one else would want to signal us, would they?” He raised a determined fist above his head and the light gave a little jump in response and then stopped flashing.

“Well, now we know where she is, and that she’s not being watched for the time being. Go ahead and call on Lesil-“

“Arrows, sir,” George spoke up as the familiar hiss reached their ears. They hastily moved back out of range, all except Pent, who shouted Lesil’s name.

“Lesil! Come out and talk!”

 

Lesil dragged Louise off his horse, across the narrow courtyard, into the hall, through side doors, up stairs, down a corridor, and finally flung her full force into a richly furnished room.

“Have fun trying to escape, Countess!” he mocked her, indicating the barred window and tiny fireplace. He then slammed the door in her face as she pushed herself up and tried to dart for the door handle.

She looked around. The window was wide, but iron bars had recently been installed quite firmly. There was no escape from there. But perhaps she could see what was going on.

The window did indeed overlook the road leading up to the castle. She could see Lesil’s soldiers running around, setting up defenses. Her husband was coming. She knew it. She had to keep him from killing himself attacking a whole castle on his own.

The chimney was just narrow. No getting out that way either. The door was a heavy conglomeration of oak and iron, but the lock was accessible from both sides of the door. She just didn’t have the key.

She looked around at the other things in the room, and realized it was probably Lesil’s bedroom. She shuddered, and began looking for small pokey things. There were none, not even a fountain pen. The room was bare except for an amazingly rich and soft carpet, a feather down bed, the fireplace, and a small desk and chair. The room was lit by three candles on the desk in fat silver candleholders. She sighed and began working on removing the broach that held her pink cloak closed.

Best to check for guards. Of course there would be, but if there weren’t any…

“Hey! Let me out!” she shouted.

There was silence, but pressing her ear against the keyhole she could hear faint movement – the rustling of cloth, breathing, the slight clicks and scrapes of armour on armour. There was at least one guard outside the door, and probably two. She shook her head and began working on trying to pick the lock.

Picking locks wasn’t her thing, and she counted herself lucky that after fifteen minutes no one had noticed her efforts or come to check on her. As she worked she thought of and discounted other plans, ranging from pretending to seduce a guard, or even Lesil and then knocking him out with the chair, to finding some way to remove the bars from the window and… leaping the three stories to her probable death, or even finding some way to fit her curvy figure up the chimney, which was clearly nonsense as it narrowed to no larger than a hand’s-breadth the next story up.

Noise from outside attracted her attention and she dashed to the window. Horses were arriving in the moonlight, ten of them, and a pegasus. They were clearly worn out.

One of them stepped forward, away from the others, the moonlight glinting off his hair. Was it Lord Pent? Yes, it was!

Quickly, she turned and snatched a candle from the desk, hiding it out of the window and showing it again. The small figure raised an arm with fist clenched, and she could have whooped for joy.

Then her joy turned to alarm as arrows came whizzing across her view towards the little group. They retreated a little across the bare ground beyond the road. She left the candle in the window and kept watching as Pent hailed the castle.

Eventually, another small figure came out and Louise felt her chest constrict as she saw it was Lesil. He and Pent spoke briefly, then separated and retreated back to their own sides, Lesil at a run, Pent at a walk.

 

“How long, Ceniro?” breathed Pent as he looked around at the landscape under the moon. Lesil had demanded his surrender, offering to spare his life in exchange for his wife and the jewel, and Pent had to try very hard to restrain the urge to fireball him, offering instead a curt ‘no’. Lesil had growled at him, saying “If you are not dead as I said you were, you soon will be”.

“…Could be another two hours, and we’ll be near dead of exhaustion. I don’t suppose there’s any way you could make mantlets in ten minutes or so… then you could keep Lesil busy and yourself safe…”

“Not much, but…”

 

Louise had settled on a new idea. She had light, but the light came from fire. It was not going to be quick, or remotely safe for her, but she was getting impatient and worried. She had to be at Pent’s side.

So she set the door on fire with one of the candles and settled down to wait by the chimney. She tried thinking like how she imagined a tactician thought.

