Once A Hero

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Until we started our descent into the room, a tall, vaguely rectangular lump shrouded in a blue velvet curtain in the middle of the room had attracted a lot of attention. I thought it might be a wardrobe or some similar piece of furniture beneath the cloth, but its presence in the middle of what should have been the dance floor surprised me.

  As we entered the room, Genevera doubtless was the cause of so many people looking at us, but the fact that I alone among the people gathered wore a sword did spark conversation. They apparently found me as boorish as they found her enchanting; wearing more than a dagger to a social event such as this was clearly of questionable taste. All of the women who watched Gena through a veil of jealousy likely pitied her for being accompanied by someone like me, while the men probably sympathized with my desire to wear a sword to fend them off when I had her by my side.

  Berengar met us at the base of the stairs and bowed deeply. As he straightened up, he signaled the orchestra with his left hand and the music died. His black velvet jacket and trousers had been fashioned similarly to mine, but the slashes in his sleeves showed the same purple satin that had been used to make Genevera's gown. He, too, had eschewed the little cap that had come with my clothes, and he did not wear a sword.

  He raised his voice, though he hardly needed to, and addressed everyone in the room. "Friends, relatives, Elders, and distinguished guests, I am most pleased to see you here. This is a night that shall live forever in the history of Aurdon. It is but an echo of a night five centuries ago in which an oath was taken, an oath that defined this city and its nature."

  Berengar steered us through the crowd and toward the velvet-hung monolith. "As you all know and have been repeatedly reminded, five centuries ago, before the empire even existed, our city—barely a town then—was torn because of a conflict between two families. Mercenaries, in the service of the Red Tiger, came to Aurium and forged a peace between the Fishers and the Riverens by creating the Knott family."

  He reached out and pulled the dark cloth away from what it hid. The curtain puddled at the base of a glass-walled wardrobe with glass doors facing us. In it, above the fanned display of swords that occupied the lower half of the enclosure, hung the sleeves I had knotted together so long ago. Ismere's blue sleeve had faded a bit with age, and Rufus's homespun sleeve had yellowed considerably, but the cloth had not deteriorated as much as I thought it should have. Perhaps the oath I swore that night did have some power to it. I did not know, but the revulsion I had felt that night concerning Aurium and the two families came rushing back to me at the sight of the knotted sleeves.

  Berengar allowed the buzz running through the crowd to die before he continued. "You all know that I went away from here on an important quest, and I have returned, successful. On the night these sleeves were joined, Neal Roclawzi bound the Fishers and Riverens to work together until Wasp and Cleaveheart sundered the knot you see before you. My quest was to recover those venerable blades so this false alliance could be ended forever."

  That brought something of an outburst from the north end of the room, but Berengar ignored whoever had spoken. As the crowd slowly drifted closer, he pointed to me. "This quest was one that took me and my companions from here to Jarudin, Cygestolia, and even to the Rimefields far to the north. Not only did we recover the weapons we needed, but Lady Genevera of Woodspire even brought Neal Roclawzi back to life so he could undo what he had done that night."

  I started to speak, but before I could say anything, cries of "Fraud!" erupted among the Riverens. I don't think they intended them as distractions, but merely as an honest expression of their disbelief and outrage at what Berengar had said. After all, if rumors about Berengar's return had begun to spike anxiety among them, then hearing him claim that he had brought Neal Roclawzi back to Aurdon after five centuries in the grave had to seem like the basest and boldest of lies.

  Woven amid their shouts, I heard a growl and a scream. As I turned to my left to try to pinpoint their origins, all I saw was a face locked in fury and the naked dagger coming at my back.

  Chapter 41:

  Bright Fruit, Cruel Poison

  Winter

  A.R. 499

  The Present

  ***

  GENA FELT NEAL pull roughly away from her before she had a clue anything was wrong. She turned toward him and saw a flash of silver that exploded into bloody crimson as Neal parried a dagger aside with his left forearm. His right fist came around and sounded like an ax chopping wood as it landed square on his assailant's face. The assassin's legs went boneless as blood gushed from his broken nose. He hit the ground, and Neal curled down into a kneeling crouch a second later, clutching his arm against his stomach.

