The pieces are set in play, but to what outcome...?
Aona still lay hid in the trees, secret amongst the branches and the shadows. Side by side she and Rhoye had observed the activities of the pirates on the beach below, as the morning relief had ambled forth to find the ship fled from her mooring and had noisily roused the rest; the back and forth of barked orders and griped responses; the hails to the eerie Tambor, all unanswered; the gig run down to the sea, five rescuers rowed out; and all under the command of that tall, bronzed man in the broad, black hat: Gastapar, the freebooter captain. With the number of the foe sized and divided, Rhoye had gestured her to remain hid, and had begun to edge his way down through the trees and underbrush to launch his final gambit. Aona had watched on, anxiously fascinated, as the warrior had prowled closer with the calculated stealth of a predator stalking in ambush of his prey. Even the crabs foraging about his feet had seemed oblivious to his progress, so slow and sure his movements. Yet, she had felt, had but a one of those men stood on the sands turned and looked his way with even a casual eye, they must have surely seen him, with his blaze of red hair and bright gleaming khopesh in his fist, but all were far too preoccupied with the plight of their ship to perceive their own closing peril.
Of a sudden a shout had split the air. Aona’s heart had pounded faster, her first notion that either she or Rhoye had been spotted. But no, that cry had issued from above her, further up the slope of the peak. Tidings that something had been found. Rhoye, hunkered amongst those spiteful crabs, hidden still within the rocks and underbrush inside the treeline, had gestured back to her to keep hid, for he had not yet been within range to strike, and the captain had quit the beach at an urgent clip. They had held fast, as voices had peeled back through the trees. Within a minute the captain had returned, in distempered mien, standing alongside his crewmen as before. Rhoye had then resumed his advance, inching closer, ever closer, itching for the inevitable strike.
Aona’s attention, however, had wandered upslope, in the direction from whence that cry had carried. Loud her heart thundered, threat so raw her fear nigh overwhelming. But Amileo’s smiling face sprang to her inward eye, and she thrilled again with that peculiar impulse which before had girded her, to seek, to find, to know. Gripping tight the scabbard of the rapier Rhoye had entrusted to her care, she rose soft to her feet and stole up through the trees toward that dark, jagged peak.
Thus it was Aona did not see the captain quit the beach a second time even as the gig hoved nigh the shore. Nor did she see the final action of the sellsword’s hunt, his lion sprint across the crab-strewn sands, the rise and fall of that hooked khopesh upon the heads and limbs of three murderers unprepared for their own murder, the spilling of blood, the unbinding of souls. Nor did she see the swift return of the alerted Gastapar, or that ultimate denouement betwixt those rivals, that mortal entertainment enacted for the Gods alone. Aona saw none of this, for her fate was written upon another star.
Climbing up, her courage laced tight to her ribs as if a corset to contain the shudderings of her heart, Aona arrived to a spot where the cover of forest fell away, her clandestine cloak forsaking her, for, bisecting her progress, a well-worn path ribboned upward through the naked rocks. Clutching the scabbard to her chest for comfort, she stepped out the shadows and started up this path, emulating the prowl of the warrior, though softer in her stealth, not sharing his martial confidence.
Ahead, atop the climb, arose a steep flank of cliff with a cave mouth yawned in its face, into which the path plunged, swallowed into the mountain’s belly. Aona cowered low, much afeard, not just due the innate distrust of such an unknown, but because from that maw radiated a nigh tangible dread, like a haze of heat beating forth from a burnt and dimming hearth. Her nerve almost faltered. She was set to steal back to her hiding place, when a man appeared from the mouth of the cave, at a gallop and breathing hard, plain fearful, bent on the escape of something wicked. He arrested his flight, leaning against the rocks, glancing back as if pursued.
