The Brat's Final Gambit
Chapter 1

The woman on the bed in the center of the room bunched up in one mighty spasm. A moan began in the center of her chest and worked its way outward, shaking her entire frame. Sweat poured down from her brow across her cheeks. Drops of it cascaded into her puffy eyes, which were rimmed with red and shot through with swollen vessels. Her breathing reached a crescendo, and her back suddenly arched. There was no more air in her lungs and her mouth worked silently. Her hands slid down the edge of the bed, and she gripped the loose sheets so that her fingers balled into white knuckled fists.

The room grew deathly quiet.

Then there came a series of liquid gurgles followed by soft cries of a newborn infant. Karin Maldies fell back gasping for air. She groaned again, but there was finally a note of relief to it. She began to laugh.

“Never . . .” she began, but didn’t have the breath to finish. The midwife deftly cleaned the baby off. “Never had a childbirth that hard before.”

“Well, you handled it excellently, lady Maldies,” the midwife said approvingly, “You’re the mother of—”

A boy,” Karin finished for her. “It’s a boy. I already know.” Her voice was shaky with fatigue.

“Aye, it was a rough one, ma’am. Once you’ve held him, you’ll need your rest. I’ll summon a wet nurse.”

“No,” Karin commanded, “My child is mine to nurse . . . and his name is Niam.”

From a darkened corner of the room, an old liveried servant stepped forward. It was his job to report on the success or difficulty of the labor. He cleared his throat uncertainly. The midwife looked up at him, as if only now becoming aware of his presence, and addressed him irritably, “Oh, don’t stand there like an old scarecrow, Falion. Speak, old man! We’ve still got to pass the afterbirth.”

“If it’s all right with you and the misses, I’ll go and notify Lord Joachim that the boy is well,” and he inclined his head in Karin’s direction without actually allowing his eyes to fall on her. “Her husband should be here soon.”

The midwife had other plans for him. “Just a moment, Falion.”

Unsure of what to do, Falion began to retreat back into the shadowy corner. On the bed, Karin’s face began to contort in pain and her breathing sped up again.

“Oh no, it’s about to pass. Right here with you,” she pointed to him and indicated that he should stand next to her.

Falion shuffled up to the bed.

“You’ll need to hold this young gentleman before you’re off to tell the men.” Without waiting, she tenderly finished wrapping the newborn in fresh linens and deposited him into the old man’s arms.

The old servant looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

“They don’t bite, you old fool!” the midwife snapped.

Averting his gaze from Karin’s lower half, he carefully cradled little Niam in his arms. “But there is a woman’s modesty to consider,” he complained, jerking his head in the direction of Karin’s open legs. He didn’t dare look, for Falion considered himself first and foremost a gentleman.

“Those don’t bite, either,” the midwife retorted, “Or have you grown too old to remember?”

Falion felt his face flush.

On the bed beside him, Karin Maldies began to grunt as the final contractions came at her in waves.

“Just a little bit more, “the midwife encouraged soothingly. “We’re nearly done, dear. I’ve passed five of my own, and dozens of other women’s over the years.

Falion turned his back on the women so he wouldn’t have to watch. This was women’s work, and he would have only as much of it as he had to, and not a hair’s breadth more. In his arms, he felt the gentle warmth of the infant through the wrappings.

Little Niam stirred impatiently.

Despite himself, Falion smiled. He couldn’t help it. A good forty-five years ago he had held the first his three, and the feeling of a helpless baby tucked in his arms fresh from its mother’s womb was a thing that never left a man. With his finger, Falion moved the blanket aside so he could see the child’s face. And when he did . . .

He suddenly froze.

The boy’s eyes were bright yellow.

Falion looked around in alarm. The midwife was bent intently between Karin’s legs. “Come on now,” she coached her, “Just bare down a few more times, and we’re done.” All he could do was stand there, gaping.

As his mother labored to rid herself of the placenta, little Niam looked up at Falion and his pupils were the color of sunflowers on a late summer afternoon.

