The Deed of Paksenarrion

by Elizabeth Moon

  Arvid put the tip of his sword past the corner. Nothing happened. Very slowly he eased his face to the corner. Paks waited, feeling her heart race. He drew back, and motioned her back a step. Then he spoke softly in her ear. “It goes twenty-thirty paces, then turns left. Wide enough for four fighters. Torch every four paces. Mark on floor, good for bow.”

  “Run it,” suggested Paks.

  “Only way,” he agreed. “Got to be quiet and fast.” Paks did not see how they could all be fast and silent, but she told the others. Ambros and another yeoman moved up beside her; she told Suli to stay in the second rank.

  They started off at a quick jog, as quietly as possible. Paks saw the pale stripes on the floor, four of them, and stepped over the first. Then she heard a noise from somewhere ahead, and leaped into full speed, the others with her. Four crossbowmen appeared at the far end of the passage; the first flight of crossbow bolts whirred by. Paks heard a yelp from behind; something clicked on her helmet. Behind them four more, shooting even as the first four dropped their bows and leaped forward with shortswords in hand. Paks did not hesitate; it would be suicide to stop in that bare passage. She reached the first swordsmen before they were set in position; Arvid and Ambros were hardly behind her, and they forced the line back into the others. Now all eight defenders had dropped their bows.

  Paks had never faced a shortsword formation with a longsword. She found herself fighting as if she had her Company weapon. At least they didn’t have shields—she smiled as her sword went home in one of them. He folded over, to lie curled on the floor. The man behind thrust at her, and she raked his arm. She noticed that Arvid, beside her, had downed another. The first man down tried to stab at her legs; Paks edged by, and Suli got him in the throat. Paks and Arvid were one step ahead of Ambros and the yeoman. Paks was beginning to think they might get through without too much trouble when four more men appeared.

  “Blast!” said Arvid. “I’d hoped this was the first wave.”

  Paks said nothing, fighting her way forward a step at a time. She was beginning to use the longsword more freely, with effect. Another man went down before her, and those behind seemed less eager to engage. But the noise in the passage was considerable. Ambros was yelling Girdish slogans, as was the yeoman; each had now defeated his man, and they were back in line. The clash of steel rang from the walls.

  Then the torches went out as if they’d been dipped in water. Paks felt something rake across her torso; the mail held. She thrust hard ahead of her, and heard someone grunt, then sigh. She shook the weight off her blade and thrust again. Nothing.

  “Arvid?” she asked.

  “Here.” His voice beside her was calm. She wasn’t. Ambros cursed, off to Arvid’s right. Paks could hear heavy breathing in front of them somewhere. She moved forward a step, and her boot landed on something soft and moving. She kicked, hard, and stepped back.

  “Light,” said Ambros testily. She could hear the scrape of flint and steel, but saw no spark.

  “You want light, servant of Gird?” came a silky voice out of the dark ahead. “I thought you Girdsmen claimed the knowledge of lightspells.”

  Paks tried again to move toward the voice, but Arvid grabbed her arm. She froze in place. She could sense that he was fumbling in his cloak. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could tell that somewhere around the bend torches were still burning—vague shapes stood out against that dim glow. She could not tell how many. If they were reloading crossbows—if they had spears—we’re crazy to stand here, she thought, like sheep in a chute. With a wild yell, she jumped forward, a standing leap that took her to the first of the dark shapes. She heard Arvid’s curse, the others jumping after her. Her sword clashed against another, suddenly glowing blue. She heard other weapons striking, and pressed her own opponent hard by instinct, since she could scarcely see. She felt a blow on her shoulder, and another on the ribs. Her own blade flickered, a dancing blue gleam that lit only its target. Something raked her free hand, burning like fire or ice. She shook it, still fencing.

  Their surprise attack brought them around the turn of the passage, over bodies now crumpled beneath the fighters. Ahead was a short hall with a door to the right. Against the golden glow from that door stood a tall, slender robed figure. They were within four paces of it, when that same smooth voice spoke, a word Paks had not heard before. Her muscles slackened, as if she had been hit in the head; she nearly dropped her sword. Arvid fell back a pace. Even Ambros stopped where he was, and dropped the tip of his blade. The defenders leaped forward.

