——— 3 ———

⁠—⁠—⁠— III ⁠—⁠—⁠—

Rinda’s scream shot out across the water. In shock she let go of the rail and covered her face with her hands.

“Fool!” Guin reprimanded her even as he thrust the pole vigorously through the water behind them  “Never let go of the rail! Grab on with both hands or you’ll be knocked over!”

“And I’d say that thing’s mouth is big enough for you!” Istavan added in a shout. The mercenary was himself holding the rail with one hand, his sword gripped firmly in the other. His eyes were fixed on the creature coming towards them through the water at full speed.

And what a creature it was! Rinda didn’t have to look twice to see why it was called a “bigmouth.” Indeed, the thing was only that: a giant, living mouth! When it opened wide its maw it was nearly two yards across, broad enough to swallow either of the twins whole. And the teeth! Row upon row of sharp daggers gleamed like those in the murderous jaws of a Lentsea shark.

Yet even more disturbing than the maw itself was the lack of anything behind it. For where there should have been a body⁠—a head, fins, a tail⁠—there was absolutely nothing. The whole of the bigmouth seemed to be those snapping, slavering jaws. It was a minion of Doal come into the world to sate a bottomless appetite for destruction.

Rinda trembled, her mouth gaping as she stared at the nightmarish monstrosity. The mouth shook almost as if in a rage as it bore down upon them. Every time it snapped its jaws shut, water jetted out in its wake in a spray of white foam. This was how it moved, Rinda realized. By spurting out water behind itself in one direction, it virtually ate its way through the river in the other!

Worse yet, every time the creature gulped, the waves it created rocked the raft violently, forcing those aboard to grip the rails with desperation as their foothold tilted precariously under them.

“Guin! No!” Rinda’s scream could barely be heard over the crash of a sudden wave that surged across the deck, sweeping Guin’s feet out from under him. He had been wielding the raft-pole with both hands, relying only on his preternatural sense of balance to keep his footing.

Luckily, the waves had pushed the small craft closer to the east bank of the river, where the channel was not so deep.

Though his feet were in the air, Guin found the rocky bottom with his pole, and thrusting it downwards he used it as a pole-vaulter would, sending his massive body back through the air with surprising grace. He landed squarely on the raft again, still carrying the pole that was their only means of piloting their vessel.

“Guin!” Remus’ cry of relief was choked with tears.

“It’s coming!” the Crimson Mercenary shouted out in warning. “Hold on tight, and flatten yourselves to the deck! If you don’t want to die, you’ll keep your heads down. I’ll slice that Doal-spawned thing in half if it’s the last thing I do!”

The creature lunged!

The jaws snapped, sending water spraying in all directions. The monster’s hunger was almost palpable; clearly its intent was to knock its prey off the sturdy raft into the water, where it could feed at its leisure.

“Look out!” Istavan shouted and swung his blade through the air. But the wave of water that the creature sent before it smashed into him with full force. He did not drop his sword, but he was forced to lunge for the rail and hold on for dear life lest he be swept over the side.

Rinda’s screams rose above the rushing waves. She had pressed herself to the deck, hanging on to the rail as she had been instructed, but when the disgusting monstrosity snapped its jaws right above her head, she looked up⁠—and saw there, peering out from within its gaping maw, a small pair of eyes that looked straight at her, shining with primal hatred. Rinda had had the best tutors in all fields, but never had she heard of a beast that kept all of its sensory organs inside its mouth!

Its strange body structure only made the monster’s attacks all the more viciously accurate. As the bigmouth flew up out of the water, over the heads of Istavan and the twins, it twisted in mid-air. Trailing a stream of water, it lunged straight for the warrior Guin, who was still manning the pole at the stern.

The creature’s chosen prey did not stand there waiting to be eaten. Guin swung the long raft-pole up into the air, and as the bigmouth descended on him, he swiftly thrust the pole into its jaws. The jagged teeth began to snap together⁠—and Guin swung the pole wide.

Propelled by Guin’s leverage, the bigmouth was thrown to one side. It hit the water with a loud smack and disappeared beneath the surface⁠ ⁠… but the suction caused by the great thing pulled on the raft, and the deck lurched precariously toward where the bigmouth had gone down.

“Hiiii!”

“Suni!”

The jolt shook the little Sem girl’s numbed hands loose from the rail and she staggered and began to topple over. At that moment the familiar swell of white water signaling the big-mouth’s return reappeared just a few yards away and began to race back toward them. Suni was falling into its path.