When Falion closed the door behind himself and entered into a small room that now served as a waiting area, two men sat in the center sipping tea, holding an intense conversation. One was Lord Joachim and the other was Carl Hapwell. This did not surprise Falion, for in the second of the three rooms opening into the waiting area, Hapwell’s wife had just given birth to a son. And in the third, at this very moment, Andromeda Sartor labored to pass a child of her own as well. Falion had no doubt that if he had gone into those rooms what the color of the newborns’ eyes would be.

Three rooms.

Three births.

All on the same night, all at the same time.

Neither man heard the old servant, and for this he was glad. For the first time in his life, he padded over the where the decanter that held Lord Joachim’s private stock of brandy sat, and with trembling hands took it upon himself to pour a small glass. He knew this was a breech of etiquette, possibly one that could have him expelled from his service at the manor, but for the moment his numbed mind could not rid itself of what he had just seen. Quickly, he downed the brandy. It was sweet and smooth. Possibly the smoothest he had ever tasted, with a faint hint of oak and some delicate spice he could not name.

Great Lord, it was good!

He breathed in a slow breath, and the flavor that remained on his tongue mellowed sweetly. He set the glass down and refilled it quickly.

A hand closed on his shoulder and Falion gave a start.

“Good, isn’t it?” Lord Joachim asked quietly.

Falion cursed his old ears for failing to detect the lord’s approach. He began to stammer an apology.

Joachim held up his hand. “You’d better pour us all one while you’re pouring one for yourself, Falion.”

The old servant stood mutely for a second. “Y-you m-mean you’re not angry with me, m’lord?”

“What? For filching some of my brandy? You and I both know that servants have snuck off with far more than good brandy!” Joachim said with a chortle, and for a moment, continued to laugh until he had to hold his sides. Across the room, Hapwell laughed too.

“Falion, Carl and I needed a good laugh. Thank you.”

“But I ain’t never taken a thing of yours, sir. Never!” he said proudly. Then, “Not ’til tonight, that is . . .”

“Forgivable,” Joachim said, “and that is the reason you, along with the three midwives here, were chosen for this task tonight. Fill four glasses with brandy and join us over at the table.”

As Falion collected four small glasses, Brent Maldies came barreling through the archway. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said tensely. “How is my wife? Has my child arrived yet?”

“Ah, Brent,” Joachim said gruffly, “I believe my old friend Falion has some news for us.”

Falion turned and told Brent, “Little Niam is well, sir. I’ve held ’im myself, and you can take old Falion’s word if nothing else!”

“And was there anything . . . unique about him,” Brent tried to ask delicately, but it came out as a bark.

Falion looked away, unsure of what to make of these events. “Well, sir, he weighs a good stone or more, and he’s definitely got your hair, but his face already has his mother’s freckles scattered across it. He’s a handsome little lad, that’s for sure.”

“His eyes, Falion,” Brent demanded, “What bloody color were his eyes?”

Falion forced himself to lift his head and meet the other man’s gaze. “As yellow as a summer flower, sir, and that’s the Great Lord’s truth!”

Back in a minute,” he said and briskly walked into the room where his wife and new son waited. A few moments later, Gaius Sartor came out of the room where his wife and the midwife remained. He gave Hapwell and Joachim a nod and said, “We’ve named him Maerillus.”

“His eyes?” Joachim asked.

“Yes,” was all he needed to say.

“Then it is as my grandmother said it would be,” Joachim said. “The color of their eyes will change. If the stories of their powers are true, the color will return when they exert themselves, but it doesn’t last. Has something to do with the forces flowing through them. We’ll have to keep them hidden until it wears off, but since they’re infants, that won’t be hard.” Joachim’s voice turned deathly serious, and he continued on, “If anyone replaces out about this before your boys are ready . . . they will be in serious danger. I don’t think any of us would survive the week. The old stories of this have struck fear in the hearts of men and women for over a thousand years.”

