Chapter Five

5.

Lorel strode across the plaza with his chin held high, preening as though the squads of Altarians lined up to to his left and right were court attendants watching him ascend to his Lord’s Chair.  It mattered little to him that the soldiers paid him no mind, they were nothing but Altarian dogs, slaves to the Dreanalai witch.  They would help her snatch a few Triton children and then slink back across The Rift to go on with their miserable foreign lives.  He on the other hand, was a High Seat now, one of only fourteen in the land, and would remain behind as one of the most powerful men in all of Triton.  The Dreanalai had done him a tremendous favor.  Letting her take Shan from him was an insult, but a little brother was a tiny price to pay for all that he had gained.  I am the Lord of Hollow Hill! he told himself, still finding it difficult to believe how swiftly the winds of his fate had switched directions.  In that incredible moment when he’d seen his father first draw his sword on the Dreanalai, he’d known right away that the man’s time had come to an end.  The joy that revelation had brought him was the sweetest feeling he’d ever tasted, and if he had any regrets about watching Lord Jandegar die, it was only that he hadn’t killed the bastard himself years ago.  It had been so. . .easy. . .such a simple thing to lean into the handle of the dagger and watch his father’s eyes go dark.  Why hadn’t he done it sooner?  Why had he been so afraid of the man?  All those times he’d thought about dropping a little castor seed into his father’s wine. . .or that day on the Goatsbridge when all he’d had to do was give Lord Jandegar’s backside a little shove and he’d have plummeted to the rocks and fouled water of Tanner’s Gulch in all his armor. . .  

Looking back through the eyes of his newfound power Lorel already didn’t recognize the pathetic fool that he had been, hanging his head like a whipped mongrel whenever Lord Jandegar had barked at him. . .letting the man’s every glance of disapproval gnaw at his insides.  Lord Jandegar had been nothing, a bag of bones and shit like everyone else.  No lighting bolts tore from the sky to protest his death, the ground had not split open. . .after a few days or weeks no one would really even mourn his passing, not even his right hand, Sigmond of Woburn.  Sigmond had respected Lord Jandegar but never liked him, Lorel was fairly certain about that.  The man was nothing!  Meat and piss! A fucking joke!  

He searched himself but could find no trace of guilt or remorse.  That surprised him a little.  He’d always assumed it was at least partly decency that had stayed his hand, but now he could admit to himself it had only been fear.  Fear that made him cower and scrape and say “Yes, Lord Jandegar,” when what he ought to have said was “Go bugger yourself with a sword.”  Fear that had made him suffer for years, powerless when all the while he could have changed everything in an instant just by cutting the man’s throat and taking from him all that he had.  Such a shame that he’d wasted so much time!   Never again.  The wretch that he had been had just died with his father.  From now on Lord Lorel Breylock of Hollow Hill would never suffer, and all those to cross him would feel his vengeance immediately; he’d give them either pain or death depending only on which better suited his mood. . .

Lorel peered back over his shoulder, spotting the swine’s arse of a cobbler and his hairy, brutish friend hobbling along behind him.  Tonight, he told himself, I am in the mood for both.  

“Hurry,” he sneered at them.  “I have much else to attend to.”

The cobbler and the brute traded wary glances.

“If you’re thinking to bury a knife in my neck tonight like you did to your father,” said the cobbler, “I warn you it will not end well for you.”

“Aye,” said the fat man.  “Try it and I’ll remove your balls like coins from a purse.” 

Rage erupted inside Lorel, rolling around within him like thunder trapped in a cook pot. 

“Do you take me for an idiot?” he said acidly.  “I’ve just become the Lord of Hollow Hill and inherited hundreds of horses, do you think I’d risk all that and my uncle’s wrath over a two-nit palfrey?  You mean nothing to me, either of you, nor does your horse.”

The cobbler nodded, uneasily.

“Then you’re not quite as stupid as I’d have made out.”

