A Sword Named Truth

by Sherwood Smith

  Peitar began to breathe again as three times, Lilah launched herself grimly at Derek, who blocked her moves, then struck the sword out of her hand.

  After the third, she sighed, wringing her numb fingers. Her throat tightened with defeat. “If you see any of my friends, tell them I tried.”

  “None of them will be there,” Derek said soberly. “We put all the orphan brigade through a similar test.”

  Lilah turned away, aware of a sickening sense of relief. It felt like betrayal, somehow.

  Derek set out a short time later, his galloper having been fed and issued new, warm clothing and a fresh mount. His news had been lamentably brief, not much more than that a sizable force had been spotted in one of the older mountain passes. Peitar and Derek had hired shepherds to watch all the passes, against this very situation.

  As Derek climbed onto his horse, he thought grimly that already they were at a disadvantage. Shepherds were not militarily trained: they didn’t even think of counting heads, noting weapons, and so forth. He was going to have to fix that if they survived this attack, he promised himself. He saluted the two anxious faces up in the library window and rode off.

  As soon as Derek was out of sight, Peitar withdrew to let Tsauderei know.

  Derek’s mood rose as he and his scout rode through the city gates. All right, they were through waiting, at least. It was finally time for action, a realization that filled him with fierce joy. This was so much better than the revolution: a clear enemy, and training behind his army.

  He and the scout verbally sifted the few words of the brief report for any stray details. So far, at least, everything was going exactly according to plan. He’d put their very best people in the south, camping in Diannah Wood. From there it would be relatively easy to reach any of the southwest passes, as they all debouched roughly in the same area, feeding the rivers that spilled into Tseos Lake below Miraleste.

  Derek left the exhausted galloper at the first changing post, then set out alone on a fresh horse under a clear sky. The moon crested the mountains, not full, but casting enough light over a road Derek knew well.

  He slept in snatches in the saddle, pausing long enough to get bread and cheese at the posts he’d established along the road in order to change horses.

  At noon the third day, he rode into his camp, where he found everyone honing weapons, their voices sharp with excitement. They sent up a cheer when they saw him. “Come,” he said to the three captains. “Let’s look at the map one more time.”

  They had worked up contingencies for all the passes, but now that they knew which one would bring them face to face with the enemy, it was reassuring to go over everything again. He felt it, and he could see it in the captains, the old, grizzled one—a stonemason who had fought for Khanerenth in his youth—his son, and the upright captain with the neatly tied-back dark hair, who had been a patrol leader under the old king.

  Derek no longer resented the remnants of the king’s army. War was really happening, soon. Now that it was close, doubt twisted his guts. He looked at that patrol captain, remembered the inefficient scout report, and once again wished he had the equivalent of the old king’s army, with its training and discipline—but without the arrogant nobles.

  It was then that they heard noise outside the tent, high voices protesting and low voices arguing. He burst out to discover three boys struggling in the arms of older fellows.

  “I promised Ma he wouldn’t be here,” declared the tallest, a rust-thatched young silversmith, his voice breaking as he fought to contain his eleven-year-old brother, nicknamed Ruddy.

  Derek signed for the boys to be let go, then frowned at them. “I told you all to stay in Miraleste. You’ll be needed as scouts and errand runners.”

  “Not if you fight ’em off here,” Ruddy said fiercely.

  “Lilah said she’s coming,” a twiggy blond, son of a seal-maker, spoke up.

  “She’s in Miraleste,” Derek said. “She’ll be a runner for the king.”

  A brief silence, then Ruddy burst out, “But she and the real Sharadan Brothers, they were in the revolution. They were heroes in the revolution.”

  “But they didn’t fight,” Derek said, at the same time as Ruddy’s older brother said, “They got information, and thieved from collaborators. Anyways, that was us against us. Not us against Norsunder.”

  The third boy, the lanky son of a joiner, muttered, “So Lilah is a princess. Of course they’d keep her safe. Bren is somewhere fighting, I bet anything.”

