Vhamnya's Tale: Rise of a Dark Queen - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Prince Phyllip let Vhamnya ride before him on his steed. The saddle was too wide for her little legs, and the steel of his cuirass and thigh-plates bit into her back and hips, but she did not mind. Whatever cruelty he carried in his heart, during their first meeting she felt it melt away. He would not hurt her. Maybe she could convince him not to give her away.

The Prince made her mother ride in the cage during the day, but at night he set Rennyae free and let her and Vhamnya sleep in the tent beside him. As always, Rennyae calmed in her daughter's presence. He marveled how the small dark girl and the madwoman embraced, how Rennyae brought her mother supper, and how the girl washed her and led her to bed. He even let the girl come into his tent when he met with his captains, while they discussed their strategy.

Once, she hopped upon the bench beside him at pointed at the papers. "What is that?"

"This is a map," he answered. "It shows us where we are."

Vhamnya studied the drawings: green of land, blue of lakes and rivers, towers for castles and cities. "Where are we?"

"We are here." He pointed to a spot marked with three towers beside the wide blue blot of the sea, and the letters beside them: "Do you know what this says?"

"Azpat!" she chirped.

"Very good." He chuckled. "We are just a little ways from there, and I am from here." He pointed to another threesome of towers, titled Aquilea. "That's where we want to return. It lies in the south, a week's march from here.

"The only problem," he added, "is that Azpat's army now stands between us and home. I snuck around them to reach you, but now they're wise to us. They have more soldiers than we, which is a shame." He sighed. "So we shall retreat this way." His finger traced a river westward to another tower: "Toward Kyrashayr. There hopefully we will find allies. With them we can turn on the Azpatians and win our way home."

So Prince Phyllip's army packed its tents and headed westward. Vhamnya found the travel bumpy, teeth-jarring, wearisome, but exhilarating. She had never seen so many men, so many horses, oxen, and donkeys. Even the road's mud and the stench of their manure proved new. At times to their right, on the northern flank, she caught glimpses of the great River Shayr they followed. To the south she saw the dark row of trees. It reminded her of the forest she could see from afar, from the abbey's window, where she had imagined wandering.

From Prince Phyllip's saddled she pointed to it: "What's that?"

"That's the Darkeave," he answered. "A great forest."

"Can we go there?" she asked.

He ruffled her hair. "You wouldn't want to, girl. It's all wilderness, and the things that dwell there you wouldn't like."

"Like what?"

He laughed. "Let's not worry about that."

Prince Phyllip told her when they neared Kyrashayr, but instead of the news making him happy, he grew angry instead. Vhamnya stuck her head under the tent flap and listened while he argued with the heralds who arrived. Apparently, Azpat had sent messages ahead, telling Kyrashayr what the Prince had done. Azpat was unhappy he had attacked the abbey and killed the priests, and Kyrashayr agreed with them. When Phyllip threatened battle, the Kyrashayran army retreated to a great castle on the river. The City of Kyrashayr itself stood on the river's other bank, surrounded by more walls with more soldiers. Then they shut their doors.

With the Azpatians worrying their heels, Prince Phyllip turned his army southward. Again the Darkeave hove near, only this time they were heading straight toward the forest. Vhamnya watched it eagerly, even as the Prince, his captains, and all his men grew angrier. She wondered that maybe they could slip into the forest and hide.

One evening, she left her tent and went into the Prince's. He sat at a table; a half-full bottle of brandy and an empty cup in his hands. Vhamnya smelled a taint about him, almost like illness. He lifted his head at her entrance and, for the first time ever, glared and muttered.

Vhamnya walked to him and laid her hand on his arm. "Have I been naughty?" she asked.

Slack-jawed, he stared, and then shook a film from his mind. "No," he sighed, "though it looks like I am ready to pay a dear price for taking you."

She laid her head on his arm. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." He bent down and kissed her head. "I knew what I was doing when I started. If you want to do great things in this life, then you must risk greatly. I wanted to found an empire and be as great a ruler as any who had ever lived. I thought your friends would help me."

She lifted her head. "My friends?"

"The folk who made you," he explained.

"They're not my friends!" snapped Vhamnya.

