They had found the city in flames, bodies on the streets, and the palace deserted. No-one knew where the queen was hiding. Then Antikas questioned a group of men on the Avenue of Kings. They had seen a wagon leave the palace. A red-headed boy was driving it, and a soldier was riding beside it. There were women in the wagon, and it was heading towards the west gate.
Antikas had split the Twenty into four groups, and sent Vellian to the south.
‘I may not come back, sir,’ he told him. ‘I have a desire to leave the army.’
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Antikas had pondered the statement, then he gestured Vellian to follow him, and rode away from the other soldiers. ‘What is wrong?’ Antikas had asked him.
‘I would say just about everything,’ Vellian told him, sadly.
‘You are referring to the battle.’
‘To the slaughter, you mean? To the treachery.’ He expected Antikas to draw his blade and cut him down, and was surprised when the officer laid a hand upon his shoulder.
‘You are the best of them, Vellian. You are brave and honest, and I value you above all other officers. But you betrayed no-one. You merely obeyed your general. The weight of responsibility is his alone. So I say this to you: Ride south and if you find the queen bring her back to Usa. If you do not find her then go where you will with my blessing. Will you do this? For me?’
‘I will, sir. Might I ask one question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you know of the plan?’
‘I did – to my eternal shame. Now go – and do this last duty.’
An hour of hard riding followed, and then Vellian saw the wagon. As the men had said it was being driven by a youth with red hair. A child was sitting on the seat with him, and in the rear of the wagon were three women.
And one was the queen.
The soldier with them had drawn his sabre.
Keeping his hands on the reins Vellian rode his horse down the slope, and halted before the rider. His men rode alongside him. ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘I am Vellian, sent by the General Antikas Karios to fetch the queen back to her palace. The city is quiet now and the army will be returning before tomorrow to fully restore order.’
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‘An army of traitors,’ said Dagorian, coldly. Vellian reddened.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Now return your sabre to its scabbard and let us be on our way.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Dagorian. ‘The queen is in great danger. She will be safer with me.’
‘Danger from whom?’ asked Vellian, unsure as to how to proceed.
‘The sorcerer, Kalizkan.’
‘Then put your fears at rest, for he is dead, killed in a rock fall.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I am not known as a liar, sir.’
‘Neither am I, Vellian. But I have pledged my life to protect the queen. This I will do. You ask me to turn her over to you. Did you not pledge your life to protect her husband the king?’ Vellian said nothing. ‘Well,’ continued Dagorian, ‘since you failed in that I see no reason to trust you now.’
‘Do not be a fool, man. You may be as skilled as Antikas himself with that sabre, but you cannot beat five of us. What is the point then of dying, when the cause is already lost?’
‘What is the point of living without a cause worth dying for?’ countered Dagorian.
‘So be it,’ said Vellian, sadly. ‘Take him!’
The four riders drew their sabres. Dagorian gave out a yell and slapped the flat of his sabre on his horse’s flanks. The beast leapt forward, straight into the group. One horse went down, two others reared. Swinging his mount Dagorian slashed his sabre across the shoulder of the nearest rider. The blade sank deep, then sang clear. Vellian stabbed at him, but Dagorian parried the thrust, sending a counter strike that sliced across Vellian’s chest,
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cutting through his tunic and opening a shallow wound.
A rider moved in behind Dagorian, his sabre raised.
An arrow pierced the man’s temple, pitching him from the saddle.