  Derek heard the scorn in the word ‘princess,’ knowing that the boy was reflecting his own contempt for royalty, nobles, and their attitudes. But now was not the time to be divisive. “Bren is also going to scout, but in his town. Listen, since you sneaked here uncaught, that means you’re good at sneaking. We were just saying that we need more scouts up above the pass, to signal us when Norsunder is spotted. The most important post, right now, is that. Go up the trail and report to Granny Innah, who has a magic ring. You say the word ‘Sarendan’ and touch the stone, and the captain here will know that Norsunder is sighted, so we move into position.”

  The older captain held up his hand, displaying the ring twin to the one the scout had.

  “Now that we know which pass is the one, Granny Innah will probably want you on different cliffs, to make sure we see every possible trail, in order to get the earliest sighting,” Derek said. “Get some trail supplies, because she won’t have enough for you, and run!”

  The three brightened at having real orders, important orders. Within a short time the boys had journey-bread and vanished up a back trail.

  The silversmith said to Derek, “Thanks. My brother thinks it’s a game. He doesn’t remember seein’ our dad lying dead in the street, trampled by the mob during the revolution. Wasn’t even the king’s men that did for him.” A brief flick at the dark-haired captain. “All he remembers is, Dad was a hero. But Ma remembers, and she made me promise.”

  Derek said, “I know. She made me promise, too.” Their red-haired mother had been one of his fiercest supporters before the revolution. Until the viciousness of the city battles turned her against both sides, after half of Miraleste went up in smoke.

  With the boys safely out of sight, Derek gave the order to break camp and move to the mouth of the pass, which squeezed down to a funnel. They would hide on either side of the tumbling stream, and attack the Norsundrians coming down the last of the rocky, narrow path in ones and twos.

  As they streamed along the dappled glades of Diannah Wood past spring goldenrod dancing like candle flames, high in the eastern peaks, Tsauderei cursed under his breath as he put together a few necessities. He did not look forward to several transfers in a row, as he sought the best vantage from which to observe the invaders.

  In the pass, Prince Kessler Sonscarna led at the front, walking with the Venn renegade he’d winnowed out of Norsunder itself.

  Kessler had occasionally heard reference to the Venn as legendary warriors, but he’d always assumed that was hyperbole. After all, how good was ‘legendary?’ That meant ‘formerly good,’ right? From what he could discover, the Venn were now locked inside their borders, which did not signify formidable warriors to him.

  But after he’d seen those strange ships appear in the ocean, he wondered about those old Venn. Their language wasn’t included in the Universal Language Spell. Mindful of the ship tokens he’d wrested from Pengris, he’d sought out a renegade Venn to teach him some of their language.

  The man was a snake, but willing enough to brag about the customs of his homeland, and to teach Kessler the rudiments of Venn, in order to get out of scut work. Kessler had always had a facility for languages, so they were arguing in basic terms the advantages and disadvantages of attacking in column (disadvantage, flank exposed to archers) versus attacking in line (easier to break) when the scouts sent the signal back: Enemy in sight.

>   Up on the trail above, the orphan brigade boys, having eaten all their bread early on, were looking forward to a camp meal as they toiled the last paces to the summit—until Ruddy, in the lead, halted the other two. “Something’s not right,” he whispered.

  The brilliant day abruptly turned sinister for small, twiggy Sig. Lanky Faen scoffed, “What?”

  Ruddy muffled his mouth, then glanced at the rocky outcropping that screened them from the cliff. “S’posed to be Granny Innah. There’s two voices. Men.”

  Everyone knew Ruddy had the quickest ears of their group. In silence, the three crept to the nearest mossy rock, and peered beyond. There, they gazed in shock at the blood-covered remains of Granny Innah, and the two gray-clad strangers who stood at the edge, looking down, their backs to the boys.

  Ruddy counted three swords. One fellow had a longsword strapped across his back, and a rapier at his hip. They also had bows, arrows, and several daggers. Those were the weapons in view.

  So when Faen predictably whispered, “Let’s fight ’em,” Ruddy put his lips to Faen’s ear. “With what?”