Her blue eyes shone so forcefully that he Prince leaned away. "Forgive me," he said hastily and sat her on his knee. "I keep forgetting you're just a little girl. "All this," he waved at the tent, the army, and himself: "means nothing to you. All you want is to be with your mother and grow as a child. We're just using you for our own selfish ends." He snorted: "And to think we call you evil."

Vhamnya frowned. She did not understand.

Just then Rennyae entered the tent. She looked wildly from her daughter to the Prince. Vhamnya stood. "Let's go to bed, mother." She went forward and took her mother's hand.

"No. Stay," bade the Prince.

Vhamnya looked at him. As he gazed at her mother, something not quite cruel, but hungrier, rose within his soul. Vhamnya watched as he came near, took his mother's hand, and led her to the table, where he poured her some brandy. She saw the shadow of her beauty filling his eyes, feeding the hunger within him. She stood by Rennyae and laid her head on her arm while they talked, while he made her mother promises that Vhamnya knew were lies. Even stranger, her mother wanted to believe the lies.

The adults sent Vhamnya bemused back to her tent. She pretended to sleep, but lay awake and listened to her mother's cries, the Prince's groans, and the other sounds thumping moistly from his tent. Her young mind tried to fathom their union, how desire drove their abandon both of reason and wariness, and she remembered the bad men and women who had first owned her. She hoped she would never fall prey to this lust.

As their gasps finally quietened, something new seethed on the night's breeze. It gathered further off, like the red light of fire just out of sight. Vhamnya stirred and understood it was anger. She went to the tent's flap and peeked outward. Away from the Prince's tent, out where the soldiers and men-at-arms camped, she spotted figures moving, shaking fists, arguing. As softly as a black mouse she stole out, crept near and listened to voices talking at once:

"Azpat cuts us off, and then Kyrashayr denies us. The Count v'Thalansha refused our call. Where will we go next?"

"We're trapped here against the wilderness! No supplies and no way home! Surely we'll die here!"

"All this so the Prince could have his prize: a witch-born girl and a madwoman?! Shall we die for that on the battlefield tomorrow or go to the heretic's stake?!"

Vhamnya ran back, straight to the Prince's tent. The guards half-stepped to halt her, but she had come and gone so many times, and they knew her mother lay within. They moved too late while the small dark girl ducked through. She rushed to the back and leapt onto the bed, where slept her mother and the Prince. He awoke at once, drawing a dagger from underneath his pillow. In the gloom he bleared at Vhamnya's silhouette.

"They're coming!" shrilled Vhamnya.

Phyllip rushed to don his breeches and doublet, grabbed his sword, and ran out, leaving Rennyae and her daughter. They crept to their tent and dressed.

Vhamnya tried to wait at the tent flap, where she could look outside, but Rennyae kept pulling her back inside. Her mother would not stop rocking and moaning. So eventually the girl would shrug off her mother's arms and creep back to the front. From afar she heard the clash of blade on armor. The voices loudened in shouting. Then a group of men-at-arms snuck up on a patrol as it marched by. They swung poleaxes into their backs, swarmed around them, and cut them down, right before the women's tent. Then they fled as another patrol neared and challenged them.

The confused fighting continued until sunrise, when in the distance trumpets rang. Suddenly all the soldiers began running in different directions; some toward the trumpets, others away, all shouting:

"Azpat! Azpat is coming!"

Down the lane of tents Vhamnya spotted Prince Phyllip. He was running toward the women's tent, followed by a gang of soldiers, though whether he was running with them or from them the girl could not tell. She realized her mother had come up and knelt beside her, likewise watching the Prince's flight. As he neared, another gang wheeled forth and blocked his path. They brandished war-axes and roared challenge. While the blades lifted and fell, Vhamnya lost sight of him.

Rennyae grabbed her daughter's arm. "Come!" she hissed. They ran through the tents, away from the fight. Nobody stopped them as they fled outward to the camp's edge.

Out beyond the camped loomed trees high and dark; limbs heavy with needled boughs. Vhamnya's eyes widened at the forest's sight. Her nape tightened, half in fear at this place where everyone had struggled to keep her away from, but she did not slow. She kept running, gasping, holding her mother's hand. Mother and daughter passed the outlying trees, and then passed beneath the darkening eaves. Overhead, the sky faded from sight.

Continued in Chapter 4

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