The Dawn of Unions Read online

  The Dawn of Unions

  BY

  JP Corwyn

  The Dawn of Unions

  By JP Corwyn © 2019

  www.jpcorwyn.net

  First published 2019.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places, and events are either

  the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Credits:

  Editor - Lauren Xena Campbell

  Copy Editor - Gwen Hernandez

  Cover Artist – Jeff Brown

  Contents

  Title Page

  Prelude

  Chapter 1: SPARKS BEFORE STORMWINDS

  CHAPTER 2:

  OF DUST AND IRON

  CHAPTER 3:

  OF SILVER AND BLOOD

  CHAPTER 4:

  A FORCED MARCH THROUGH MEMORY

  CHAPTER 5:

  THE RED FOG OF EASTSHADOW

  CHAPTER 6:

  PUPPETS, PYRES, AND PATTERNS

  EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  Prelude

  ONE

  A golden hour beneath the sun,

  A final foe, the battle won,

  When every surfaced gleamed with light,

  We stood in triumph then,

  But now, as twilight calls the moon,

  And tries to sing an ender’s tune,

  Surrounded by the eyes of night,

  Come stand with me again,

  For if this is our final hour,

  Then let us greet the Coach devour,

  Surrounded by the eyes of night,

  Come stand with me again,

  With sword in hand, and spear behind,

  Come stand with me again.

  He unconsciously slowed his steps so the bag of horseshoes bounced against his hip in time with the rhythms of the song. The leather of the bag he’d slung over his shoulder did an excellent job of muffling the clink jag-jag clink of the iron shoes as they knocked and slid against one another.

  You see, Raun? He grinned to himself. I can play an instrument. Just not one they’d clamor for in a noble’s hall.

  He hummed along as he strode toward the group of fellow armsmen singing on the other side of the barn. He wouldn’t have time to finish his chore and join them before the song was over, but never mind. There was work to be done. He’d have time to relax once it was sorted. Besides, even if he didn’t manage to get to one of the bardic circles before they left tomorrow, he’d have two days in the saddle, a night around the fire, and nearly a week in Westsong to hear Raun perform or sing himself hoarse, arm in arm with the others.

  He came to a stop alongside one of the stable boys - though perhaps it would be more appropriate to refer to this one as a stable hand, given his boyhood looked to still be standing some sixteen summers back up the hourglass – half-heartedly brushing down one of the Countess’s team of coach horses.

  Greggor had spent a year teaching him how to read people by watching them. Though he’d enjoyed the games immensely, the lessons had stopped abruptly on his fourteenth birthday. Those lessons had been given a special place in his memory, alongside those his father had taught him before he’d passed – they were always within easy reach and recall.

  Employing them now, however, he saw something that didn’t much please him. As near as he could tell; the stable hand was paying far more attention to Raun’s song then he was to his work. He was half-humming, half-singing along with the song, misquoting the words in a strew of not-quite nonsense words, and wearing a curiously child-like expression on his sharp-featured face.

  Arounded by the rise of Knights,

  Come stand ee’up again,

  He might have let it go – might have even done the work for him if he’d had the time, just to keep things moving along at an even pace. Everyone had moments like that, after all. Given the Countess’s departure in the morning, however, there simply wasn’t time for the luxury of laziness.

  You must always strive to be the bridge, Greggor used to say. Figure out what your goal is. Once you have, remember it, and make certain you always act in service to that goal. When trying to bring hearts and minds on-side, you can either pass the mug or punch the jaw. It's down to you to figure out which one's best in a given moment.

  “Brought you some shoes,” he said. He unslung the bag from over his left shoulder, turned to the right, and took the necessary two strides to lay it atop the nearby wooden table.

  "Nay, nay, nay, Kaith! Won't be needing any new shoes today thank'ee very much," His voice was high and somewhat nasally. "No need of new shoes for, oh, 'nother month or so, I sh'think!" He spoke in the inch-thick brogue of the peasantry – a mixture of shortened and unlikely compound words whose first syllables were often swallowed whole in great gusts of rapid speech. The tone used to deliver this cheerful rebuke was full of slightly condescending good humor. The man brushed a hand that looked far too clean for the amount of work his day should be downstream from through the lick of pale brown hair that crowned his head, then went right on humming and half-heartedly brushing the horse's coat.

  “No,” Kaith’s voice was mild. “I thought that too up until this morning.”

  The stable hand scowled but kept right on humming and sing-songing.

  “I made my rounds, spoke to the cartwright, and went with him to inspect the coach. Took a look at horses and tack while I was at it. We found a few nails that needed replacing. He had an order waiting for him, so I picked up fresh ones at old Toby Smithson’s forge.”

  “Nice a’ya.” The hand’s grunt was as much sarcasm as anything else. “What’s it t’do with mi horses?”

  Kaith bit back his initial reaction. They most certainly weren’t this man’s horses, though Kaith knew lots of folk who worked on other people’s property for a living and tended to view their business that way.