Rinda screamed. “Somebody save her!”

Guin’s long arm darted out over the water, plucking the little girl out of the air in the nick of time, lifting her back onto the relative safety of the raft. The bigmouth veered and kept its distance for a moment, spraying froth over the river behind it, as though it was considering another attack… but then it sank under the waters as suddenly as it had appeared, fading quickly into the depths.

For a while, all on the raft were silent.

“Phew!” Istavan broke the quiet with a sigh of relief, like someone waking from a bad dream. “What a beastie that was! By the white nipples of Istar, and the thousand fangs of Garmr! Hey, anybody get eaten?”

No one laughed at Istavan’s jest. He turned and began wringing water from the sleeve of his tunic. “To look at us you’d think we were caught in a squall at sea!”

The five companions were drenched with river water from head to toe. They spent the next few minutes wringing the black flow from their clothes and spreading out what garments they could upon the deck.

Rinda edged over toward Suni, who clung trembling to the railing. “It’s okay, Suni. It’s gone, now.” She patted the tiny girl’s shoulder. “We’re safe. Safe.”

Guin alone seemed unshaken. He stood astern, quietly plying the single oar-pole in the water behind them, steering them away from the rocks that lined the wildlands bank of the river, pushing them back towards the middle of the flow. His yellow eyes flashed, scanning the water, checking to see that no bubbles rose.

“It seems to be gone,” he said at last. “It must not have been too hungry. And it was small for a Kes bigmouth. We were  lucky.” Guin shook his leopard head to dry it like an animal would, the spray of water forming a halo around him.

“What? You mean there are more of those things out there? And bigger?!” gasped Remus.

Istavan chuckled. “Plenty of ’em, boy! And there’s worse than bigmouths in the Kes. How else do you think the river got so clear and clean this morning, when it was filled to overflowing with the bodies of the dead just yesterday, eh? The foul creatures of the Kes are always hungry.”

“It seems that we have been spared on account of those corpses,” noted Guin.

“Indeed!” Istavan smiled at the leopard-man, then looked down at himself and moaned. “Argh… I’m wet down to my skivvies⁠—and my dry rations look like soup!”

To the twins, it felt as if the attack had gone on for hours, but in reality not even a twist⁠—one turn on the small sand clock⁠—had passed during the whole ordeal. The Kes had again taken on its peaceful veneer, and the blaze of the sun reflecting off its smooth surface quickly dried their drenched gear.

“Do you think it will be back?” Remus worried.

“Of course!” replied Istavan cheerily. “But don’t worry⁠—in my half year of soldiering in this forsaken place, I’ve handled more than my share of bigmouths and giant leeches.”

But it was Guin that drove the monster off, thought Rinda. This mercenary of Valachia has a bigger mouth than anything living in the river!

The Crimson Mercenary shot a glance at Rinda, his black eyes sparkling mischievously. He looked almost as if he were about to retort to her unspoken criticism, but instead he curled his upper lip into a sneer and said nothing.

The raft continued swiftly down the river, the single pole guiding it through the now smooth waters.

The rider came galloping through the gates of Alvon Keep, his swift horse lathered in sweat. Count Ricard, keep-lord and commander of the Fifth Red Knights, was waiting in the courtyard for the report. He had sent messengers out along the highroads that spread like a spider’s legs from the capital of Torus, and this was the first to return.

The count’s face turned white. “What’s this? Already in the Alvonwood, you say? Why were there no signals from the towers? But no matter, now⁠—bring my horse! I will at least ride to the gates to give welcome⁠—”

“There will be no need for that, Count Ricard,” came a crisp voice from above and behind the flustered lord. “I am already here.”

“What⁠—?” The count turned and looked up at the wide, crenellated wall that ran around the inner courtyard.

There, atop the wall, was a mounted warrior with a white crested helm and long white cape, astride a pure white steed fitted with white harness and barding⁠—the same rider that had spied on Guin and the others from the high Gohran cliffs above the Kes.

The warrior lightly spurred the horse and descended the stone steps into the courtyard, rider and mount moving as one. Several other knights, all garbed in white, followed by the same route. From a distance they appeared similar enough that any of them could have been the leader; but from nearer at hand it was clear that these others’ fittings and armor were far more simply decorated than were those of the speaker.