Item: carpet: could wrap up a soldier if she could just immobilize him long enough. She would need to get it out from under the bed, though.

Item: bed-sheets: could form a rope if she could get to an unbarred window.

Item: chair: heavy enough to smash over an unprotected head. Probably not heavy enough to knock out a guard with a helmet.

Item: broach-pin: could be used to stab someone if she were lucky.

Item: candles/fire: could be thrown, though easy to dodge. Also could cause alarm and distraction.

She was pondering what else she could do with a candle when the door opened and Lesil came in, and she was not ready for him.

He glanced at the fire and kicked at it, putting most of it out without even trying.

“Well, Louise, it is pretty much just you and me,” he said, and laughed. Louise looked at him and all her fear of him returned with him actually in the room. She could not attack him. “That foolish husband of yours is still outside, but… not for much longer.”

“He’ll rescue me. I know it,” whispered Louise as Lesil advanced on her.

Lesil loomed right over her. “With what? He is the Mage General, true. But I outnumber him ten to one. His vaunted tactician is not with him. His footsoldiers are hours away and will be oh, so tired when they arrive.”

“His tactician’s location makes no difference,” Louise said triumphantly, even as Lesil seized her arms and pulled her with unbearable strength over to the bed.

That gave him pause. “How so?”

“He has magic with him; Lord Pent did not explain it very well, but he can speak to Lord Pent wherever he is, and can see what he sees. My rescue will be just as ingenious as if the tactician were at Lord Pent’s side.”

Lesil pushed her flat onto the bed and began to crawl over her. “That makes no difference to me right here, right now.”

Louise gave him a knee in the stomach and broke free of his grasp. Snatching up the candle on the windowsill, she flung it at him, grabbed another, and bolted for the door, which was still unlocked.

She almost didn’t open it in time, it was so heavy, but she did and dashed down the deserted hall. Lesil must have sent the guards away. She had no idea where she was going, or how she would stay out of his clutches for long, but she was free for the moment and was going to make every effort to stay that way.

 

Pent blessed his tactician again and again. Lesil had forgotten about his rear wall, and with the other eight of his knights distracting the archers, they were running around too much to notice that three of them were missing. Fiora, George, and Pent were all three making a short trip to the top of Lesil’s back wall on Fiora’s greatly annoyed pegasus.

The archer and the sage tumbled off at the top, nearly silently, and Fiora left to return to the front wall. After all, a pegasus was much more noticeable than a horse.

“First step,” said Pent softly, “is to get inside. I don’t know the layout of this castle.”

“I can see it hazily,” Ceniro said with amazement. “Parts of it are dark or covered up, but… the third floor, to your right, there is very quick isolated movement, like someone’s running. Is there a door near you?”

“There’s a tower, and I think if I go down it might connect to the living quarters. Follow me, George!”

They raced softly to the tower door, down the spiral stairs – where were all the guards? – and opened the door at the next floor down as quietly as they could.

Pent stuck his head out and glanced back and forth. George looked annoyed, and Pent smiled, gesturing for the archer to take point. George grinned and did so.

They did hear running from the right, two sets of footsteps. Pent and George crept towards them.

Someone rounded the corner and collided heavily with Pent and shrieked.

“Louise!? Louise, it’s me!” Pent held his wife close as she gasped in air desperately.

“Lesil – right behind me,” she panted. Sure enough, Lesil was glaring at them from two feet away, having arrested his race just in time to keep from also plowing into Pent.

“You’re going nowhere, Reglay,” Lesil said smoothly, and he whistled. George nocked an arrow to the string but Pent gestured sharply with his head and the three turned and sprinted back to the tower. Guards poured out of a door on the right, but Pent tossed a quick fireball at them and they flinched.

“Not through the tower,” Ceniro said in Pent’s ear. “Head to your right down the hall, then down the stairs on your left.”

“Got it,” Pent replied.

“Then through the great hall – they’ll all be too surprised to attack you – and keep going straight. Then turn left and go through the postern gate. There’s hardly any guards there, and there are about fifty on the walls right now.”

“Understood.”