Falion slowly made his way to the table and began setting out glasses, filling them with brandy. After a short while, Brent returned and sat with a sigh. “We were all there when she said it . . . when she made the prophecy. I just don’t think I ever really accepted it. It didn’t matter that she had spoken true on other occasions. Knew she had a gift. Just didn’t sink in.”

“You know,” Hapwell began, “our other children bear no signs of this. Why these three . . . how?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Joachim said. “What does is that another era is about to begin. Now, we must see to the safety of these children. At all costs.”

“Yes,” all three agreed.

“But those eyes . . .”Falion stammered. “Those eyes are the mark of the—“

But he broke off and Lord Joachim answered for him. “The Dread Lords? Yes, that is what they are called, but in the old language they were called the Valiere. Do you know what that means, Falion?”

The old man shook his head.

“Not many people do, not many at all. Since my grandmother made that prophecy, I’ve seared out every scrap of information I could replace, dug through libraries across the continent. Whenever the crown called on me to lead troops, I spent my time hunting down all the information I could replace. Valiere meant guardians, Falion. And for much of history, humanity benefited from their stewardship, though this has long been forgotten. And now, with the evil lands to the east stirring, I fear we will have need for them once again. And if my grandmother’s prophecy was right, these three boys are the start.”

The room settled into a lengthy silence, until Falion spoke up again. “But it was the Dread . . . the Valiere that brought ruin to the world. They turned dark, the stories tell us. What if it happens again?”

Joachim took a sip of brandy, considering. At last, he said, “Then may the Great Lord have mercy on us all.”

(16 years later)

Scratching . . . and sleep . . . and scratching . . . and sleep . . . and . . .

Finally, Niam sat up in frustration. What had that noise been? His skull felt heavy, as if it were a sack full of damp earth. Only, when he turned his head, instead of a heavy sloshing sensation of shifting mud, it felt as if his thoughts all had come loose and gotten jumbled up by the mounting weight of fatigue. And still, he could not manage to stay asleep. How long had it been since he had gotten a decent night’s rest? Three, four days?

He inhaled deeply. The night air lay cold and heavy against the world and pushed its way between every crevice and opening around the house, allowing it to sink its fingers into the dark rooms within. Shivering, Niam reached down to where he had kicked his heavy blanket off of the bed sometime in the restless hours of the night and pulled it around his shoulders.

Only silence met darkness.

Not even the comfortable serenade of crickets filled the forest beyond his window. Autumn nights such as this were too cold for that.

Niam snuggled into the blanket and sighed. For the past several nights he had hunted sleep, but like a clever trickster, it always seemed to elude him. And worse, when he finally found it, the nightmares always came. With a sigh, Niam lit the oil lamp by his bed and turned it up high enough to send a long shadow of himself scurrying across the floor and up the wall on the opposite side of the room. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light. The wooden bed frame creaked as he turned and sat cross-legged, staring out through the window into the night sky beyond.

Now what was that he had heard?

Almost on cue, the sound came again, a faint, insistent scratching just outside his bedroom window. More silence followed. Then it came again. Three rough scratches, and again, three more; then it stopped.

Silence flooded around him. Like darkness beyond the halo of lamplight it pressed eagerly inward. There was some kind of animal out there. Probably a cat sharpening its claws on the wood. Three more scratches sounded against the wall outside. Niam froze. What could it be dragging its claws across the wood outside of the house? Goosebumps rose across the nape of the neck. The sound was so . . . purposive, so full of intent that for a moment he felt scared. Too small to be a bear . . . too small to be a dire wolf, he reassured himself.

Then he remembered.

Niam hung his head back and laughed. The fear that had suddenly gripped him fled just as quickly.

“I’m so stupid,” he muttered to himself and jumped up from his bed and winced. The floor was cold. He slipped his pants and shoes on. “I can’t believe I forgot,” he said under his breath. “Poor thing must be thirsty.” Shivering, Niam wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, walked to his window, and opened it. “Hi there,” he said softly, “I’m sorry I forgot about you.”