“To travel with such a small retinue, really⁠—” Count Ricard began, but the leading knight, who was now dismounting with the help of three retainers, dismissed his remark with a wave.

“A detachment of my white knights waits in the Alvonwood. Send for them, and provide quarters here that they may rest. And… do not ask me yet why I have come here.”

The rider’s voice was clear⁠—a young, crisp voice that inspired in the listener a desire to view the face of its owner. There was something noble in it, too, a charismatic power⁠—the natural ability to command that is reserved for the highborn.

The count, though he was no commoner and was moreover slightly taller than the leader of the white knights, bowed deeply in greeting.

“It shall all be as you command.”

“Stafolos Keep has fallen,” said the leader matter-of-factly. “Alvon is now the vanguard of the Marches defense.”

Ricard⁠—the hardened veteran of a hundred battles⁠—bit his lip and swallowed. “I sent a squadron of cavalry to aid Count Vanon as soon as our watchmen spotted the black smoke. I had thought they would be arriving at the keep by and by…”

“They were too late. The Sem tribes have not crossed the Kes in such numbers since the moss year⁠—doubtless even Vanon had grown unwatchful. Thus Mongaul has lost Stafolos Keep. It is a step backwards in our plans for Gohra.”

“We should have been more diligent in our communications, General,” Count Ricard said, standing up to his full height and pulling off the sword at his waist, scabbard and all, to hold it to his left breast in the Gohran salute. The knight-general reached out with a white-gloved hand and placed the sword back at Ricard’s waist.

“You are not at fault, Count.” The charismatic voice was bracing. “Stafolos is lost, but rather than ask why it fell, we would do better to think about what we must do next. You have heard of the… complications with the Black Dragon War?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know that, after years of planning, a grand force of our elite units launched a surprise attack on Parros, jewel of the Middle Country. Yet while the Crystal Palace fell to our hands, and the Priest-King Aldross the Third, and his wife Queen Tanya, are no more, some members of the royal family evaded capture by our black knights…”

“The princess Rinda and the heir to the throne, Prince Remus⁠—the ‘Pearls of Parros,’ correct?”

“Indeed. We know not what crafty white magic they used, but we received reports soon after that they had been spotted in the Roodwood. Believe me, the Golden Scorpion Palace is burning with curiosity as to just how two defenseless children could not only evade our elite warriors, but then travel from the heart of the Middle Country all the way to the Marches of Rood in a single night!

“If there is something there we do not know of, some secret principle of the workings of our world we have yet to grasp, then the answer to this mystery could very well be the key to commanding not only the three realms of Gohra, but the Marches and the whole of the Middle Country as well!

“Now⁠—Count Ricard.”

“Yes, General?”

“Do you not see a connection between the twins’ appearance in the Roodwood, and the subsequent fall of Stafolos Keep?”

“A connection?” Count Ricard swallowed nervously. “Do you ask me in your station as the archduke’s representative, General of the Right, captain of the white knights?”

“I do.”

“Then… as much as it pains me to admit it, I can think of no way in which a small boy and girl could have taken any part in the destruction of a place such as Stafolos Keep, with its ten full squads of knights and their infantry support!”

The general’s voice cracked like a horsewhip. “Fool! It was the army of Sem that destroyed Stafolos, that much is clear.”

Count Ricard blanched.

“What I am asking you is whether or not you find it strange  that the children and the Sem should have appeared at the same time. Is it impossible that the orphans of Parros and the Sem tribes of Nospherus are in league?”

“But that is madness!” the count in his surprise let the words spill from his mouth. “The most ancient of priestly lines of the Middle Country consorting with monkey-men from the no man’s land?”

“Do not be so quick to disregard the possibility, Count,” the general replied, pointing the horsewhip out over the keep walls in the general direction of the Kes. “There is a chance, infinitesimal as it may seem, that Parros has managed to join forces with the barbarians of Nospherus. Were they to gather what loyal soldiers survived the Black Dragon War and together launch an attack to avenge the crystal city, Gohra would be faced with an assault from the rear! We must move to make sure this does not happen, no matter how scant the possibility. And Count, there is something else you should know.

“I rode here along the cliffs that look down upon the Kes… and there I saw the strangest thing.”

“One of the foul river creatures, perhaps? They are common enough in these⁠—”

“No,” the general cut him off, “What I saw was most unusual⁠—a lone raft bearing down the Kes, probably from Stafolos, rushing past Alvon, perhaps destined to go all the way to Rosmouth via Tauride.”

