Chapter 23: An illness mounts
Blyord pulled Kristle aside into a small alcove near the top
of the stairs that led down into the castle below.
This far from the hearth in Ely’s chambers, the hall had a
deeper chill only cold stone could keep.
Kristle shivered, but not from the cold.
“What is it, Sire?” Kristle asked, wondering fi the wizard
could read minds the way some claimed he could, and if he had read Kristle’s
terrible thoughts from only a few moments earlier, thoughts about killing a
prince he had since recanted.
“I know you are one of Ajax’s men,” the wizard said, furthering
Kristle’s dread.
Would the wizard curse him or as bad, drag him down before
the king to be beheaded?
“I am a member of the kings guard,” Kristle said, struggling
to keep the fear from sounding in his voice.
“As are all those who serve in the King’s castle,” Blyord snapped.
“I have not time for petty politics. I know your primary allegiance is to Ajax.
It is the reason I need your service.”
“What service, sire?” Kristle asked, honestly surprised.
The wizard favored Ely. So, reaching out for the other prince
seemed odd.
“I need you to ride to Land Gate with a message for the prince,”
Blyord said. “This is not something I can trust to messenger birds, and above
all, the king must never hear of this.”
Kristle stiffened, knowing obeying such a request could also
lead him to the gallows, and he wondered if perhaps the wizard intended to trap
him.
This thought Blyord read from Kristle’s expression.
“I’m not trying to trick you,” the wizard said. “This is a
matter too urgent to allow the kind to delay it, which the kind will do if he
hears of it.”
The guard studied the wizard’s craggy face, the gray eyes
that were not gray seemed sincere, if anything, pleading in their need for
Kristle to accept.
“What message do you need me to convey?” the guard asked,
conceding that he had already done enough to warrant losing his head.
Then, in an even lower voice, and his mouth near to the
guard’s ear, the wizard whispered, “Ely will be riding to Land Gate this
evening. He will be seeking to take the sword. Prince Ajax must stop him from
doing so.”
An expression of horror came over Kristle’s face.
Not in a life time could he have imagined such as circumstance
as this. All knew of the sword and nearly all of those loyal to Ajax even knew
where the sword lay. Yet, for all, it was an object of legend, a matter beyond the
concept of mortal men. Princes might ponder it, lust after it even, yet ordinary
men like Kristle had no business tampering with the will of the gods.
Here, the wizard asked him to do that very thing, and – as brave
as Kirstle had been in battle, this deed – in fact even the thought of it –
brought deep terror into his heart.
“Will you do this for me?” the wizard asked. “More
importantly, will you do it to help save Amlor?”
Put that way, how could Kristle refuse. He gave a nod.
“Good!” the wizard said. “There is a steed waiting down
stairs at the stables for you. I have messengered for more to greet you along
the way. You must ride hard and get to Ajax well before Ely does.”
Again, Kristle nodded, hoping he would still have his head
when all this was done.
*************
“I must be mad,” he thought, as he steered his steed towards
the camp north east of where the warriors wait, talk with the Gulf men pumping
up old angers that no one from any tribe will ever forget, much of it passed
down from father to son, mother to daughter, like all tales the horse people
keep
He did not trust the gulf people any more than he did the mountain
men in their metal suits and needed to find someone who might make the path
ahead clearer before any of them spilled any more blood.
Too many have already died for no good reason, for a memory
of something fathers told sons happened before any father or son was born.
“The Haggie will know,” he thought, slowing the hooves as he
approached the first of the pointed tents of hide, painted symbols drawn on
each signifying different gods from the gods the metal men or the gulf warriors
praised, gods not up in the sky or in the deep water, but blowing across the
great plains with the wind, riding with the warriors, living with the women
when they gave birth.
The Haggie’s camp has no warriors or arrows, spears or bows,
just oddly stooped men and women, who have come here from all the great tribes,
men and women who had at some earlier age stood out, showing queer signs of
magic, and an ability to read the will of the gods, even at an early age.
They read the wind and when the weather would change, or
where the game would run to, or when the grazing land would wither for lack of
rain.
He did not know if they would receive him, a petty chief of
a petty tribe. Most times, the Haggie gave for a price, and the wealthier the
tribal leader, the more he or she received.
Long ago, the royal tribes of the distant south brought
human sacrifices, the Dzafars that tales claimed still lived in golden temples
with golden halls, upon which their enemies were slain.
The plains tribes, like his, did not sacrifice enemies, or
even make them slaves the way some tribes, did, always respecting those they
fought, judging them by what they did, a coward treated like a coward and shot
and left to rot, a brave man celebrated even when slain, buried in soft sand
where his spirit might more easily rise when the time came.
Some tribes had their own Haggie in order to keep the evil
spirits away. Weak Haggie often struggled to deal with those of the tribe who
become possessed.
The evil comes from ancestral spirits, and when a clan is infected,
they might go crazy and kill friend or foe for no reason.
He once saw such a clan and how other clans gathered together
to kill them to keep these spirits from infecting other clans. He had seen the
powerful Haggie in their costumes and headdress of snakes, tall oak staff from
the northern forest, mirror on their chests, some carrying a small drum, others
a tiny flute, each with a bag or pouch for collecting spirits.
His clan had a weak Haggie, which may have been why his
tribe seemed to grow possessed, not all, not completely, but something growing
in their eyes, a rage that he could not justify, a lusting for blood that had not
come from any offense – justified by the tales fathers told sons, but those had
always been there.
He had come here to find a strong Haggie, someone he could
confide in, someone who might give him guidance, someone who might come back
with him and help rid the evil spirits that seem to have infected people he once
considered respectable.
Since his tribe was a poor tribe, he did not have much to
bring to purchase the favors he needed and hoped that the Haggie did not demand
a blood sacrifice, to appease the gods of the underworld.
He feared more that he had come too late.
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