They raced through corridors full of door opening with curious faces peeking out at them, through tall halls where most simply gaped at them, and finally, to a tiny side door in the castle wall, guarded by six well alert guards, but George was ready and felled one with an arrow and Pent cast an Elfire at the rest.

The door was sticky in its frame, and they could hear guards approaching, many, many guards. The door came at last, and they fled into the night, melting away into the bushes and grasses. Pent held Louise close to him as they paused, letting the guards pass around them in the dark. Eventually the guards returned to the castle, and they could hear Lesil furiously shouting at them.

“We did it, Ceniro,” Pent whispered. “Louise is safe.”

“Amazing,” Ceniro said. “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. Good job. Fall back. We’re only an hour and a half away.”

The castle gates creaked, and Lesil’s army poured onto the field, including Lesil himself, on horseback with his bow.

“Oh, dear,” said the tactician.

 

Ceniro and his weary foot-soldiers arrived exactly at the time he said they would, and he found the battlefield to be quite a bit different in person than as he saw it on his farseer. The horse mounted troops had pulled back from the vicious onslaught from the castle; Fiora had been shot by Lesil in the arm, but Priscilla’s mending staff kept her fighting. They had not been allowed to withdraw far; the arriving foot soldiers had to break through two thin lines of lance-men before they could come to the battlefield in front of the castle.

He ached all over, especially his head, but took a drink from his waterbottle and set about directing the foot soldiers first to take a thirty second rest, and then launched his defensive counter-attack. The Deis troops and Yens anchored the ends, while the soldiers he had been working with for weeks, especially the magic users, formed the centre of a wedge that he drove into Lesil’s troops from the side.

The enemy was thrown into disarray, but the battle wasn’t over yet. Ceniro kept his soldiers away from Lesil as he could, especially the Deis soldiers. Lesil, seeing that Pent had received reinforcements, turned and began pushing the silver-haired lord even more aggressively. Ceniro could hear him shouting from all the way across the battlefield. He was getting closer to where Pent was proving his worth as the Mage General. Ceniro dodged a stray axe-man and sent Cavven after him, all the while trying to work his way around to where Pent was.

Lesil set another arrow on the string and aimed at Pent, who was charring a line of swordsmen into oblivion.

“Pent!” screamed Louise, her arrow already in flight. Pent jerked around toward her.

Lesil gurgled and slumped from his horse, her white-fletched arrow in his throat, his bow and arrow falling into the mud beneath him. Louise had been too fast for him.

“Louise,” Pent gasped, seeing the danger he had been in. “I- thank you.”

“I must keep up my vow, Lord Pent,” his wife smiled shyly at him. With five long strides he was beside her and embracing her tightly.

Ceniro looked away to give the couple some privacy. Something had gone very right, at least.

The sound of fighting slackened, then fell away completely. The tactician looked around at the soldiers that were left, and saw Lesil’s were surrendering. Then the darkness suddenly grew thick and he couldn’t see through it anymore.

Andy saw the tactician crumple and dismounted and ran to him. Pent and Louise followed.

“He’s all right, sir!” Andy reported. “Just tired, I think.”

“And well he should be,” said Frank, coming up behind him. “This battle has taxed both sides to their limit. I don’t think any of us could fight another minute.” Caddie stepped up to both of them and helped them lift the unconscious tactician onto the horse that had belonged to Rhost.

“Let’s go back to Reglay,” Pent said. “We’ll leave Lesil’s steward to sort out his mess, and we’ll put the Deis troops up for the night.”

They wearily marched back the miles to Castle Wrigley.

 

Pent and Louise, lingering behind the others by a good deal, had much to talk of on that moonlit walk back. He had just finished describing the farseer in detail to her when they heard hoofbeats behind them. They kept walking, moving to the right of the road to give the horseman room to pass them.

The horseman did indeed pass them, then turned and halted in their path.

“Stop there, Lord Pent!”

“Aldash!?” Pent exclaimed in disbelief. “We killed you in the mountains!”

“Not quite.” Pent could see, even in the moonlight, the heavy scars criss-crossing Aldash’s face on the right side. “You tried very hard, of course, but I survived. I was rescued by Vork, curse him. And now I will have my revenge on you.”