  "It's been a dry season," Kaith answered the man's question as diplomatically as he could, continuing in that same mild, just-passing-the-time tone of voice. "No standing water in the pastures to risk ruining hooves. Most of them should be fine, but two of her Excellency's horses need new shoes on both forelegs. I thought I'd save you the trouble, just as I saved Arlic Cartwright the same, and bring you fresh shoes to settle things before we ride out in the morning." He waited just a moment before finishing, "I've even brought you my tools to help speed up the work.”

  Everything stopped all at once. Raun ended his song, the four or five other arms-men who had been singing along with him were caught in that magical moment before applause or cheers might break out (the silence that only a truly moving performance can ever really call forth from fighting men), and the stable hand stopped his halfhearted brushing to look greedily over his shoulder at Kaith.

  “Y’mean yer Da’s old tools? The ones with Sunburst on em?”

  Kaith fought against a grin. It wasn't as if his father's blacksmithing tools afforded their wielders some special knowledge or ability to work metal. Nor did his ferrying tools serve to calm an otherwise skittish horse while new shoes were applied. Still; a master's tools, regardless of what craft they were tied to, did make the tasks of that craft slightly easier. They often spend the workup by the sheer nature of their efficiency. They also seemed to either inspire or embolden the novice fortunate enough to wield them. Kaith reckoned it was the tradesman's equivalent of a boy walkin
g around in his father's boots. Using a master's tools just made you feel, well, like a master.

  “The very ones,” Kaith said, nodding. “If you’d like help, I’m happy to lend a hand, but I suspect you have a better idea of what you’re about than I do.” In truth, Kaith rather doubted that. Under his father’s watchful eye, he’d been making nails and shoes almost since he could first hold a hammer, and he’d been affixing them to a horse’s hooves since he was old enough to not be scared of the giant beasts.

  Fighting back the urge to smile in triumph, he was inwardly pleased to see he’d gauged the situation rightly. This had been the time to pass the mug, not to punch the jaw.

  “Nay, nay, nay, Kaith, I won’t be needing help from’ee,” he paused, forcing his face to release the scowl it’d begun to wield. “Show me which two horses, and I’ll get th’work done.”

  Kaith nodded, his chin dipping down far enough to be, he hoped, deferential. Raun had begun to voyage on his next performance. Kaith knew it, but couldn’t have requested it by name. Gold and Glory? Something like that, at any rate.

  There's a hold neath the hill,

  Where the sons of dead soldiers

  Do get drawn down the red ruined road

  Where the ghosts of the gone-sires,

  Fight and fear they’re forgotten

  So at glory they grasp, not at gold,

  Kaith shook his head to clear it of the imagery, then turned his attention back to the stable hand. He had just opened his mouth to name the horses in question when a young, uneven voice called his name. Surprised and delighted, he turned to look back over his shoulder, his face already splitting into a sunny grin.

  Wrapped in the sort of embroidered finery that only the nobility could ever really afford, a youth of fifteen or sixteen who had just about grown into his limbs came striding easily along the length of the stable. His dark brown hair hung in careless bangs, naturally waving off to one side.

  “Mi,” the stable hand began, voice fighting the tide that dragged it back to its simpering, I’m a good servant, master, truly, voice. “Mi’Lord,” he managed, bowing.

  “Well now,” Kaith began in a hearty, chiding tone, “Young master Robis of Wick! What a decided pleasure it is to see you again, my Lord! Tell me how this humble groom can be of assistance to your good self?”

  This last sentence came directly on the heels of the one before. Kaith’s exaggerated and gently mocking courtesy, causing the younger boy-not-quite-man to smile with genuine good humor, and the stable hand to gasp in shocked incomprehension.

  The youth sped up his last few strides and nearly tackled Kaith in a brief, fierce embrace. The sudden movement evinced a deep, uncertain wickering from the mount the stable hand had been half-heartedly attending, and a single stomp for good measure. Robis pulled back from the contact almost as quickly and as fiercely as he’d initiated it, though he gripped both of Kaith’s shoulders as he withdrew. He shook Kaith for a moment, eyes wide, mouth still wearing that bright and honest smile.

  Kaith laughed at the assault, gripped the youth’s shoulders in response, squeezed once, then took a step back: still grinning.

  “I hear you and Sir Cedric’s men took the prize at the Northern Marches’s tournament last month.”

  “Yes!” Robis’s voice performed a few acrobatic leaps between child and manhood in his excitement. “It’s all because of you! You’re my secret weapon! Everything - everything you said was right! Nobody’d ever explained it like that before! Not my brother, nor my father, nobody!”

  Kaith shook his head, blushing in spite of himself.

  “Don’t go blaming me for your good fortune, Robis. You did all the-”

  “Overthinking? Drowning in my own thoughts? If it hadn’t been for you explaining it so plainly I never would’ve gotten it straight.”

  “I hear you were shouting orders and calling cadence the entire time, almost from the Marshall’s first call of lay on. I was sad not to have made the trip, but the Countess had other duties for me here in the capital." Valgar'd been good enough to give him a full report, and he'd been proud of Robis's obvious improvement.

  “I was! And that’s my point. Until you told me it was all right to give an order when nobody else was giving one…” His face grew suddenly serious. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to about. I’m still saying it wrong. I’m doing it right – executing the lessons you taught me, but I can’t speak them clearly enough to teach others.”

