The Highwayman sotfk-1 Page 4

  I do not know, and I do not elevate them above Blessed Abelle, surely. And yet I must insist that from these Jhesta Tu we will find a continuation of our own road to understanding. We must learn from them as they will learn from us-and they have already shown the willingness and the hope that such will occur.

  Thus I have copied the Book of Jhest, the foundation of understanding of the Jhesta Tu. In the final measure of my mission, this will prove the most fundamental and important accomplishment of all. Study the Book of Jhest, I beg each of you, with eyes wide and heart open. Infuse yourself with its wisdom and blend the revelations within with the truth we know from Blessed Abelle.

  I walked a road with sure strides, but I had no idea that the road would take my spirit to places it had not yet tread. I walked a road to enhance the lives of those pagans I encountered, but I had no idea that the road would brighten my own understanding. I am not afraid of these revelations and the greater scope of miracle, and neither should you be.

  Turn these pages with reverent hands. Bask in the words of wisdom of the Jhesta Tu, and find in them enough similarities to show us that the only falsities in our understanding of the truths of Blessed Abelle are the limitations that we naturally place upon those teachings. This was my wont, for never did I imagine the true width of faith's horizon. Penned this day of Bafway, God's Year 54 Brother Bran Dynard, humble servant of Chapel Pryd

  3

  Prydae With backs stooped from hours and hours of heavy labor, the peasant workers building the road south of the holding of Pryd were most commonly seen with their hands placed firmly on their aching lower backs. They didn't look behind them often as they dug and smoothed the ground between two forested hills, for if they did, they would see the stone tower of Castle Pryd, red pennant emblazoned with the black wolf waving in the brisk breeze above it: a poignant reminder of how short a distance they had actually gone in these weeks of brutal labor and how inconceivable-to the peasants, at least-a distance they had yet to go.

  Work had begun on the project in the summer of the previous year. The road itself was not an elaborate affair, merely a widening and smoothing of the existing southern cart paths, with the ground pounded flat and strategically reinforced with wide flagstones. Laird Pryd had been quite pleased with the progress made in the late summer weeks and those of autumn, but all those involved-particularly the peasants pressed into this hard labor-had been quite dismayed to find, when the snow had at last relinquished its grip on the land, that much of their work had been damaged by the frost heaves of the unusually harsh winter.

  "At least I won't be needing to clean under me fingernails," one man griped to another as they stood beside the road in a moment of respite, their heavy flagstones set on the ground before them, upright and leaning against their bare, badly bruised, and always scuffed shins.

  "That's because ye got no fingernails," the other replied, and he held up his own hand, filthy and battered. "By the time we make the mountain shadow, all of us'll be missing more than that, I'm thinking."

  "Bah, but you're the fool, for we're not to live long enough to ever cool in the shadows of them great mountains."

  "Come on, then, the two of you," came a call from up the road. The pair turned to see a soldier of Pryd, splendid astride his tall horse and in his shining breastplate of bronze. With each pace of the mount, the hard sheath of the short sword on the soldier's hip made a clapping sound against the iron studs of his leather skirt. "They're needing stones up front. Now get about it."

  Both peasants sucked in their breaths, bent their knobbly knees, and hooked their arms under the bottoms of the large stones, then hoisted them and began waddling away.

  "Weren't that Doughbeard's boy?" one gasped to the other when they had moved beyond the soldier's range of hearing.

  "Aye, and ain't he looking all pretty up there on his fine horse?"

  "So many o' them young and strong ones do, while our old bones creak and crack."

  "Creak and crack! And swim in the mud and horses' shite."

  "And work all the day and all o' the night," said the other, taking up the cadence and the nonsensical rhyme.

  "Until them soldiers be out o' our sight!" the other went on, and he cackled with laughter between the grunts.

  His friend started to cackle as well, but broke off, feeling an impact and the sound of a sharp rap against the front of the stone he was carrying. He staggered back a step, managed a "what?" and then lost his words and his breath as he recognized what had struck his stone was a stone-headed throwing axe now lying on the ground before him.