Aona crouched, watching, for the man had not noticed her. She regarded him, his every point and particular. Assuredly, she felt, this must be Rhoye’s friend, even to the minutest detail described: a native born of the far land of Illyr, hair of black, eyes of blue and skin of umber. She hesitated, uncertain, for he bore the rough look of one of the freebooters. Yet, did he not seem the sort of fellow with whom the wild warrior would keep company? And, more convincing still, as he gasped down air, she caught sight of the blackened stumps of his teeth: and had not Rhoye said that his friend sported a smile she would not easily mistake?
Aona’s heart soared. She touched her fingertips to her locket and praised the Goddess, for Melitala most sure had smiled upon her, delivering her directly to the ally who would aid her. With a cry she raised up and raced toward him, the sheathed rapier clutched close in her hands.
“I’ve found you!” she cried, fleeing near. “Goddess be blessed!”
Elgwid, for it was he, staggered back a pace, astricken, as if a phantom of the forest had corporeated into existence before his very eyes, and now accosted him in his guilt.
“Mercy alive! Where in the Aether have you sprung from?” he yelped, flinching back a pinch more as she approached.
“Be not fearful,” she said. “I came with your friend. I brought you this.” And she presented him the rapier, with the reverence of a queen to her loyal knight.
All who beheld the innkeeper’s daughter in her everyday bearing recognised her at once to be beautiful, beyond doubt: a treasure of blessed fortune, one would remark, or, wrought fair by the Gods, another would say, or, an ideal that would make one better believe the scriptures divine, would say another, yet all in agreement that, in her, Nature and the sublime artistry of Creation had rendered a portrait of living loveliness quite extraordinary. And now, to Elgwid, superstitious and afeard and made expectant of spirits by the artful provokings of a poet, she materialised before him as a vision beyond the extraordinary, nigh angelic. He knew not what to believe, as if his world entire had capsized and tossed him to gulfs unknown. And as he looked down upon the weapon she had gifted him, which his hands had received from her in involuntary response, the sight only convinced him further: a sword of Illyrian steel, of the land of his birth, such as he had not seen since a boy when his father had marched to war never again to return. Was she a spirit? A fay? An avatar divine? All these thoughts fell upon him at once, a melee of misgivings, though never for a moment did he pause to consider that she might be mere flesh and blood after all, so uncanny did the whole encounter strike him.
“Did you escape from there?” she asked, and to a man starved of feminine kindness and trust almost his whole life, her words, soft as the flutterings of a hummingbird, seemed to him sweet as honey.
“Aye,” all he could manage to stammer.
“What is in there?” she asked, moving past him to peer down into the shadowed maw of tunnel from which he had emerged.
“Don’t go in there,” he warned. “The witch.”
“My father spoke of such a one,” she murmured, that he garnered her meaning not, “the one who made the sleeping draught.”
Aona drew nearer, to the very threshold of the plummet, for she could hear voices echoing from within, of men crying in fear, wails and moans of mortal suffering. And then, singularly clear, she heard a voice she knew well, and had so longed this last moon to hear. Her beloved Amileo.
“We must help them!” she implored. And void of all concept of fear or courage, of strength or weakness, of truth or lie, acting on impulse pure and undilute, Aona raced headlong down the tunnel, toward the terror.
Elgwid stood dumbfounded. That fay vision had fled, hurried on to hazard with the witchwoman, vanished even as swift as she had appeared. He might almost have dismissed all as a waking dream, or some delayed devil of last night’s bottle, except for the blade, heavy and bright and demanding in his hands. He had braved much in his many voyages, storming seas, howling typhoons, thrashing serpents, braying corsairs out for blood, but never aught quite like this. He knew not what to think. He knew not what to do.
Continues Thursday. If you enjoyed this instalment and would like more of the adventures of Rhoye of Khetaine, you might consider taking a look at my book ‘Man of Swords’ available from Amazon as a paperback, hardcover and ebook, or free to read via Kindle Unlimited.
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‘The Isle of the Shrine of the Sick’ning Scarab’ Copyright ©2023 Robert Victor Mills. All rights reserved.