  All they had were their daggers. Each of the three took another long peek at the pair chatting as though no old woman sprawled in death five paces away. When Ruddy saw a fly wandering over the sightless eyes of a woman who had often made him berry tarts, anger burned inside him.

  He motioned Sig and Faen back, well behind the rock, and said, “We’ll push ’em off.”

  “How?” Sig looked frightened. “Have you ever pushed someone? You go forward, too. We’ll fall off as well!” He hated heights.

  “Not if we use Granny’s stick. Sig, you’re going to fling dirt straight into the eyes of the left one. I’ll get the right. Just like Derek said, working together. And you, Faen, being biggest, you take Granny’s walking stick and shove the nearest one off. Sig and I will do for the other one.”

  Sig didn’t want to ‘do’ anything. The sight of popular Granny Innah all bloody and dead made him sick. His fingers shook as he bent to pick up two handfuls of dust. He didn’t feel real, except yes it was real, and he wanted to pee, he wanted to run and run. But if he left Ruddy and Faen, after all the promises they’d made each other, he would be as good as dead.

  As good as dead.

  Derek had said, “You’re only as good as your team, when you are small.”

  The urge to pee was fear, that much Sig recognized. He whispered the Waste Spell, then poised himself to run. When Ruddy nodded, they bolted head down as hard as they could go. The Norsundrians heard the footsteps and turned, hands going to weapons. Ruddy got his man square in the eyes with dust. Sig’s splattered across his man’s arm, but it didn’t matter, because Faen shrieked as he rammed Granny’s walking stick directly into the man’s chest, and the man toppled over the edge, arms windmilling as he fell.

  The second man flung himself away from the cliff edge, swinging his sword in furious arcs as Sig and Ruddy scrambled back. Screaming incoherently, Faen darted in with the stick, which the sword struck with a crack. The stick ripped out of Faen’s hands. The man stamped, sword flailing around him as he cursed violently. Ignoring his throbbing hands, Faen scrambled for the stick, and remembered one of the drills. This time, he whirled the stick high so the sword would come at it, then he shot it between the man’s legs.

  The enemy tripped, falling to one knee.

  That was when Ruddy hit him in the face with a huge rock. Swearing in a guttural howl, the man groped for his sword, but Sig picked it up with both hands, and, whimpering, his fingers slippery with sweat, he stabbed it into the man’s stomach, then let go, retching at the horror of how that had felt.

  He didn’t have the strength to do more than break the man’s skin, and the sword fell. Faen caught it and stabbed again and again, but the man still wriggled. Ruddy hit him again with a bigger rock, and this time he lay still, stunned. Faen and Ruddy each tugged an arm, getting him to the edge. Faen keened and Ruddy’s breathing harshened as they sat down, planted their feet against the Norsundrian’s back, then kicked him over the edge.

  Sig had moved away, coughing as he tried to control his sobs.

  Ruddy straightened, triumph spiraling with fear inside him, making him dizzy. They’d done it! Working together, they’d done it!

  But then Faen said in a voice of horror, “Look.”

  Ruddy joined him at the edge. Sig followed on his hands and knees, peering down, past the two bodies sprawled on the rocks below, at the moving heads in a narrow crevasse, like ants in column.

  “The signal,” Ruddy said. “We have to let Derek know!”

  They sprang to Granny Innah, and stared down at her hand. Sig’s stomach lurched again when he saw that the Norsundrians had cut off her finger. The ring was gone. Probably now lying on the rocks below.

  The boys looked at each other. “Can we yell?” Sig asked.

  “If anyone hears us, it will be them.” Faen pointed at the advancing enemy below.

  “Then we have to run,” Ruddy said, and the boys got their trembling limbs into motion, and bolted back down the trail.

  * * *

  —

  Derek’s force moved in a mass.

  A scout at the front heard the rhythmic noise of tramping feet above the rush of the tumbling stream. He held up a hand, and when no one paid him any heed, he pushed through the crowd whose voices drowned his own, and ran straight to Derek. “I think Norsunder’s already here.”

  Derek flung his head back to search the cliffs framing the sky, but he saw nothing. Where was Granny Innah?