Curiously, both the food and water he had set out earlier remained untouched. The dog that had followed him home earlier in the day looked up at him, its pellucid eyes, liquid brown, stared up at him intently. Its tail wagged eagerly. Niam reached down to pet it, but it stepped back quickly.

“Silly, I’m not going to hurt you,” Niam told it, “Although I ought to. You nearly scared me to death.”

The dog cocked its head and seemed to regard him for a moment. Then it appeared to chuff silently.

“What’s wrong, boy?” he mused. “Cat got your tongue?”

The dog just continued to stare at him.

“No? You’d probably eat it wouldn’t you?” Niam said, leaning against the window ledge, considering the strange animal.

The dog had followed him yesterday as he walked home from town. He had found it sitting by the side of the road that ran by the sharp overlook above Siler’s Lake just beyond the point where the gorge began. The animal had acted strangely from the beginning, growing animated the moment he rounded the curve where the overlook opened into the spectacular vista of the lake where the mountains beyond undulated off into the horizon beyond. The moment he saw it, the dog began to dance around in a circle, then trotted to the edge of the overlook and barked into the open air at the cliff’s edge… almost like it wanted him to take in the mesmerizing view before him.

“Already seen that view,” he told the dog and walked on. But a few moments later, he discovered that the dog had sidled up next to him, continuing to prance around, turning frequently to stare intently back the way they had come. It was almost as if it had been trying to tell him, “Go back, go back, you’re missing the view.” Niam tried shooing it off. But that didn’t work. Nor did waving his arms and yelling at it to go home. Finally, he gave up and tried to scratch its ear, but the dog shied away from his touch.

Niam figured someone had beaten it.

Once again, however, the dog’s behavior baffled him. The thing still continued with its antics, dancing round in a tight circle, and then it stopped, and went down on its front legs with its paws stretched out before it in a gesture of friendly supplication. Its rump remained stuck up in the air, and its tail shook its rear comically as it wagged back and forth. Niam laughed. He could not escape the feeling that the dog wanted him to go back with it. “Alright,” he said, “you’re an odd one, but I’ll come.”

The dog lifted its snout and appeared to sniff in acknowledgement.

Hoisting himself through the opening, Niam muttered, “You better not be luring me into the woods to feed me to the rest of your pack.” Once he was out, he left enough of a crack in the window to get himself back through if it was still dark when he returned. The chill was not as bad as he thought it was going to be, but he still sank into his coat.

“Let’s go,” he said, but when he turned, the dog had already padded down the path leading from the road to his home, and was turning back toward the gorge.

As Niam followed, he thought about where his sympathy for this stray came from. For the past year, since the death of his brother and sister, he had come to feel like a stray himself. Had it not been for his friends, Davin Hapwell and Maerillus Sartor, he did not know how he would have made it through the year. His mother and father had been too absorbed in their own grief to attend well to Niam’s. Many nights he had stayed with the Sartor and Hapwell families, and drawn strength and comfort from their kindness and understanding.

Above him, the stars stared down from on high, and their silver luminescence bathed the landscape softly in a pale light, and in places where the trees had already shed their leaves, white and dark naked branches were bent and twisted like dancers forever frozen in wild contortions and bizarre poses. On the horizon, the faint light of the rising sun began to waken the night sky from its slumber with its ruddy morning kiss. As the autumn birds woke and sang the sun higher into the eastern horizon, Niam’s thoughts turned to his loss. Memories of Sarah filled Niam’s mind, and his stomach clenched as his mind settled upon her memory. She had been dead for over a year now. Lithe and willowy, she had been seven years Niam’s senior the day she drowned. Some of his fondest childhood memories were of her. His mother and father were often away on business for Lord Joachim, leaving Sarah home to raise him. Sarah had been not all of his world, but the part of it that always seemed filled with color, laughter, and warmth. If jokes could ever collect golden interest from the laughter they produced, Niam’s family would have been richer than a king.

