The Jack of Souls (Multi-award winner!)

Chapter 24c - Trickery & Guile

Caris and Harric flew down the stairs and out the back door, but Brolli did not follow them out. Harric paused, letting Caris lumber up the hill for her horse, and peered back through the door in time to see the Kwendi slip into the kitchen.

"Brolli!" he called.

The Kwendi's head reappeared in the dim light from the kitchen. "Must not still sleeping," he said, then vanished.

Willard rode Molly and the two other horses up the road into the canyon, muffled hoof beats thrumming from the walls.

Harric left the back door and followed, only to meet the pungent stink of Phyros dung on the air. He cursed. A dark pile lay in the midst of the road like a "Willard Went This Way" sign.

He gritted his teeth and scooped the steaming clods in both hands, and tossed them into the hungry river that ran beside the road.

Brolli loped up with a chuckle. "They say Phyros shit give special power."

"Yeah. Makes your crap immortal."

Hoof beats clattered beyond the wall. A dozen riders, perhaps. A harsh, deep-throated horn blasted and reverberated from the rocks.

"Bannus," said Harric. "That's the sound of Krato's Moon."

He ran with Brolli to a vantage on the road above the fortress. Together they climbed a boulder to peer back. Their vantage was about even in elevation with the tops of the gatehouse wall, which was high enough to see some of the turnabout, but not high enough to see Bannus on Gygon before the gate. The sound of the falls was a faint grumble at this distance, but moon-pinked mist still rose beyond the parapets.

Movement on the walls. The parapet door opened and a handful of men appeared, hiding behind crenellations and peeking out at the commotion below. At least one, Harric guessed, was on his way to the pigeon cote to pen an urgent message.

Bannus's graveled voice sounded beyond the wall. "Open these gates! Open in the name of Prince Jamus, Royal Sun of Arkendia, House Pellion, last of the True Kings in this broken land."

Pellion. Harric thought. So Pellion is Bannus's master again. His mother's mnemonics came reflexively to mind.

House Pellion Lingers

Last Sun to Shine

Turned Coats in the Cleansing

Preserving Their Line.

Immortal Lord Jormus

Grandsire of That Stock,

Sir Bannus's Master

In Pellion Rock.

Jormon His Son

Fathered Three Princely Lords

Joff, Jothry and Jamus,

One daughter called Jordes.

It was the third grandson, then - Jamus - holding Bannus's leash. Jamus would be the prince that came to Gallows Ferry the night he fled, and the one Mother Ganner told him of.

"Greeting, Great One," a guard called down to Bannus. "What service can we render ye?"

"You can open your bloody gates, you dog. We seek a peasant priest, and a Phyros-rider, to face the justice of their peers."

"I wish you fortune in it, Great Sir. But we haven't seen another man pass here since spring. And I wish I could open the gate, but it's sealed and locked and we ain't trusted with the key. That comes with the harvesters next time the Bright Mother's full, so anybody'd have to build a winch to get a horse across, unless you come back then. That's how chary the Queen is of her resin, Sir: she don't want none of us selling access to the crop."