  Kaith saw another young man back at the entrance to the stable from whence Robis had come. The two could’ve been the same age, or perhaps a year separated them. In stark contrast to Robis, however, the lingering newcomer looked absolutely uncertain as to whether or not he should be there.

  “Forgive me, may I have your name?”

  Kaith turned to see Robis was addressing the room's only other human occupant: the same stable hand he'd been speaking to. For his life, he couldn't remember the man's name. He'd been hoping it would come to him over the course of the conversation, as such things often did.

  “Ryko, mi’Lord. Gyfet Ryko, if it please you, sire.”

  “Guy-fett Rye-ko,” Robis repeated, taking care to pronounce each syllable correctly. “Are you a friend of Kaith’s, then?”

  Ryko took a moment to look sidelong at Kaith, calculating. In a slow, resigned voice he answered, "Nay, mi Lord. I'm just a humble stable hand. Kaith here was kind enough to bring me some fresh horseshoes to change out before your journey tomorrow and to lend me his father's tools to help me along my way. He's just that sort, is our Kaith. Always happy to lend a hand." He finished this improbable sermon to Kaith's virtue with an almost convincing hunch-shouldered smile.

  Robis nodded as if he understood. He took a moment to consider, then seemed to make up his mind.

  “Well, if Kaith is willing to lend you his father’s tools, he must think highly of you.” As Ryko bowed his head and began to show signs of a startlingly convincing blush, Robis continued. “I need to borrow him for a short while. I do hope that’s all right.”

  “Give me just a moment, Robis. I’ll meet you and your,” he paused before offering a guess, “…cousin?”

  Robis’s grin made another appearance. He seemed to be doing a lot of that today.

  “Lanwreigh of Eastshadow,” said he. “Sir Cedric’s son.”

  Kaith nodded his head and mouthed an “Ah,” before adding, “I won’t be a minute.”

  Robis nodded and turned to walk back the way he’d come.

  “S’not right,” Ryko murmured.

  “What isn’t?”

  “Y’giving advice to boys like that.” For a wonder; Ryko sounded earnest, rather than simpering or petulant. “They're destined for greatness. Both of them are heirs to noble families, both will be knighted, and both will hold the lives of men like’ee and me in their hands.”

  “What of it?” Kaith was genuinely confused by this suddenly solicitous version of Ryko. “I’ve not taught him anything new. Just the ebb and flow of melee combat. It’s the same thing his father, brother, and other armsmen have taught him since he was old enough to hold a practice sword. I just taught it in a way that made more sense to him …different words, different examples, same lessons.”

  "Yer'a groom, aren't you? Ee've no business teaching noble lordlings how'd behave, on or off the field. Certainly, have no business being embraced by them." He shrugged one shoulder, looking away. "If ee'd known 'em since ee's a boy, or a babe'n arms, that might be another thing, but he's from far afield, ain'tee? Wick, was it?" When Kaith nodded a confirmation, Ryko finished his train of thought. "We're n'close, you and I, but I'd not see'ee hanged f'corrupting a noble's get, less o'course ee'd done it. Just…" He trailed off. For a long moment, it looked as if he'd chosen to leave the matter there, but at length, he seemed to decide to press on to the end. "Just keep your distance in public places, is all. Watch yourself, or ye'll wind up swinging f'nothing more than a careless, harmless moment."

 
; Kaith was thunderstruck. In truth, he wasn't certain what surprised him more - the idea that such a simple act of affectionate camaraderie might lead to his death and trouble for Robis or the fact that, of all people, Ryko was the one offering the warning.

  After a moment, Kaith nodded, told the man which two horses needed re-shodding, and began walking toward Robis and, apparently, the heir to the house of Eastshadow.

  ✽✽✽

  TWO

  Kaith exited the long stable complex back the way he’d come. He saw the two youths waiting some two or three yards away, leaning against the paddock fence. They were caught in a broad beam of sunlight as it pierced the patchy gray clouds above, and for just a moment, the pair of them looked closer to ten or eleven than the reality of their middle teens.

  Robis put an arm around Lanwreigh's shoulders and turned him bodily, as if against his will so that they were both facing the small remuda of chargers lazily cropping grass beyond the fence. Robis had Lanwreigh by two or perhaps three inches in height, and the pair were at an age where height still mattered. Lanwreigh was a touch broader of chest, however. He also had a shock of raven's-wing black hair crowning his head - a mark of the Venzene heritage carried on his father's side through the past two, perhaps three generations.

  Kaith saw Lanwreigh’s smile come bursting out from the uncertain expression he’d worn both in the stables and as Robis had turned him. He reckoned it was the horses. The boy’s father, Sir Cedric of Eastshadow, was well known to be a fierce combatant on horseback. Kaith suspected his sons were all but bred to the saddle.

  “My Lords?” Kaith offered as he neared them. “What can I do to help?”

  Robis was still grinning, turning Lanwreigh one more time to face Kaith more directly before dropping the arm from around his shoulder. He took a single half step toward Kaith and reached his right arm out, this time, gripping Kaith’s shoulder as he turned back to Lanwreigh.