Her body had been found floating a quarter mile beyond the narrows where the gorge pinched the upper third of the lake from the lower two thirds. Count Joachim’s physician said her head had obviously struck a rock, and that she must have slipped and tumbled down the steep rocky wall to the water below. Her basket had lain by the trail until someone found the body and searchers had been sent out. Beside the basket, with its contents spilled across the ground, were Seth’s shoes, where he had taken them off before jumping in after her. Had he hit his head as well? His body had never been found, but miles of rocky and inaccessible shoreline surrounded the lake.

Seth, ten years older than Niam, had always been something of an enigma. Quiet and reserved, he had gone away to the academy at Kalavere to study for the Advocate’s bar. Niam had never spent much time with his older brother. When he came back from the academy, he had taken up a post for the crown as an official of deeds and surveys. Growing up, Seth had been close with Sarah. It came as no surprise to anyone that he had given his life to try to save her. When he returned from Kalavere, his brother had been a close friend of the Mayor, and indeed, the mayor had been especially distraught following the news.

Was it bad of him that he rarely thought of his brother?

At last the grogginess of the night was finally gone. Niam knew that it had taken the rising of the sun to dispel the heavy shadow of fatigue cast by the nightmares that kept him tossing and turning at night.

And always, they were of his sister, always the same. When he plunged into that waking realm on the other side of slumber’s nocturne kingdom, he always found himself drawn along behind Sarah.

Running . . . running for her life, he could sense the heavy fear rolling off of her as she plunged through the thorny thickets. Her dress trailed her willowy form as she cast terrified glances behind her. The fear on her face sent palpable waves of terror coursing through him. Her mouth moved, but he could not tell what she was saying.

The worst part about this was that he knew her flight was in vain, that whomever she was running from would catch her and kill her. He knew because he felt her pursuer’s malevolent intent. A thick and cloying miasma hung in the air and clung to him as he moved along with her . . . behind her. Always behind her. And always, just before he reached her, she fell and he woke with a start, covered in sweat.

Ahead of him, in the growing light, his furry companion began dancing with excitement. Niam’s mind turned away from the dark thoughts that had settled over it. As he drew closer to the overlook ahead, the beautiful expanse of lakes and mountains spread out once more. The dog ran to the edge of the overlook where a low safety rail had been erected to keep travellers from straying too close to the edge. As its behavior continued to perplex Niam, he heard a word spoken aloud, but the sound of it came from every direction at once. Niam looked all around, but aside from the dog no one was there. He cocked his head to the side. “What?” he asked aloud.

The word came to him again. GOOOO, it said.

The hair on the back of Niam’s neck stood up.

“Um . . . go where?” he asked, certain he had heard something, but not completely certain he had heard someone.

Like a far off whisper of thunder, the voice came again. HELP HIM, it told him. And in that voice there were hints of wind in autumn leaves and the soft spatter of summer rain in mud. Niam felt the words this time as much as he heard them. Deep in the pit of his gut, he felt the nearly unshakable urge to go to the dog.

Niam approached it, and that was when he saw that the dog actually wasn’t looking out across the valley, but down the steep drop-off below the gorge wall. Niam stepped over the rail and walked to the edge. When he looked down, he let out a loud exclamation.

Forty feet below, lying like a broken child’s doll was a body.

Niam looked at the animal in astonishment. The dog’s eyes bored holes into Niam’s. See, I told you, they seemed to say. “Hey!” Niam screamed. “Hey! Can you hear me?” Peering intently down on the prostrate form, Niam thought he heard a small groan, but he couldn’t be sure. I’m going to have to go down there to see if the person’s still alive—to see for sure, he thought to himself. Then another urge hit him, equally as strong to just run for help, to let someone else have to deal with the sight of spilled brains. Niam didn’t have to see it, did he? But now he didn’t have a choice. Whoever it was, if they were still alive, had to be dangerously cold, and the ground might easily still be wet from strong rains earlier in the month. The dog continued to look imploringly up at him.