  “Gird!” cried Ambros, in that instant. Paks felt her body come alive again; she covered Arvid’s side with a desperate lunge, and took a glancing blow on her helmet. Suli pushed past Arvid, throwing a quick glance at Paks, and lunged at the man before her. Paks had time to notice that she was indeed quick, and quite good. Then the defenders retreated past the door, and turned to run. Paks faced the doorway. It was empty.

  Within, the steady glow of lamplight revealed a chamber hung with rich tapestries in brilliant colors. In the center of the chamber stood a handsome young man in long black velvet robes edged with black fur. He smiled at them, and held out empty hands.

  “Don’t you think you’re being discourteous?” he asked. His voice was mellow as old ale. “It is friendlier to announce oneself, don’t you think?”

  “You—!” began Ambros. Paks noticed Suli edging forward and plucked at her sleeve. Suli turned, frowning, but obeyed when Paks gestured her back. “Spawn of Achrya,” Ambros went on. The man laughed easily.

  “Alas, young sir yeoman-marshal of Gird, I am not Achrya’s spawn—if I were, you might have found another welcome. ‘Tis true I have done her some service, but—what is that to thee?”

  “I am the yeoman-marshal—”

  “Yes, of Brewersbridge. This is not Brewersbridge. This is my keep, and you have broken in, attacking and killing my men—and you are not even the Marshal. It’s not your grange.”

  “It is. It was left in my care. And you—corrupting men, robbing caravans, killing and looting—Gird’s teeth, it’s my business!” Ambros took a step forward, toward the doorway.

  “So you really think a yeoman-marshal of Gird is a match for me? Or are you relying on your muscle-bound women for protection?” Suli lunged forward, and Paks caught her in the midriff with a stiff elbow. Suli gasped, and Paks spoke over her shoulder.

  “Don’t be a fool, he’s trying to anger us. Stay back.”

  The man looked directly at her. Something about his gaze warned her, and she dropped her eyes to his neck. “My,” he said sweetly, “a wise head rules that magic sword. Perhaps you are not what you seem, eh? I had heard of a strange lady swordfighter in Brewersbridge—a veteran of Phelan’s company, they said, who left because she would not see evil done. Is that you, then?” Paks fought back a surge of rage that roared in her ears and threatened to haze her vision. “Defeated that elven mage, and freed the elfane taig, that’s what I heard. Near enough a paladin, I should think—not a Girdsman yet, what a shame—if, that is, you defeat me. Do you think to defeat me, pretty one?”

  This too Paks ignored, keeping her attention on his neck. She thought how she would like to sink her sword in it. But she heard what he said. Near enough a paladin? The thought beckoned, like a finger in the mist. But Arvid spoke up, having regained his position beside her.

  “You, sir, seem to have some power of enchantment, or why do we stand here speaking to you? For me, I would see your blood on that handsome rug, and put an end to such delay.” He moved forward a handsbreadth and stopped, as if he’d hit a wall.

  “Enchantments? Yes, indeed. And, since you’ve robbed me of robbers and guards alike, I’m in need of servants. You, I believe, will do nicely. And the women; Achrya will be pleased if I interfere in the growth of a paladin of Gird. I hope, indeed, to convert all of you. How pleasant it will be to have spies in the grange of Brewersbridge.”

  “No! By Gird!” Ambros leaped forward, sword high
. Paks shook herself, suddenly alert to her musings, and followed him. She was not surprised to see a sword appear in the man’s hand, a dagger in the other. Ambros met the sword with his own, narrowly missing a dagger thrust. Paks came in on the Achryan’s sword side. She turned his blade and thrust. Her blade seemed to stick in his robes; she jerked it free with an effort. Meanwhile his blade had raked her shoulder. She could feel the links of mail along that track.