  She dropped to her knees beside him. "How badly are you hurt?"

  Neal hissed and raised his left arm. The dagger had sliced through the jacket sleeve and had scored a nasty gash on the underside of his forearm. Blood welled up in it and ran down into the sleeve itself. "I've survived worse, but it's always the shallow ones that sting something powerful."

  Gena flipped up the hem of her purple gown and tore a strip from one of her white underskirts. "No magick, correct?"

  Neal looked at her, then smiled. "Correct." He pulled off the rest of his sleeve and let her bandage the wound. The white bandage quickly reddened, so she produced another tattered bandage from her clothes and wound this one even tighter.

  Berengar pounced on the assailant and hauled him to his feet by the scruff of his neck. "Oho, Titus Riveren!" He shook him, and Gena saw the bleeding figure was little more than a boy. Had the blood from his nose not darkened his moustache, she never would have noticed it, because, like his fair eyebrows, it could not be seen against his pale skin. "What treachery is this?"

  The dazed boy said nothing coherent, but scarlet bubbles formed on his lips. Blood from his nose ran down over his mouth to his chin, then dripped down to the floor. Had Berengar not held him up, Gena knew the boy would have collapsed again, and she felt sorry for him.

  Berengar held him aloft as he might a fox taken after a long hunt. "Everyone here saw this. You all saw a Riveren strike at the man who would tear down the shield behind which they hide. Need any of you any more proof of their baseness and dishonor? Suckling at their mothers' breasts, the Riverens learn to strike at a man's back, so how much worse must they be as adults? And what adult—if he has any concept of responsibility—would use a child as an assassin?"

  He released the boy, and Titus pooled in a bony pile at Berengar's feet. The count looked down at Neal and extended his hand to him. "Give me Cleaveheart, and I will strike the blow that will free the Fishers to avenge this assault upon you."

  Neal shook his head as he slowly rose. "I'm thinking, Berengar, I've never needed avenging before, and I'm not going to start needing it now."

  "Your point is well-taken, Neal." Berengar crossed to the glass cabinet and opened the doors. "There, use Cleaveheart to sunder the knot, then we Fishers will be your allies in destroying the Riverens."

  Again Neal shook his head. "If you're thinking the rash act of a child means his family needs killing, then I'm glad the knot exists. And even if Titus there were meant to assassinate me—and since his blade wasn't poisoned, I'm not thinking anyone put him up to this—I've got a question or two I want answered before I throw the Fishers and the Riverens in a pit together."

  Berengar stiffened. "Questions can be answered later. Give me the sword and I will sever the knot."

  "Hear him out!" shouted someone from the Riveren end of the room.

  "The sword, Neal, now! You know not the forces with which you deal."

  Gena sensed a hardening in Neal and saw it reflected in the fire flashing through his green eyes. She slowly stood and pulled back away from him, clearing the space between him and Berengar.

  Neal's voice rumbled low like the growl of his namesake. "Oh, I'm thinking I have a very good idea of what I'm dealing with. I walked in your city yesterday, and I learned a number of things you'
d not be wanting me to know if you had looked at me as more than a way to get your hands on Cleaveheart here."

  Berengar's eyes narrowed. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

  "No? I think you do, and I think even your family does not know how far you have gone." Neal looked over at the Fishers. "You believed Berengar would be bringing Cleaveheart back to sunder this knot, and when he did that, you knew there would be a war. So you've brought mercenaries into Aurdon. Four companies, at the least, and their captains are here now. You've forgotten that I captained my own mercenary company, so I know the look and understand the language. You may have thought yourselves subtle having them come into town and storing their kits in one of your warehouses, but idle able-bodied men spending Fisher gold attracts attention in the lower reaches of your city."