“A lone raft on the Kes?” sputtered the count, breaking out into laughter. But then, a thought silenced him. He had heard rumors that this rider in white, the right hand of Archduke Vlad himself, was a stern punisher of failure with a particular dislike for carelessness. He had best not seem impudent before this one. The count cleared his throat and looked serious.

“The Sem, perhaps?”

“No,” the general replied after some thought. “Though I cannot say for sure what it was. My eyes can see a falcon many tads distant, yet I still have doubts about what I saw on that raft… There were five people aboard: two men, and two women⁠—perhaps they were children⁠—and one smaller passenger that looked much like one of the Sem. And one of the men…”

The count leaned forward, his curiosity piqued. What could possibly be so unusual as to give the infamous General of the Right, mouth of the Archduke, pause?

“One of the men… he seemed... strange…”

“Strange, you say?”

The general chuckled dismissively. “No, it was probably a trick of the light. Yet it seemed to me that the larger of the men on the raft had the body of a warrior from the neck down, but the head of some great cat⁠—a leopard or tiger!”

“A leopard?” Now the count had to steel his jaw to keep from breaking out in laughter. Surely the light had played a trick on the general’s eyes! But Ricard had an idea what sort of reaction the general expected of him, so he quickly offered to send riders in search of the raft.

“No need. I doubted my eyes myself, and so, before entering Alvon, I sent word by the fires for a small squad of my own white knights to go down to the river to find out just who is on that raft… and bring them back to me, if need be.”

The count was impressed. Here was someone who let nothing pass by and who knew how to get things done. But he had no time to linger on his thoughts, for the general spoke again.

“Prepare a troop and two squads of knights⁠—we may need them to fish that raft out of the Kes. I assume that the rivercrossing exercises, which were discussed at the palace assembly at the beginning of the tea moon, have been proceeding according to plan?”

“Yes, General.”

“Very well. Then have those squads prepare for a river crossing, should the need arise. And should any word come from the signal fires about Stafolos Keep, do not delay in sending this response…”

What the general said then was enough to shock the count into asking a rather more pointed question than he would normally have dared to pose to one who so greatly outranked him: What had led those assembled at the Gold Scorpion Palace to make such a decision?

“No questions will be necessary,” came the reply he should have anticipated. “All you need do is to ensure that my orders are carried out swiftly and to the letter. I have come along the road from Torus with little rest and less sleep. I am weary. Prepare chambers for me⁠—I will sleep until the signal comes. “

“As you command.”

The count sent a page running to prepare the chambers. Meanwhile, the general slowly began releasing the straps on the great, ornamented white helm.

Count Ricard stood silently watching. He was not ignorant of what the general looked like, yet it was always a sight worth seeing, and so he waited.

The general’s slender hands finished untying the last strap and pushed the white-plumed helm backwards. At once a radiant glow spilled forth from the figure that now had the attention of all in the courtyard.

At first it seemed as if the knight were lit up with some inner brightness, but in fact the glimmer was no more than sunlight falling upon locks of golden hair. Count Ricard almost gasped despite himself, enchanted by the image before him. Here was true beauty! The face that the helm had lifted to reveal was that of a young woman, her features so splendid that surely they were unmatched by any save those of Irana, goddess of battle and the hunt.

Studied closely, her face seemed more that of a girl than of a young woman. But already her presence projected a commanding aura of dignity. Her form was framed by her flowing golden hair, which tumbled halfway down her back, and her lips were set with such a look of determination that the count felt certain nothing would ever break her will. But what joy it would be to receive a smile from those lips, so pink and full! And her green eyes, as deep as the River Kes, were filled with a resolve and passion rare even in the most extraordinary of men. She was noble, yet shining with ambition; cool, yet elegant and gracious.

The young general was truly a study in beauty. Though not fully mature, she held all the promise of dawn on a beautiful and holy day. No, thought the count, hers is not the pallid and willowy beauty of Aeris, but that of she who stands ever armored with vine-wrapped spear next to her beloved husband, Ruah, sun of the land⁠—she is the war goddess Irana come in white armor! It took the count a moment to realize that the sigh he heard was his own.

Just then, the page returned.

“Your chambers are ready, Lady Amnelis.”

She nodded and made her way through the courtyard. By now there were none in the keep who did not know that the archduke’s famed daughter Amnelis, captain of the white knights and commander of the lightning force that conquered Parros, was at Alvon.