“You shan’t hurt him!” Louise cried, jumping in front of her husband with an arrow already on her bowstring.

Aldash smiled thinly. “There are more ways than one to have revenge.”

“You shan’t hurt her, either,” Pent said, stepping beside Louise, though in truth he felt too tired to cast another spell.

Aldash sighed in slight exasperation. “There is yet another way to satisfy myself. Your devotion to your wife is very touching, as is hers to you, but I shall not only cast you down but raise myself up. Tell me, where is the Jewel?”

Pent blinked, swaying in surprise. “The Jewel?”

“Of course, the Jewel! Have you beaten out your brains on Lesil as well as he beat his out on you? Tell me where it is, and I shall not harm you this time.”

“Madness,” Pent said. “I don’t have it. And you can’t attack Wrigley by yourself.”

Aldash smiled some more. “Now that would be an idea: to take Castle Wrigley for the second time today. That is not necessary. You had no time to leave it at Wrigley, and you are too paranoid to hand it to another. Therefore, it is still on your person. Give it to me!”

He charged at them, knocking down Louise as she fired and missed. He struck her over the head with his lance, knocking her out. Pent’s Thunder spell caused a few sparks, but the usual blue and gold flash from heaven was missing. Then Aldash, dismounting, tackled Pent to the ground and pinned his arms behind his back. He quickly searched Pent, finding the jewel in its little pouch inside Pent’s over-tunic. Pent, as soon as the bigger man released him, rolled over and grabbed Aldash’s ankle, intending to pull him down, but Aldash kicked him viciously in the stomach, mounted, and rode off with all speed.

Pent lay for some minutes curled up, his face a mask of pain. Then he crawled over to where Louise lay and tried to heal her, but his heal staff had snapped when Aldash had tackled him and he had fallen on it.

The lord of Reglay collapsed in a dismal little heap on the road.

 

Later, a young man woke up in a bed, a soft bed with smooth white sheets and a downy pillow. The walls were plastered and painted blue. Soft white light streamed in through the glass window. He rolled over, looking for more clues as to where he was.

“He’s awake, Lord Pent!” he heard a merry, feminine voice cry from close by. The door opened, and Pent walked in, followed closely by Louise, Erk, and Priscilla.

“How are you feeling?” Pent asked cheerfully.

Ceniro smiled faintly. “Much better. My feet still ache like anything, though.”

“Only to be expected. You marched for nearly a day straight, and slept for… hours. It’s late afternoon, if you were wondering. I don’t think you should get up yet, though.”

“But-“ Ceniro began.

Pent raised a hand. “No buts. I’ll tell you the whole situation and we’ll figure out what to do next. Erk, please go find George, the steward, and… what’s his name. The Deis captain. Phil.”

Erk nodded and left.

“Priscilla, I think he looks fine. Why don’t you go see how Fiora’s arm is?” Priscilla curtseyed, gave Ceniro a little smile and a wave, and also left.

“Well,” Pent said. “Down to business. We took few casualties in the siege, but one of them is rather upsetting to me personally… Jerome is dead.”

“Jerome?”

“My chief footman. Cheerful fellow. Got hit by an arrow just inside the front door.”

“Oh… I remember he was there when you hired me.”

“A few other guards went down, too,” Pent said, shaking his sadness away. “Anyway – oh, here are the others. Good. Please sit down, gentlemen. So… Aldash has the jewel.”

“What?” Ceniro sat up, forgetting the last remnants of his sleepiness. “How did…”

“Well,” Pent continued slowly, “Louise and I were ambushed by him on the way home, and he managed to knock us both down… After a while George, Priscilla, and Fiora came and helped us home.”

Ceniro sat back slowly. “So that means that other lord has it now.”

“Eshan? Yes, probably. This situation has turned very dangerous. My plan is to head straight for Aquleia with all the soldiers I can take with me, and drop off the Deis soldiers on the way. Would that be acceptable, Sir Phil?”

“Absolutely, my lord. You have been nothing but fair to us this whole journey. I shall ask his son’s permission to accompany you to Aquleia to fight Eshan if need be, as well.”