  No one else came to join them. As the priest of Achrya turned, Paks had time for a quick glance back. The others stood motionless, clearly unable to break free. Meanwhile the priest fought superbly, sweeping away their blades again and again. It seemed impossible to wound him. Every thrust that Paks thought went home caught in his robes, and he fought on unhindered. She did not notice that he worked them toward a corner of the room where dark blue velvet rose behind a carved black chair. He backed, backed again, turned, and grabbed for the chair arm. Paks, hearing a rustle above, jerked back and looked upward. A tangled mass of black webbing fell down, catching her off-balance. Where it touched her clothes, they turned black, charring. She slashed at the cords, her sword hissing as it sliced them. But they were tough and sticky; she could not free herself quickly.

  Ambros had jumped forward, a long lunge at the priest, and the web caught only one foot. Before the priest could strike, he had cut himself free. Now they fought behind the chair, great sweeps of sword parting the air and ringing together.

  “You might as well quit,” the priest said. “You can’t win now—two of you couldn’t defeat me.”

  “Gird’s grace,” said Ambros between clenched teeth. “I won’t quit—I will kill you.”

  “I think not, boy,” said the priest with a smile. He made a gesture toward Ambros’s face, and a length of something gray flicked at him. Ambros blinked but kept fighting. “You’re a stubborn fool, boy—are you hunting your death?” Paks struggled with the web, hardly aware of the Company curses she shouted. She could see blisters rising on Ambros’s face, like the mark of a fiery whip. The priest spared her a look. “You won’t get clear of that in a hurry, sweetling. ‘Tis made of Achrya’s own webs. As is this—” He lashed once more at Ambros’s face. The yeoman-marshal screamed, one hand clawing at his face. “You see, boy, what you drive me to? Why will you not submit?”

  Paks could see that the blow had caught his eye, but somehow Ambros had kept hold of his sword. He fought on, with less skill now, his movements jerky. Paks sawed frantically at the web, cursing again when it touched her bare skin; it burned like fire. The priest said something, a string of words she did not know, and the web moved, shifting around her, so that the cut strands were out of reach. Ambros called to her.

  “Paks—call on Gird! With me—” he gave a sharp cry of pain as the priest’s gray whip touched him again.

  Paks opened her mouth to say something else, and found herself yelling, “By the power of Gird Strongarm, and the High Lord, and all the gods of right—” Ambros, too, was yelling, holding his Girdish medallion now with one hand, as he flung himself on the priest. Light flared around them; Paks could hardly see, in the flurry of movement, what happened. Then the web lay still around her, and nothing moved in the heap of robes behind the chair. And the rest of the party, suddenly freed, ran forward full of questions and noise.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Suli grabbed the web strands that bound Paks, then yanked her hand back as welts rose on her palm. Arvid ran past Paks to look at Ambros and the priest.

  “He’s dead,” he said shortly.

  “Both?” asked Mal.

  “Yes. Both.” Arvid sighed, then turned back to help Paks and Suli hack the web apart. “Lady, that’s a dire trap you’re caught in.”

  “I know.” Paks could hardly speak for mingled anger and shame—Ambros was dead, and she had not been able to fight. She kept cutting grimly, until finally she could step out of the web. Her clothes were charred to rags, and Arvid looked at her mail with respect.

  “That’s . . . very good mail you’re wearing.”

  “Yes—” Paks touched one of the burns on her face gingerly, and went to look at Ambros’s body. The priest’s gray lash had laced blistered welts across his face. Together, she and Mal straightened his body, wrapping his cloak around it. Arvid and the other yeoman stood watch at the door, but no sound came from the corridor. Paks suspected that with their master dead, and his control broken, the men they’d fought had fled, either to the surface, or to deeper hiding places. Suli roamed the room idly, staring at the tapestries, then stooped over the dead priest’s body.

  “Look at this,” she said, lifting a silver chain around the dead priest’s neck. “It’s got—”

  “Drop that!” Paks remembered the Achryan’s medallion in Rotengre. “It’s magic.”

  Suli looked startled, and dropped it less quickly than Paks intended. But nothing happened.

  Paks could not define what she felt. She had not wanted to go back underground; she had not wanted to meet another evil mage. But she liked Ambros, had gotten used to his cheerful face. When he told her his dream, she felt his trust in her—and as always, gave trust for trust in return. In a vague way she had hoped—and made herself believe—that what they might face under the keep was not nearly so bad as the possessed elf-lord had been. She had thought Ambros’s dream was the dream of an untried soldier, a recruit thinking too much of the coming battle.