  “Shit.” He whirled around.

  His sudden movement caused those around him to stop talking, and as reaction ringed outward, he jabbed a hand toward the steep crags above the bottleneck.

  Then he pointed violently, deploying his people. They flung themselves behind what cover they could as the first gray-clad enemies emerged.

  The air hummed with arrows, causing birds to flap skyward, scolding. Shields came up with a clatter, and the arrows drummed against them like the roar of hail on rooftops. “They’re fast,” Derek said.

  “They expected us,” the grizzled stonemason replied, his accent strong.

  Derek swallowed. Surprise was definitely gone. He thrust his fist upward, launching the two main forces. The third and fourth scrambled behind rocks and scrubby bushes to provide covering arrows.

  Only the covering arrows were mostly bouncing uselessly off the crags, or, even worse, falling among the struggling lines of their own people. Derek hopped on his toes, desperate to see, and the last order he was able to give was the signal to cease the arrows.

  After that he couldn’t see. Things moved too fast. Everywhere he looked, his people, people he knew, recoiled, screamed, bled, fell, to be lost from view in the mass pushing inexorably forward to help, to see. They crushed together, so that some couldn’t raise their weapons; the front fought the more desperately. One, two—five of the gray-clad ones fell. They could be killed!

  Then a miracle happened. A horn brayed, and the Norsundrians turned smartly and began retreating back up the rocky slope, the last of them fighting a rear guard action.

  Derek shouted, tears of angry joy in his eyes. They were in retreat! It was working!

  Far above, Tsauderei watched from a rocky escarpment, his heart grieving as the gray mass spread into the colorful one, causing a crimson froth. Then, with no warning, they reversed. What was this? Tsauderei could see how many Norsundrians still waited in the pass. Was it possible the commander was a coward? He expected moral cowardice from anyone who would cleave to Norsunder, but weren’t those who did the fighting bloodthirsty killers?

  Something was amiss. He glanced upward, gauging the tumbling clouds with decades of experience. Then he leaned dangerously out as Derek’s people gave chase. “Good, hit them hard from the rear,” he muttered.

  Tsaud
erei, like Derek, had no military experience, and so they were both stunned when the Norsundrians stopped at the top of the slope spilling out of the bottleneck. Then, in one of those timeless moments, as emotions spiral out end over end, Derek gazed up into the face of the commander, who stood a little apart from his forces, dressed unlike them entirely in black. Derek had expected some monster of a man, grizzled and scarred, but the slim fellow with the short, curly dark hair was his age.

  And he knew that face.

  His heart gave a sharp rap against his ribs, then thundered with horror. Kessler Sonscarna’s face had featured in nightmares ever since Derek’s escape from the assassin-training compound.

  Kessler Sonscarna’s hand went up, tightened into a fist.

  His Norsundrians turned, and with withering effectiveness, demonstrated the first truth of mountain warfare, that he who has the higher ground has the advantage.

  Tsauderei saw it before Derek did: Derek’s people had chased the enemy straight uphill into a trap. It was going to be a slaughter. Sorrow and anger drummed his heart as he looked upward again, this time with intent.

  Though light mages very seldom interfere with weather patterns, Tsauderei knew the mountains, the air currents, the patterns of rainfall. A late spring storm was already forming. He drew the currents together with such speed that the resulting thunderstorm shocked both sides below. In moments nobody on either side could see much beyond their own weapon, as hail pelted them, the rocks, and the tumbling stream with the merciless dispassion of nature.

  “Retreat.” Derek’s numb lips could barely move, and as his captain stared uncomprehendingly into his face from two handsbreadths away, Derek made the motion for retreat.

  There was no argument: the stonemason bent to pick up the lifeless body of his son, and leaned into the icy shower to stumble down the slope.

  Chapter Six

  At the same time

  Sartor and Sarendan

  “BUT I warded that damned wood,” Dejain protested, as she and Siamis stared down a grassy slope bright with wildflowers toward the dark line of Shendoral Forest. “I traveled up here in winter. I would swear that no one saw me.”