“No, I can’t ask that,” Pent began.

“You aren’t asking, my lord. We’re offering, our lord’s permission pending.”

Pent waited a while, thinking, then looked at his tactician.

“Greater numbers may help,” Ceniro said. “When I was with Lyn, we had only about a dozen fighters, with a few more noncombatants. But the forces we faced were not as well organized. If they and their lord are willing, I will not let them down.”

“Very well. I accept your offer of arms. Oh, Ceniro, we have more reinforcements as well. I almost forgot. Look out the window.”

Ceniro scrambled to the window, noticing that he was in his underclothes as he did so – he nearly yelped and scrambled back into bed, but decided that would be even more embarrassing – and saw a sea of white feathers.

“P-pegasus knights! A whole wing!” he exclaimed in wonder.

“Yes,” George answered with a chuckle. “Miss Fiora’s wing, the Fifth, whom we contacted this morning in one of the local villages. One dozen pegasus knights at our disposal. Not cheap, but I dare say worth it.” Ceniro could see Fiora’s teal hair bobbing among the other knights, most with brown hair, a couple with blue hair, one with grey hair, and one with white hair. The pegasi stood quietly, some chewing out of their feedbags.

“Oh, price is no matter,” Pent said airily. “We have to save the world, after all.”

“Is it that serious, Lord Pent?” Louise asked softly.

Pent laughed. “Probably not. I’m sorry. I tend to over-dramatize, don’t I. But there is probably considerable instability at the head of the Eliminean church and even a threat to the monarchy. So, tomorrow, after another good night’s sleep, we’ll set off for Aquleia. All right?”

“Yes, sir!” George and Phil stood, saluted, and left. The steward also rose and bowed, leaving Pent, Louise, Erk, and Ceniro alone to talk.

 

Aldash bowed before a cloaked figure in a dark room. “I have it, Lord Eshan.”

“Good. Give it to me and I shall give you your reward.”

“Why not give me my reward first?”

Without a word the cloaked man stood, walked up to Aldash, and stuck a knife in his chest.

“Is this it, Aldash?” he asked, holding up the shimmering purple gem from the pouch he had taken from Aldash’s belt. “My, you are unsubtle. Is this it? It could cure you in an instant, you know, if you knew how to use it, or if I felt like it.”

Aldash, sprawled on the floor, gurgled.

“Oh, yes, why?” The cloaked man leaned closer. “Though useful, you’re untrustworthy, Aldash. You spend all your time licking Arcard’s boots, and then you pledge your loyalty to me. Very amusing. But that’s all right. No one will have to deal with your wavering again.”

He left the room, and the corpse of Aldash stared at the ceiling, unable to care.

 

Morning dawned bright and clear over Wrigley Castle, and Pent’s company was mounted entirely on horses. There were the twelve pegasi of the Ilian Fifth Wing, the cavaliers, Priscilla, and Pent somehow found riding horses for all thirty of the other soldiers, including the Deis soldiers, who would return their horses when they reached Deis Castle if they were not to continue on with Pent. Ceniro was a little unsteady at first – it had been a while since Kent had taught him – but with George, Fiora, and Andy all coaching him, he soon felt comfortable at the quick steady pace they were journeying at.

It was midday, about a quarter of the way to Aquleia the capital of Etruria, and they had just finished lunch and were continuing when one of the pegasus knights spotted soldiers on the road ahead of them. Ceniro fished out his farseer carefully and took a look

It was a substantial group, including several wyvern riders, a large group of monks, some mages, and the requisite platoons of archers, swordsmen, axemen, lancemen, and cavaliers. The leader appeared to be a bishop.

“All right,” Ceniro said loudly – the farseer couldn’t talk to all the new soldiers so he had to rely on his voice. “It looks like the soldiers up ahead are just sitting there, so I suspect they’re hostile. There are a lot of archers, so Fiora, keep your wing over to the right for now and I’ll let you know when you can strike.” He called out more orders, reforming the group within minutes. Some of the soldiers were hesitant of following his orders, but when they saw how the ‘old hands’ obeyed, they complied without question. That reassured him. It was so difficult to direct an army that didn’t listen to him, such as the Ostian training army – or more recently, Lence, until he had gained the shaman’s trust.

