A Din of Battle Bray

Prince Rhowyn had seen the world turn through four full seasons and fully four again. His years numbered four and ten on the eve of his wedding. The Lady Caitlyn Louisa was an elfin faced child of eleven. A rose still yet in bud.

It was sooner than anyone had expected.

A raven of ill omen had reached Castellayne. The duke's health was failing. A cancer of the blood, thought his Grace's physician.

Prince Rhowyn's coronation would follow immediately after the marriage.

A bitter sweet occasion, followed as it would be by Don Sebastian's funeral. Of that, his Grace's physician had written, there could be no doubt. It was only a matter of how soon after.

Rhowyn and Alejandro had been at the court of Kaldiz for some six months. There had been a short tour of the nearest of Navarre's noble houses. Others had made the journey to meet and speak with Rhowyn. Still others wouldn't get their first glimpse of the future duke until the wedding.

The Skraaal settlement of Navarre's southern frontier, an expanse of flat-topped mountains and river gorged canyons, populated by nomadic tribes of goat herders who grazed their flocks on thorned acacia trees, hadn't gone as well as some might have hoped.

The Skraaal were accused of abducting small children to feed to their spiders. It wasn't true. Yet the rumours and superstitions persisted. No blood was spilled. The Skraaal numbered legion. The goat herders fewer than five hundred, armed with stones and sharpened sticks. Goat herders they might be: Stupid they were not.

The Skraaal built low walled dams, channelling the rivers to irrigate their fields and new planted orchards. Come first harvest, they shared the fruits of their labours with the mountain tribes.

All this Saaal Soool told Prince Rhowyn at the wedding feast. Did it help? Asked Rhowyn. Who'd never been a fan of vegetables.

The prince was dressed in the sunflower yellow of Rhealmyrr. His bride wore the red and white of Navarre. With them at the high table sat the archer in green.

None of the guests seemed surprised by his being there. Certainly not King Robin or Queen Saavi. And not the duke, or his son, Alejandro.

Knowing he would get no answers from his father, Rhowyn nudged the wizard, Aldhyrwoode.

What's going on? He asked, nodding toward the far end of the table and the warden of the north.

Have you tried the roast swan? Said the wizard. It's delicious. Not too dry.

I don't like dry swan.

Before Rhowyn could press any further, Bearskinner and Harald were pounding their tankards on the table.

Speech! Speech!

A toast! A toast!

Don Sebastian rose unsteadily to his feet. To my grandson and his beautiful young wife!

TO THE DUKE AND DUCHESS!

There was music and dancing. Queen Saavi chose that moment to put the two year old Princess Marisanne to bed. The archer came and stood behind Rhowyn's chair, his hands on the newly crowned Duke of Navarre's shoulders.

Rhowyn invited him to sit. My mother will not return, he said.

You're wondering why I'm here.

You're welcome, of course, said Rhowyn graciously. But, yes.

Now is not the time, said the archer. Look for me on the Island Of Bones.

And with that he stood, bowed to Prince Rhowyn and the Lady Caitlyn, bowed to King Robin, spoke to Aldhyrwoode, said something to Don Sebastian and Alejandro, that was for their ears only, and was gone.

The seasons passed, and passed again, as seasons do. Rhowyn grew tall and straight, his shoulders broadened, his chest deepened, and the first shadow of a beard gave Lady Caitlyn cause to complain that his stubble scratched her whenever they made love. Which they did often. And why not? They were young. The passions of youth are seldom quelled.

Time did not shamble decrepit for them, like the old man some believed it to be, but sped, winged of foot, always a step ahead in the dance.

Of the archer there was no word. He did not return to Navarre. And his duty in the north kept him away from Castellayne. If Rhowyn still wondered at the mystery of the hooded man, he did so rarely, and never for long. No one had heard of an Island Of Bones. Not even Bjern Bearskinner, who had sailed as far north as the snow bear glaciers, east to the jade palaces of Qin Xa, south until the leopard men of Zuul haunted verdant jungles, and west to where ochre and clay striped warriors drove herds of strange beasts over the edges of cliffs.

But then came the rising.

Reft of a crown:

He yet may share the feast.

Heard ye the din of battle bray;

Lance to lance and horse to horse?

Long years of havoc urge their destined course... *

Down from the mist shrouded mountains skirled the clans and their chieftains. United in revolt. The wardens of the north, who numbered less than five score and ten, couldn't hold them. Towns and hamlets and homesteads all along the river Tor were put to the sword. Wheat to the scythe. The Sheriff of Torstone died defending the two towers. Fractious lords and knights who'd chafed at King Robin's rule joined their arms to the clans.

King Robin assembled his forces. Five hundred men of the castle guard and five hundred knights of Rhealmyrr rode north from Castellayne under streaming pennants of swallow-tailed sunflower yellow. With them were a thousand of Navarre's finest, led by the young duke, in surcoats of quartered red and white on matching caparisoned mounts. First and .foremost of these was the blood red knight and Marshall of Navarre, Don Alejandro.

The Skraaal were farmers, not soldiers, and yet Saaal Soool had brought fully seven hundred spider lords to Robin's cause.

Seven hundred more in blue, men armed with pikes and crossbows, marched with Sir Roger of Delthemyrr.

The two armies clashed in a field of meadow flowers. Not far from The Greenwoode. King Robin was lost in the clamour and clang of the melee.

Clansmen hewed through the spiders' legs with swords and axes. And the great beasts were felled. Their riders hacked to pieces.

Vermin flensed the flesh from the dead and the dying. Carrion crows stabbed with sharp beaks, squabbling over the choicest parts. The corpses piled higher and higher. Stacked one upon the other - An island of bones in an ocean of blood.

Rhowyn saw Saaal Soool cut in half by the vicious sweep of a scythe.

Alejandro was the last to die. Skewered through the neck by a spear.

Rhowyn found him later, cradled in the arms of the green archer.

Who are you? He asked. To mourn him so? You hold him like a father would hold a son.

No father, said the archer. An uncle. Sebastian was my brother.

Then... Why?

Why are you the duke and not I? There was a woman, once. A long time ago. We both fell in love with her. We quarrelled. I knew if I stayed that one of us would kill the other. So I sought solace in exile.

You foresaw this... This Island Of Bones. How? In a dream?

The archer shook his head. A nightmare. It is my curse.

Rhowyn went down on one knee and held Alejandro's hand.

I loved him, he said.

And wept.

Rhowyn!

Father?

Rhowyn!

Father!

King Robin came stumbling, leaning on Sir Roger.

He had lost his helm, and his face was a mask of blood.

Gore splattered his armour.

But he was alive.

The day was theirs.