  Had he not been carrying a flagstone against his chest like some unintended breastplate, that axe wouldn't now be on the ground, he knew.

  "What are ye about?" his friend asked, staggering to a stop and turning. He followed the ashen-faced gaze of the stunned man to the weapon.

  "Bloody caps!" the man shouted, and he dropped his stone and ran back toward his friend, who still stood there, holding the stone that had saved his life, and staring slack-jawed at the axe.

  "Go, old fool! Go!" the fleeing man shouted, grabbing his friend's shoulder as he raced past, turning him; but as he did, his friend lost his grip on the stone and it crashed to the ground, clipping his foot and bringing a great howl from him.

  The fleeing man didn't wait, didn't slow at all. He ran back up the road, toward that fluttering pennant, screaming "Bloody caps!" at the top of his lungs. "Your scouts were correct," young Prince Prydae said to the guard captain standing beside him. They had moved secretly into place, under the cover of the brush and trees to the side of the road. A hundred yards or so farther down the road, all the workers were running and waving their arms frantically, the calls of "Powries!" and "Bloody caps!" filling the air.

  The nobleman slid his leather gauntlets onto his hands and stepped into his chariot-the most magnificent war cart in all the holding. It was bordered on three sides by waist-high walls of hard oak and leather, a running black wolf painted on either side, silver trim running the length of it. The wheels were heavy and sturdy, with spokes as thick as a strong man's forearms, and hubs set with scythe blades that stuck out for more than a foot. The pulling team, a pair of Laird Pryd's strongest horses, pawed the ground, eager to run.

  To any onlookers, young Prince Prydae did not appear out of place there. He stood strong and tall, his blue eyes set with determination in a face not unaccustomed to scowling. When he did so scowl, Prydae's thick brow furrowed such that it formed a triangular chasm atop his long, thin nose; and people in all the region for many years had known to beware the "sharp shadows of anger" from the men of the line of Pryd!

  Prydae's other features were no less powerful: a strong chin and high-boned cheeks that bespoke his noble heritage. His black hair was neatly trimmed about his ears; and thick sideburns ran down to touch the thin jawline beard, which blended in with a thin goatee and mustache, as was the fashion of the day. He wore a bronze breastplate, fitted perfectly to his muscular frame, leaving his arms bare. Many nobleman warriors had taken to wearing iron instead of the softer bronze, but Prydae preferred this piece precisely because the soft metal had allowed his craftsman to decorate it with grand designs. Right at the ridge below the breasts was a line of running wolves, three across and nose to tail. The back of the piece boasted clever swirls and geometric shapes, and even contained the "fisted P," a letter formed from an upraised forearm and cocked and balled fist, the emblem of the line of Pryd.

  Prydae did use iron for his open-faced helmet and for the metal greaves overlaid onto thick leather breeches. His belt was leather, too, wrapped in a bright red sash of fine fabric; and complementing that, a red ribbon was tied about Prydae's right upper arm, a black one tight about his left biceps, a sign of his station in the Holdings of Pryd. Only Prydae or his father, Pryd, could by law wear such distinctive armbands within the holding.

  "Well, my friend, shall we go and remind the peasants of the importance of the House of Pryd?" the young nobleman rema
rked, turning a sly smile at the garrison captain.

  "Indeed, my liege."

  "Take care the powries, for they are no easy foe."

  "Yes, my liege."

  Prydae gave a nod to his trusted soldier, a man hand-picked by his father to watch over him, then cracked his whip. The horses burst from the brush, charging up the short incline to the road and thundering down onto it, the chariot bouncing wildly. Prydae held his stance securely, urging the galloping horses on even harder.

  He cracked the whip above his head and waved the peasants out of the way-and how they scrambled, diving from the road!

  Prydae soon came in sight of the one mounted soldier who had been at the forefront of the work area and was now bringing up the rear of the fleeing peasants, shouting at them to run for their lives. The man was lurching, one shoulder forward, and Prydae noted the flash of red behind him, the telltale shimmer of the blood-soaked berets.