  Now he was dead. She had failed him. She, the seasoned soldier, had not been able to fight. The untried recruit, the boy (as she thought of him), had fought on, alone, and died without her aid. He was as dead as Macenion, as Saben, two others she had not saved. As she took the precautions she knew to take—setting a watch, planning their return to the surface—her mind roiled.

  Only after they had started back did she begin to realize what her position might be. What Sir Felis would think. What the Marshal would think. What everyone would think, when their yeoman-marshal lay dead and the experienced fighter let herself be trapped in a net. She did not know how grim her expression was until Arvid spoke.

  “Lady? Do you foresee some trouble I do not? Your sorrow for the yeoman-marshal, yes, but—what else?”

  Paks shook her head. “I did it all wrong.”

  “All wrong?” Arvid looked at her with obvious surprise. “We went against a larger force, on their ground, and have only one dead and a few wounded, and you think you did it all wrong? By Simyits’s eyebrow, lady, we could all be dead.”

  “No thanks to me that we aren’t.”

  “Nonsense. You forget that you fought that priest too. Quite well, I might add—and you were right to jump ahead in the dark when you did. I only thought afterward that if flint and steel wouldn’t spark, then my oil flask probably wouldn’t burn anyway. That young man died bravely, but not because you failed. Though I expect you won’t miss an overhead net trap again.”

  Paks shook her head, but felt a little better. The others said nothing, but smiled at her shyly when she looked at them. They were at ground level again when Arvid beckoned her aside.

  “I’ll be saying farewell,” he said with a smile. “Good luck to you, Lady Paksenarrion—you have the makings of a great warrior. You’re already a good one. Keep thinking on all sides of a question—”

  “But what do you mean, are you going?”

  “Yes.”

  “But why?”

  “My work is done,” he said with a shrug. “I was hired, as I said, to kill or convince the fellow to join the Guild. In my judgment, he would have made a poor member, even if he had been willing to join. I have seen him dead, and I have taken enough value to repay the Guild some of what it lost by his unlicensed theft.” Paks had not seen him take anything; while she was still sorting that out, he dipped into a pocket and handed something to her. “Here—a gift for you. Unlike your gnomish friends, I prefer to pay my debts at once.” Paks felt a something like a handful of pebbles through the thin leather of her glove. “No—don’t look now. Gr
atitude bores me. You see, I don’t think I’d like to explain everything to the Marshal—or have another talk with Sir Felis. You have enough witnesses to your actions; I need none for mine, if I go now.” He lifted her hand, still clenched around his gift, to his lips; Paks had never seen or imagined such a gesture. Before she could say anything, he had dropped it and moved lightly away, not looking back. She stuffed the handful, still unseen, into a pocket in her tunic, and turned to the others.

  * * *

  “And if I say it’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard? Ambros, at his age, to go haring off after a priest of Achrya! You, to let him—!” The Marshal, brows bristling in fury, strode back and forth in the grange, hands thrust into his belt. Paks, Mal, and the other yeomen stood against the wall; Ambros’s body lay on the platform, still wrapped in his cloak.

  “Marshal, if I may—” Sir Felis looked almost as angry as the Marshal. The Marshal stopped in midstride, balanced himself, and nodded shortly. Sir Felis looked at all their faces before he spoke. “Marshal, when he told me what he planned, I thought as you. A fool’s plan, I told him. I think—I think I was wrong.”

  “Wrong! With him dead, and—”

  “Wait, Marshal. I told him he had no experience. I told him that orders were orders. I insulted her—” he nodded at Paks, “—and told him he was a fool to go anywhere with a thief and a mercenary. And then he told me, Marshal, that his orders came not only from you but from Gird.”

  The Marshal’s face contracted, showing wrinkles it would not bear for many years. “It wasn’t—”

  “I didn’t think it was Gird. I told him that, too—that too many youngsters thought the gods blessed their folly. But Marshal—I think I said too much. Gird graces the hard head, as well as the strong arm. He was angry, at me, and that made him—”