  Neal smiled easily. "Did you also know of a rumor old enough to have grown moss about a secret foundry at Lake Orvir that's making flashdrakes? It's said there's at least ten thousand of the weapons stored there, which is more than enough to equip the mercenaries in your employ. Just the thing an ambitious heir to the imperial throne would need to press his claim and eliminate competition. And with Cleaveheart and the prophecy concerning it, he might even imagine he could retake and reforge the whole of the empire."

  Berengar shook his head. "Baseless fantasies of a man whose brain rotted while he lay in his tomb."

  "Flight of fancy that might all be, but there are other things I know as facts." Neal glanced over at Gena and she felt her blood run cold. "I know that you had Durriken murdered."

  "Preposterous!"

  "How do you know, Neal?" Gena stared at the both of them, every kind thought she had ever had about Berengar turning into a barb that skewered her soul. "How can you be certain?"

  "Durriken's flashdrakes and Lord Orvir's ring were given to you after Durriken's death by Eight Cuts. Perhaps Haladin culture has changed since my time, but Eight Cuts was reserved for Haladin traitors. Durriken was not Haladin, was he?"

  Gena numbly shook her head.

  "And even if the Haladina had changed that much, they never would have left his flashdrakes and the ring with him after they killed him. That mistake the Reithrese made five centuries ago, and I spotted it then. Berengar has repeated Takrakor's blunder here and now."

  Berengar forced a laugh. "Speculation. You offer no link between me and Durriken's death. It would have been just as easy for the Riverens to have killed him, or the Haladina—who were then frightened off before they could loot his body."

  Neal shook his head and pointed to the ring lying flat against Gena's chest. "Even when I was young, a slapdeath ring was well-known. Durriken was wearing it and didn't know until too late that your people had come to kill him. He could not use one of the flashdrakes, but he got one man with the ring. You may be well liked in Aurdon, Berengar, but your cousin Waldo was not, and many was the person who recounted the tale of his death by food poison at the time of Durriken's demise."

  Neal looked the crowd over and shook his head. "I'm thinking, Berengar, that you decided that with Cleaveheart you could win yourself an empire, so you set out to recover the sword. The story about freeing your family from my curse was a convenient dodge, and with her eyes blinded by the desire to avenge Durriken, Lady Genevera missed the clues."

  The count stared imperiously down at Neal. "And you did not?"

  "Lad, when you go from lustfully looking at her to lustfully looking at my sword, I'm bound to notice."

  "You are an old man. Your time is passed. Give me the sword, and I shall let you live out the remainder of your unnatural life in peace."

  "I'm thinking, Berengar, that's not possible. You might give me peace, but my conscience would not oblige me." Neal nodded his head toward the cabinet. "You heard Tacorzi—this blade must be given away or won in combat. I will not give it to you."

  Berengar smiled easily as he drew a rapier from the rack in the cabinet. "Then I must give it to you, mustn't I?"

  Gena saw four men of military bearing move to the forefront of the crowd and edge toward the cabinet. Filtering her fury at having been deceived and betrayed into her magick, she gestured at the cabinet. A purple bolt of lightning launched itself from the palm of her right hand and slammed the doors shut. The energy fanned out and formed a net that sizzled and crackled, filling the air with the scent of ozone.

  She met the stares of the four mercenary captains. "This is their fight, unless you foolishly choose to make it my fight."

  Berengar saluted her. "Bravo, I never wanted interference. You honor me."

  "I do nothing of the sort, Berengar." Her eyes sparked with the agonizing fury that knotted her stomach. "You had better pray Neal slays you, because if he does not, I will. And if the job falls to me, the horrors of the Eldsaga will be but pleasant memories for you as you die."

  Chapter 42:

  Slash And Burn

  Winter

  A.R. 499

  The Present

  My 536th Year

  ***

  I LET THE cold finality of Gena's words sink into me, and I accepted the responsibility of avenging Durriken for her. Likewise I chose to accept preventing the perversion of what we had all fought for so long ago, and I accepted the safeguarding of those who would be maimed and killed if Berengar's dreams of empire became reality. Never before had my reasons for a fight been so clearly drawn. I felt that somehow this battle was more important than any I had ever fought before.