  More peasants dove to the side; one was not quite fast enough and got clipped by Prydae's team and sent flying from the road. Before the young nobleman, the wounded soldier seemed hardly in control of his mount anymore, but the well-trained horse veered out of the way just in time, leaving the racing chariot a straight line to the charging bloody-cap dwarves.

  Those powries were odd little creatures, each standing under five feet, with a broad, thick torso and shoulders at least as wide as those of a large man, but with spindly little limbs, whose size was exaggerated by the bulky, padded, and metal-stripped armor the dwarves wore around their barrel-like torsos and by the fact that the powries were almost always bearded, with bushy, wild-flying hair sticking out from under their caps. Prydae was seasoned enough not to underestimate the strength in those spindly limbs, though-as he was reminded now by a dwarf, near the front of their charging line, who carried an iron-headed axe so huge and bulky that few humans could have wielded it.

  With typical ferocity, the ten bloodthirsty dwarves didn't turn from the sudden appearance and charge of the prince and his entourage.

  Prydae grasped one of the small iron-tipped spears set at the front of his chariot, and hoisted it high. Before him, the powries parted ranks, some scrambling wide, others barely sidestepping the charging horses, no doubt to try to strike at him as the chariot raced past. Prydae let the scythe blades of his wheels handle the immediate threat, the spinning weapons slicing deep into the surprised dwarves, taking a leg from one, disemboweling another, and hooking the leather tunic of a third, who was trying to scramble aside, pulling it along in a bone-crunching tumble. Then the prince threw his spear deep into the chest of a powrie at the side of the road.

  He had no time to grab another spear, for a dwarf at the left side of the road before him was already launching an axe his way. Prydae shifted his reins to his right hand and cracked his whip at the dwarf with his left. He felt the thump as the axe smacked against his breastplate and bounced aside, clipping his chin and drawing a line of blood.

  Prydae growled through the pain and pulled hard on the reins, wanting to slow his team, wanting to get back around in time to repay that particular dwarf before his soldiers killed them all.

  As the chariot slowed, Prydae let go of the reins altogether and grabbed his shield and leaped from the chariot back, drawing his sword as he went.

  The powries were scattering now as the full force rolled over them; in those initial moments of combat, more than half were down. Prydae did not lose sight of the axe thrower in that turmoil, noting the dwarf scrambling toward the trees. Running full out, Prydae's longer legs chewing up the ground, he caught up to the wretch in the shadows of the nearest boughs.

  The powrie spun to meet the charge, an axe in either hand. It wasted no time, but came forward wildly, slashing left and right.

  Prydae dodged back, avoiding one cut, and got his shield out in front to block the second. His arm went numb under the force of the heavy blow, and good luck alone prevented him from having his arm cloven, for the axe crunched right through his wood and leather shield, hooking in place.

  Prydae retracted the shield arm hard, tugging the axe along with it. The powrie started to tug back, but it saw the danger as Prydae stabbed ahead powerfully with his iron-bladed sword.

  Metal rang against metal as the powrie cunningly parried with its free axe. But the dwarf lost its grip on that second, trapped axe, with the prince spinning and tugging it free. Prydae threw his arm out behind him, dropping his shield and hardly interrupting his momentum as he charged forward, stabbing again and again.

  The powrie frantically slashed with its axe, clipping Prydae's sword, though the prince was already retracting it anyway. The powrie managed to retreat enough so that the prince's next strike fell short of the mark.

  More important to Prydae was that he saw his attacks were keeping the dwarf moving and dancing, preventing it from reaching for its third axe that Prydae saw strapped behind its left shoulder. Fortunately, since its left hand was the empty one, the dwarf could not both fight and retrieve the remaining weapon.

  And Prydae was determined not to give the creature a chance. He stepped boldly ahead, and the powrie's axe rang out against his thrusting sword. He stepped and slashed; the powrie darted back to his left, just under the blow, then riposted hard with a slash and back slash of the axe, forcing Prydae to throw back his hips. When the powrie tried to use this apparent opening to toss its axe to its left hand, freeing the right so it could easily reach its other weapon, Prydae came forward again.

  The powrie had barely caught the axe in its left hand. Recognizing its own vulnerability, it simply threw the weapon forward.