He was still nervous about entering battle on horseback, and his horse knew it.

“Oh, it’s Vork,” Pent said calmly, drawing up next to his tactician with Louise hovering off his right elbow.

“The… the Lord Eshan person?”

“Yes, his right-hand man, it seems. High up in the church. Well, he’s shown his true colours now. Let’s break through them and continue.”

“My plans exactly.”

The battle took longer than he expected. The pegasus knights outnumbered the wyvern knights, and were faster as well, but the archers were just as annoying as he had feared, many of them targeting Pent with breathtakingly close misses. Louise shot half of them herself, and Erk dealt with the others in conjunction with Andy and Frank. The enemy monks were more of a problem, casting light magic every which way. Ceniro even got hit by a spell. Cavven swept through them, jumping off his horse to take them in the manner which he felt most comfortable. Lence and George were right behind him, and Lence, with his elder magic not so good against monks, targeted the axemen around them instead. The Deis troops also fought hard, taking out the entire platoon of cavaliers, and Yens – well, Ceniro was very interested in Yens’ ability, since he had never fought with a lanceman nearly his equal. It sufficed to say that the man excelled in dealing out pain to everyone around him, and did it with a smile for his friends and a horrific grimace for his foes.

Vork’s face grew longer and longer from the back of the enemy army as it grew smaller and smaller without any dent on Pent’s forces. Though they had begun by outnumbering them two to one, it was now looking like one to two.

“You are too late,” he snarled as Pent rode near him. “Lord Eshan has already won. Why do you not just lie down and die?”

Pent wrinkled his forehead into a confused frown. “Why on earth would I do that? I am the Mage General of Etruria. It is my duty to protect Etruria, and also I do want to spend some time with that jewel. I can’t do that if I’m dead. Besides which, your army is too small to stop us.” Frank’s javelin took out a swordsman approaching from Pent’s left as he spoke.

“I can stop you. Light may be weak against the elements, but there is no one stronger than me in light magic!”

“I, uh, I have already met one who is stronger,” Pent replied as he dodged a Shine spell. “You wouldn’t know him. He’s fairly reclusive. But if you would have it this way…” He began to cast Elfire.

Ceniro stopped him. “Pent, wait. Let the pegasi take him out. Fiora tells me they have an attack formation just for this and I want to see it.”

“Very well,” Pent smiled. “Go ahead.”

“All right, Fiora, go ahead,” Ceniro called, as Albert pushed his horse out of the way of another Shine attack and took it himself, emerging hardly scratched.

“Fifth Wing, Blizzard Formation, go!” Fiora called to her knights. Immediately, the air above Vork was filled with white flashes of both attacking wings and defending magic as the pegasus riders would swoop down, some not even attacking, simply distracting, then rise in the air and dive again. Ceniro wanted to stare intently at them, but found his attention demanded from other parts of the battlefield as well, as Caddie was surrounded by soldiers. The tactician sent Erk and Phil to help him.

Fiora called more orders, and the wing formed into a triangle with herself at its tip. She was the pegasus knight who took down Vork, although his spell managed to hit and knock out a pegasus knight. Priscilla was right there immediately, her mend staff fixing the pegasus’ broken wing and healing the woman’s slashed body.

They regrouped as the enemy fled in fear. “Injuries?” Ceniro called across the field. Some were still hurt and Priscilla and Pent went among them. In a very short time they were ready to march again.

“Well, that’s a bit disquieting,” Pent remarked. “Clearly Eshan has been planning this for a while. This was only a rearguard. There will be more up ahead. And I still can’t tell exactly what Eshan is doing.”

“Well, let’s continue,” said the tactician. His horse had remained steady throughout the whole battle, keeping him safe better than he would have been able to tell it to. “We still have many miles to cover before Aquleia.”

“Yes, let’s continue!” said Pent, pointing down the road.

 

Chapter 7: Siege of Castle Wrigley     Chapter 9: Holy Maiden