  As we set ourselves for combat, I knew it would be child's-play to use Cleaveheart to slash his rapier to bits. I could defeat him in that way, but I chose not to. This was a fight between him and I, between what I was and what he wanted to become. I saw no reason to make his rapier pay for his ambition.

  With a whispered hiss Cleaveheart came up and went down in a salute to my foe. He stood slightly taller than I, but carried less weight in his hips and thighs than I did. Technically he was a bigger target, but that size also gave him an advantage in reach. I had discovered, in sparring with smaller foes in the Steel Pack, that reach could decide a fight. I also knew, given his skill and all that I had learned, the inch of reach he may have had over me would matter little.

  Berengar saluted me, his blade's razor edges picking up and reflecting the purple lightning playing over the cabinet. He set himself in a low stance, with the tip of his blade pointing at my right eye. I brought Cleaveheart up and targeted his throat. I let the point of my blade circle slowly, making a circuit no larger than a coin. Keeping myself on the balls of my feet, I waited, because I knew that in this place and given his cause, he would have to strike first.

  He did not disappoint me. As he slid forward, his point dropped and arrowed in at my right thigh. I snapped my blade down and around to the left, awkwardly inverting the sword in a huge circular parry. I carried his blade back out to my right, then came forward, getting inside his guard. I crashed Cleaveheart's basket-hilt into his face. The blow staggered him and drove him to his knees.

  I leaped above the weak return slash, then whipped my blade up and out, catching him on the collarbone. I sliced velvet and the flesh beneath it at his right shoulder. Like my wound I knew it would sting, but it would not hamper him. Dancing back away, I brought my blade back into my guard. "That's one cut."

  Berengar wiped away blood from his split lip with the back of his left hand. "That makes us even."

  "Then I will make you more than even." I waited for him to regain his feel, then I lunged at his belly. He parried me down, hard, and I let my blade go with his move, I cut it back to the right, just missing his knee as he riposted forward and passed his blade between my ribs and right arm. His blade started to come up, seeking the artery running through my armpit. I cocked my wrist, bringing Cleaveheart's point forward in a stabbing motion at his eyes, while swinging my body away from his sword.

  His cut missed as he reflexively pulled up short to protect his face. Continuing my spin, I presented my back to him for a tantalizing
moment. I knew he had to strike at it, so I cranked my sword down and let it precede me in the spin. My blade picked up Berengar's forehand slash, but the weak block did allow his blade to kiss my right flank and lay open the flesh over my ribs.

  Sweat poured fire into the cut, but I did not retreat. As he pulled his sword back for another, heavier cut, I ducked and snapped my blade up. His slash passed over my head as I leaned in toward him and raked my blade obliquely over his stomach. I sliced a cut open on his belly, by his right hip, and that made him yelp. Already low, I rolled back onto my tail and somersaulted back out of his range, then stood.

  "That's two cuts, Berengar."

  He growled out a chuckle. "Again we are even. But we shall not be at the end of this game."

  Berengar settled into a guard and wove the point of his blade through a figure-eight pattern. I kept mine circling, but brought my hand up so my hilt remained at shoulder height. My blade pointed at his right knee. I stamped once with my right foot, then feinted at his leg. He brought his blade down and around in a tight circular parry, but I snapped my wrist back. Bringing Cleaveheart back to where it almost touched my right shoulder, I then lashed it forward and razored open a wound on his right flank.

  "Three cuts."

  Berengar fought back fast. He lunged, then withdrew as my parry started. I went to riposte, but his blade extended again in a stop-thrust. I twisted back to my left and avoided being skewered, but only just barely. His point ricocheted off a rib, leaving with a cut beneath my left nipple, and sweat seared into it as well.

  As I pulled back, he pressed his attack with short jabs at my legs, groin, and belly. Circling, I managed to fend them off more by moving out of range than by parrying them. Finally he got me on my left hip with a little stab wound. I could have parried it with my free hand, but it would have cost me fingers.