“Humans are far too easy to impress,” the Crazy Lady remarked, in a male voice much deeper than the one she had spoken with a moment ago.
Mikel was certain he had been swallowed up whole and sucked into some sort of pagan hell. The Crazy Lady wobbled again and Mikel watched in horror as she literally fell apart. Then the room was swarming with little grey creatures like the one that had bitten him by the well. The creatures fell about laughing in high twittering voices, as if they were privy to some marvellous prank. It was more than Mikel could cope with. He screamed in terror as the creatures neared him.
His scream brought the others out of their torpor. They all began talking at once and Mikel could make no sense of what they were saying. He did not try. He could hear someone crying and it took a little while to realise it was he. R’shiel walked toward him, pushing the monsters out of her way impatiently. He shied away from her in fear.
“I’m sorry, Mikel. I didn’t mean to frighten you. They’re demons, that’s all. They won’t hurt you.” She turned impatiently. “You’re scaring the poor child to death. Be gone!”
The demons vanished almost instantly, shocking the grown-ups almost as much as Mikel. “
“Let the boy take the message to the Kariens, Lord Jenga,” she pleaded. “Send him home. He doesn’t belong here.”
Jenga looked at Brak uncertainly. “You said he would tell his people what he’s seen here. Do you really want him to report what he’s seen here tonight?”
Brak shrugged. “The Karien priests will know we are here soon enough. It might even give them pause.”
“Or they won’t believe him,” Garet pointed out. “I certainly don’t believe what I just saw.”
A meaningful glance passed between the adults before Jenga turned on him. “Boy! Go get your gear packed. You’re leaving first thing in the morning. You will take our offer of peace back to Prince Cratyn, is that clear?”
Mikel nodded. Tears of joy, as opposed to fright, threatened to unman him. “And... my brother?” he ventured cautiously.
“He stays,” the Hythrun Warlord announced, before anybody else could answer. “He will be a hostage to your good behaviour. If your prince accepts our offer, we’ll send him home.”
It would have been too much to hope for any other answer, although he wondered if he’d waited and asked the Lady R’shiel when she was alone, the result might have been different. But it was too late now.
Mikel nodded and the Lady R’shiel smiled at him reassuringly. He was going home. The Overlord had finally answered his prayers – some of them, at least. By tomorrow evening, he would be standing before his prince and his priests and he could finally tell them of the evil that resided south of the border in the camp of the Defenders.
Chapter 24
They sent him back to the Karien camp mounted on a nondescript dun gelding. Tarja Tenragan and Damin Wolfblade escorted Mikel as far as the earthworks that were constructed along the front. It was the first close look Mikel had got of the Medalonian defences. He tried to remember every detail to tell Prince Cratyn, but it wasn’t easy with Damin on one side of him on a huge golden stallion, and Tarja on the other on a sleek black mare. As if they knew the reason for his swivelling head and wide eyes, they began to point out various features of the defences to each other over the top of his head, describing in rather graphic and gory detail the affect they would have on any attacking Karien force.
The earthworks gave cover for a vast number of bowmen, Tarja explained cheerfully to the Warlord, which would decimate the vanguard of any Karien attack. Even if the knights were armoured, their horses would founder under the rain of arrows. Each archer carried around fifty arrows, and if they took their time, they could keep up the deadly hail for an hour or more. Being trapped under a dead warhorse while it rained arrows was not a happy prospect, Damin agreed with relish. And, he added, if they were so foolish as to send unarmoured men to lead the attack, it would be a massacre. Mikel tried very hard not to listen to them. They were teasing him, he knew, and his courage was growing stronger the closer he came to the border. The Overlord was with him and he was on his way home. There was nothing they could do to him that would quell his growing excitement.
“This is as far as we go, boy,” Damin said eventually, reining his horse in as they reached the edge of the field that the Medalonians ominously referred to as the “killing ground”. He looked down at Mikel and grinned. “Just head north, boy. You’ll reach Karien sooner or later.”
“And carry this,” Tarja added, thrusting a broken spear into his hand, to which had been tied a scrap of white linen.
“My people won’t harm me!” Mikel said, quite offended by the flag of truce. “I am going home!”
“You’re going home wearing a Defender’s uniform,” Tarja pointed out. “I’m sure they won’t kill you if they know who you are, but you’re not going to get close enough to tell them, dressed like that. Take it.” He looked across at Damin and added with a grin, “Mind you, they’d never believe a Defender could be so short.”
Reluctantly, Mikel accepted the flag.
“You have the message?” Damin asked.
He nodded glumly and patted the bulge under he jacket where the sealed letter from Lord Jenga was securely tucked, as the two men he hated most in this world talked to him like a small child. They would ask if he’d washed behind his ears next!
“Then scat!” the Warlord said, slapping the flank of the gelding. The horse surged forward and Mikel nearly lost his seat as he galloped headlong toward the border.
Not an experienced rider, Mikel clung grimly to the pommel until he remembered to use the reins. The slightest touch and the well-trained cavalry mount slowed his headlong rush to a more manageable pace. With a sigh of relief, Mikel remembered the flag, and propped it up against his thigh as he rode through the waist-high grass of the no-man’s land between the two camps. Although he did not know the exact location of the border, he knew that he would soon be in bow range of the Kariens, and he would be hard pressed to deliver his intelligence about the Medalonians with an arrow through his chest.
It annoyed him intensely that it had been Tarja who pointed that out.
He was still half a league or more from the camp when the Karien sentries found him. The sight of Lord Laetho’s purple pennant, with its three tall pines worked in red, brought tears of relief to his eyes, which he hastily brushed away as the knights approached. The Overlord was truly with him, he knew now. Not only had he been released, but he had sent his own people to meet him. Mikel was giddy with relief as the tall knight in the lead lifted his faceplate. It was Sir Andony, Laetho’s nephew, newly knighted last summer and enormously proud of the fact. Andony studied him for a moment, waving away the drawn swords of his three companions.
“Sir Andony!” he cried, urging his horse forward.
“Mikel?” he asked in astonishment. “We thought you long dead, lad!”
“They sent me back. I have a message for the prince.”
Andony frowned. “You seem remarkably well fed for someone kept prisoner these past months, boy. And you wear the uniform of the enemy.”
Mikel glanced down at his rolled up Defender’s trousers and the too-big, warm red jacket they had given him in the Medalonian camp. “They took my clothes and burned them. You must take me to the prince! I’ve seen so much, Sir! I have to tell him!”
Andony nodded, not entirely convinced. “Well, we’ll see if Lord Laetho wants you to speak with his Highness. Come!”
Andony wheeled his big horse around and fell in beside Mikel. One of the other knights took station on his left and the other two fell in behind. Mikel rode into the Karien camp, not in triumph as he had dreamt, but a barely disguised prisoner.