  But Prydae didn't flinch, ignoring the dull metallic ring as the axe bounced off his breastplate. The powrie had its right arm back, reaching for the axe, presenting Prydae with a fine opening through the armhole of its jerkin.

  The nobleman warrior took that opening. He slammed in hard against the dwarf, wrapping his free arm around the beast to keep its arm trapped between them, while his sword sank deep through the armpit.

  The pair went down hard, the impact of the ground only furthering the sword's bite. His face barely inches from the powrie's grimace, Prydae heard its growl and groan. He felt the wretched little creature tense beneath him, tightening every one of its muscles as if it meant to simply crush the sword within it!

  And still the powrie growled long and low, a rumbling breath of denial.

  It went on and on and on, and Prydae did not let go, did not lessen the pressure on the stabbing blade. He tried to turn his sword, which brought a different pitch to the powrie's groaning protest, and the vicious dwarf even tried to bite Prydae's face.

  But there was little energy in its lunge, and gradually Prydae felt the powrie's muscles relax. The growling stopped and the dwarf lay very still, eyes wide and staring at Prydae with hatred.

  They were dull eyes, though, with no life behind them.

  Prydae pulled himself off the dwarf and yanked his sword free. He stood and surveyed the area. One fight was still raging, but his soldiers seemed to have it under complete control, with several of the mounted warriors surrounding a single dwarf who already had at least five spears sticking from him.

  "Seven of ten dead, my prince," a soldier reported, trotting his mount up beside the blood-spattered nobleman. A shriek rent the air, and the pair glanced over to see the surrounded powrie finally go down. When it tried to rise, one of the soldiers guided his horse over and had the beast stomp the dwarf flat.

  "Eight," the soldier corrected. "Two have fled to the forest, but we will hunt them down."

  Prydae nodded, then moved toward his abandoned chariot. "And what of my people?"

  The soldier quickly dismounted so that he would be walking beside his prince and not towering above him. "A few minor injuries," he explained. "One man dropped a heavy stone on his foot as he tried to flee. That might be the worst of it. With all the talk of powries of late, the peasants were well prepared to run away."

  "Double the guard a
long the road," Prydae ordered as he reached the back of the chariot. He paused and reconsidered. "Nay, triple it. We have no need for another display of force anytime soon. The peasants understand that we protect them; their complaints will be fewer. So let us dissuade the fierce dwarves or any other monsters that might be about from even beginning such a battle."

  "Aye, my liege."

  Prydae waved the man away and pulled himself up into the chariot. The well-schooled team had not continued after he had leaped from it, nor had they veered off the road. Prydae turned them around until he had them trotting back down the road toward the castle of his father.

  He kept his eyes straight ahead, a look of "royal calm"-as Laird Pryd liked to call it-upon his face as he guided the magnificent chariot past his soldiers and the gathering of appreciative peasants. The soldiers fell into ranks behind him, adding to his splendor; the peasants called his name, cheering.

  Prydae held his royal calm and slowly paced his team past them all. The battle had gone exactly as he had hoped it would. When reliable reports of powries gathering in the area had come to him, along with many reports of grumbling among the workers, he had seen the potential of quelling both problems. And so he had lain in wait with his choice warriors, and with one decisive charge they had defeated the powrie threat as well as the chorus of complaints. And not a soldier was badly injured, and the few injured peasants would likely heal.

  It had been a good day's work. Chapel Pryd, a stone structure that could hold nearly four hundred people in its wide and long nave, was only a short walk from the much more dominating stone structure of the holding, the castle of Laird Pryd itself. But to old Father Jerak, the number of required paces to go from one building to the other seemed greater and greater each day.

  He could count those paces, too, and easily for the increasing stoop of his back had his eyes looking at his feet, and it was only with increasing effort that he was able to look up. He didn't complain, though, as he and Brother Bathelais made their way up the narrow stair to Castle Pryd's portcullis and then past the guard towers and up a longer flight of stairs to the audience halls of the laird, which were set more than halfway up the tall tower that served as the principal keep.