“It’s okay. I’m going to help him,” he said, as much for his own benefit as anything. This is going to be dangerous, Niam thought fearfully. Why couldn’t it have been his friend Davin instead? Or Maerillus? Davin could have made the steep descent, thrown the person’s prone form across his shoulder, and climbed back up while eating a sandwich.

Or Maerillus.

He would have simply had one of his father’s servants go down and do it for him as he sipped on of the wines grown on his family’s estate.

“But no,” Niam muttered to himself as he slipped over the edge and gingerly climbed from rock to rock, making his way down like a frightened cat from a swaying tree trunk. “It had to be me that got stuck with this!”

Thankfully the rocks were dry, and once he began to assay the descent the going was much easier than he expected. When he got within seven or eight feet of the bottom, Niam leapt and landed easily beside the victim of the fall. Niam recognized who it was immediately.

Tim Hodshaer lay with his face pressed into the grass. One of his arms was indeed bent in an impossible direction. Across his forehead, his skin lay open in a large gash. It had bled copiously, and a rather large pool of congealed blood framed the left side of his head. “Tim,” Niam said gently. “Tim, can you hear me?” Tim made no sound, and Niam feared he only imagined hearing the boy’s groan from the overlook above.

“Tim!” Niam said more forcefully, “Tim!”

A small groan issued from the boy. Quickly Niam removed his coat and placed it over the child’s still form.

“Wha . . .” the boy moaned softly.

“Shhhhh. It’s okay, Tim. You’ve had a fall. Lie still, it’s me—Niam,” he said. “I’m going to go get help for you, okay?”

“N-Niam, it hurts,” the boy groaned pitifully, “It hurts sooooo bad.”

“I know,” Niam said gently, “but help will be coming soon.”

“Hurry . . . Mom and Dad will be so scared.” He began to cry. “I’m in so much trouble, Niam.”

“Honestly,” Niam said, “I think they’ll be happy you’re alive.”

More feeling began to seep back into the boy’s mind, because he suddenly exclaimed, “Oh it really hurts!” And then he gasped suddenly, “My arm feels like it’s on fire!”

“That’s because you broke it. The bone must be pressing up against the nerve, but we’ll get it fixed before the day’s over—I promise,” he told him. Then he asked, “What happened, Tim?”

Tim began to sob, and between hitching breaths told Niam, “My dog went after a groundhog. He went over the edge… had to get to him. He fell the whole way. Made it half way down and then I slipped. Where is he, Niam? Tell me,” he begged. “Is he dead? He wasn’t moving.”

“Does your dog have wild yellow hair?” Niam asked.

“Yes,” Tim cried, “that’s him.”

Niam felt a great laugh begin to build up within his chest, but before he could let it out, before he could tell Tim that his crazy dog had led him here to the place he had fallen, something to the left of them caught his attention.

Lying on the dirt a few feet away lay the familiar shape of the very dog that had followed Niam home, then awakened him, and persistently worked to him into following it back to the overlook. Niam walked over to the dog’s body and placed his hand gently upon the animal’s chest. There was no prance or clownish antic left in this dog now, for it lay where it had fallen the day before. Lifeless, cold, and stiff.

Niam stood there for a moment in stunned silence. He thought about the dog’s bizarre behavior, the fact that it never allowed him to touch it, the fact that the food and water he had set out for it had never been eaten. Niam sucked in a deep, unsteady breath, and prepared to climb back up the sharp wall of rocks. He didn’t bother looking up to see if a dog was waiting for him. He knew it would not be. Its purpose had already been fulfilled.

It had traveled its last journey leading Niam here. And as Niam carefully navigated the rocky incline and made his way cautiously to the top, his eyes glowed like yellow flames in the cool morning air.