Lorel attempted a cavalier laugh.  The sound came out high-pitched and awkward though, enraging him even further. 

“Enjoy your jests, cobbler. . .” he grimaced back at them, menacingly.  “But know that two or three moons from now, when Lord Jondel has long forgotten your names, I will send a few of my men along in the night to snuff out your lives as thoughtlessly as I would a pair of privy candles.”

“My cabin sits at the base of the Thimblemont,” the cobbler quickly replied.  “The trail is marked by a copper boot.  Tell your men, I’ll await them eagerly.” Lorel sighed.

“As you wish.  You know, I was going to spare your son.  Now I’m thinking I’ll have your boy killed first and let you bury him before I send a man for your head.” 

Without waiting to see the cobbler’s reaction, Lorel turned his back on them and strode into the Tollhouse tunnel. 

The shadows inside the long stable had deepened, threatening to overwhelm the lanterns hanging from the rafters as they guttered on the last of their oil.  The boy who tended them was gone, having no doubt fled upstairs to the tavern or into the woods at the first cry of ‘Altarians!’.  Fortunately the whelp had left his keys dangling from the lock of the stall where his mare and the palfrey were stabled.  

Lorel turned the key and jerked the stall door open.  Standing to one side, he gestured for Cob to enter with mocking graciousness.

“Take the bloody horse and get out of my sight,” he said.  The cobbler looked to his friend, his weathered mouth twitching towards a smirk.

“Go and get your cart,” he told him, “I’ll meet you in the plaza.”  The brute hesitated.  

“Cobbler--”  The man’s eyes were pained by anxiety. 

“It’s all right, the fool won’t defy Lord Jondel, he’s too cowardly for all that.”  The cobbler stared hard into Lorel’s eyes, his own coiled with subtle fury.  “In his breast there is naught but a nest of worms and he lacks the spine to challenge all but those who can’t defend themselves for fear of going to the gallows.  Yet I’m no common boy like my son, and he knows it.  I am old soldier who has lived his life and has no fear of prison or the gallows.  If he moves against me this night I will paint these stables red with his blood all the way to the rafters.  You know all that, don’t you, Lord Lorel?”  Lorel made no reply, internally stunned and elated by the unending shower of luck the stars were pouring down on him.  This man was daft as a post, practically offering up his own head on a plate by sending his friend away.  “Go on, Gabe,” said the cobbler.  The brute nodded reluctantly and left them, continuing down the stable tunnel and out into the night. 

“Well then,” said the cobbler, once the man was gone.  “I have no sword and it’s just the two of us.  You can tell your uncle I attacked you and there will be no witnesses to say otherwise.  It’s the best opportunity you’re likely to get, Lorel, do you have the mettle to take it?”  The man waited for an answer, and when Lorel again gave him none, smiled.  “I thought not.”    

Turning his back arrogantly, the cobbler stepped into the stall.  Lorel felt his pulse quicken and his breath shallow.  It was going to be a thrill to watch this fool pay for his many errors in judgment.  I am the Lord of Hollow Hill, you simpleton! He raged in his thoughts.  I have a whole army at my back now and my uncle is too soft to risk an open war over a a bloody cobbler!  You are a dead man, friend, let me show you. . .  The moment was upon him.  While the cobbler fumbled in the shadows searching for the palfrey’s lead, Lorel yanked his sword from its scabbard and lunged forward, intending to drive the point into the man’s back.

“Bugger my uncle!” he shouted.  “And bugger you!” 

He thrust his sword into the shadows with vicious force, but it struck nothing, parting the air with a hiss.  The cobbler had been ready and waiting for the attack.  Lorel realized that an instant too late, just as his eyes caught the gleam of a blade that was not his own.  His confusion paralyzed him and he watched frozen as something flashed through the shadows and disappeared.  Next he knew an arm was slipping around his neck.  Like quicksilver the Cobbler had oozed around behind him.           

“You should not have threatened my boy or the baker,” a voice spoke quietly into Lorel’s ear, his beard tickling the flesh.  It’s tone was so mocking and deadly Lorel almost didn’t recognize it as the Cobbler’s.  “I am indebted to the fellow and will not have him live out the rest of his days fearing an assassin’s blade.  You leave me no choice, Lorel Breylock.”  

The arm flexed tight, cutting off his wind altogether, and the gleam of the blade that he had glimpsed descended toward his chest.  It was double-edged and sawtoothed, an ugly thing meant for naught but killing.  Lorel’s gaze fixated on the jagged steel.  All at once the meaning of the cobbler’s words and the import of what was happening infiltrated the fog that had enveloped his thoughts; he was going to die, he suddenly understood.  He screamed, or tried to, but no sound came forth, and his wild kicks only served to alarm the cobbler’s palfrey, who bellowed and tossed in the gloom in front of him.  Lorel cursed the animal and its owner to the blackest corner of Necartha, but that did nothing to stave off the cold bite of the dagger, which struck in a tender spot between his first two ribs. As the blade pierced his flesh, the weight of fear crushed his thoughts like a stone dropped on an egg.  He was lost.  His eyes rolled up into his head.  

The cobbler grunted.  Inexplicably the cold of the blade retreated and the pressure on his throat released.  He gulped for air.  Regaining control of himself he glanced down to see the cobbler’s limp hand fall away.  The dagger it held dropped into the straw between his boots, only the very tip stained with his blood.  Shouting relief he bolted free of the cobbler’s embrace and whirled to see what had become of the man.

The bastard had dropped to his knees in the doorway of the stall, a sword driven clean through his middle from behind.  The point jutted from his belly and he was staring at the steel in wide-eyed disbelief.  As his fingers reached for the blade his mouth gaped open.

“Wilhem,” he croaked. 

Sigmond of Woburn stood behind the poor fool, his brow creased and his cat-like eyes seeming almost saddened.  

“Forgive me,” he said, jerking his blade free.  The cobbler pitched forward and fell face down into the straw covering the floor.  

Lorel laughed, a wicked cackle of surprise and elation.

“You chose wisely, Sigmond.  I will see you well rewarded for this.”  The swordsman shook his head, his handsome mouth taut with displeasure.  

“The only reward I seek is discharge from my oath to Hollow Hill.  I have given you your life, I’d ask for mine in return.”  Lorel sneered.

“You did your duty here, nothing more, but I am not without gratitude.  You may have your choice of my serving women tonight.  Your life however, still belongs to me.  Return to Hollow Hill and see that my father’s body is prepared and the keep readied to greet its new lord.  I will arrive no later than with the dawn.”

Sigmond stared at him, those strange eyes of his turning hard and unreadable.  

“Very well.”  Before sheathing his blade he drew the flat of both sides very calmly across the grieve on his left arm, cleaning off the blood.  Then he nodded at Lorel and stalked off in his customary feline silence.     

Lorel collected his sword and the cobbler’s dagger from the straw and pulled himself up on to the back of his mare, who was pawing the floorboards behind the palfrey, restless.  “Ssshh, Cora,” Lorel patted her neck.  “We’re leaving the stink of this place behind us now.”    

He knew exactly where they were going next, feeling the rightness of it in his bones.  Nothing could stop him tonight, not even the Dreanalai’s ridiculous gods.  For whatever reason the stars themselves were with him, conspiring to pave the path of his vengeance, with blood to wet the mortar.  This night he was going to clear the slate of those that had wronged or offended him, and in the morning, when he returned to Hollow Hill to assume his chair, there would be no lingering clouds in his mind to detract from the radiance of his ascendency.

“Ho!” he shouted, spurring the mare with a firm kick.  She bolted over the cobbler’s body and thundered down the tunnel, dragging the cobbler’s palfrey along with them by a short lead.