The 19th Bladesman

by S J Hartland

  “Tide’s End has never fallen,” Aric countered. “You must know that.”

  “I don’t seek to destroy your morale, boy. Warfare has changed since Devarsi’s time. The king’s engines will breach your walls.”

  “You’re only trying to help, is that it?”

  “Not at all. I simply have no reason to lie. However, I will deliver the king your message of scorn and then we will see.” He turned.

  “Wait.” Aric grasped the man’s arm.

  Vraymorg looked down at his hand. “Take care not to provoke me. You tried to kill him. Kaell. For that, I bear you a grudge. I begged Cathmor to surrender you to me so I could drop you in a deep hole in the Mountains and teach you about despair.”

  Aric’s grip fell away. “You are entitled to your hatred, Vraymorg. Come after me when this war is done. I’ll answer your accusations with steel. For now, tell the king—” He bit his lip. Dare he defy his father? “Tell the king we will consider his terms.”

  “Consider.”

  “Yes, consider.”

  Vraymorg lifted his eyes to Aric’s face. “Make no mistake, Aric Caelan. Cathmor will humiliate you, torture you, then kill you. I cannot pretend to be sorry.”

  “His other terms are fair. My aunt, Cathmor’s mother, is custodian at Mazen-da Castle. My father, brother and sister will be securely kept but comfortable.”

  Vraymorg turned away. “Very well. Lord Hatton is considering His Grace’s terms.”

  King Hatton. Aric let it rest. “About Kaell.”

  Vraymorg whipped back, the small gesture telling. The man was desperate to find him.

  “I’ll say you asked after him.”

  Nodding slowly, Vraymorg said, “I guessed your father did not speak the entire truth.”

  “My sister told me a story,” Aric blurted. “About you.”

  “I am not your business.”

  “Azenor says you’re Isles-born, of Caelan blood.”

  Vraymorg drew very still. He looked right at Aric. Wariness glittered in long-lashed eyes indeed dark enough to belong to an Isles man.

  “She says you do not die. That you trained every bonded warrior from the first.”

  “Your sister speaks nonsense.”

  “Does she? That stubble ages you but beneath this deception you’re no older than Kaell.”

  The other man rested gloved hands on the stone balustrade, staring at nothing.

  Dust swirled. Beating sun scorched Aric’s scalp. The glinting sea frothed over reefs. Carts rumbled in the ward. Clanging steel, thudding axes, squeaking leather and shouts of men on the wall, ground together into a harsh melody.

  Nothing louder, though, than his heart and its uneven, pounding, grinding rhythm.

  He forced a breath and waited for a stranger to explain away what he said, to laugh or mock him.

  Instead, Vraymorg sighed. “You and I, Aric Caelan,” he said quietly. “We won’t meet again this side of death.”

  “You believe if not my cousin, the gods will punish me?” Aric laughed mirthlessly. “Which gods, Vraymorg? Your gods?”

  “Khir’s curse is upon a man who sheds a bonded warrior’s blood.”

  Yes, a shadow stalked him. Nothing mystical. Just guilt. About Kaell. About Aric’s dead warriors. A bladesman trusted steel, not supernatural nonsense. He must.

  “And is that the truth that explains you? Are you also a cursed man?”

  “Cursed.” Vraymorg’s shoulders stooped as though laden with an unspoken misery. “Is that why I shared the burden of who I am with a spirited, young woman that night? I told your sister things, bitter things, someone so young should not hear. Because I thought she, an Isles princess of my blood, might understand.”

  “Who are you?” Aric whispered.

  “Do you mean my name?” For the first time, the other man smiled. He looked younger then, even younger and Aric shivered.

  “I shall tell you,” Vraymorg said. “And you shall search for me in your books in the long, tedious weeks ahead while the king waits without and you wait within. But the king will prevail. I am sorry for it. For I was born a son of the Isles in this very castle.”

  “It’s not possible—” Aric broke off, trembling.

  Again the man’s dark eyes settled on him. “As you say. And yet…”

  “How?”

  “A sorcerer sought something from me. I tried to escape him.” Vraymorg absently touched a wrist bracelet. “He imprisoned me, condemned me to an eternity of darkness. Until Devarsi heard me weeping and freed me.”

  “A cursed queen,” Aric muttered.

  “Cursed or not, I loved her, vowed to serve those of her blood, like Cathmor. Even though their gods aren’t mine. Even when they war against the city of my birth, against those I would rather cut off my arm than fight.”

  “Then do not.” Aric struggled to make sense of this. “You’re an Isles man. Fight with us. Take our side.”

  Vraymorg curled a gloved hand. Slowly. As if drawing every bit of inconvenient emotion into that clench to control it.

  “We are both on a path, Aric Caelan,” he said. “We met here, briefly, because I sought word of Kaell. I told you the truth because you will die soon. If, by chance you do not and you tell my secret, I will deny it. No one will believe you.”

  “They might.”

  “I’ve had centuries to learn how to hide. The Lords of Vraymorg always die soon after their monarch. They leave behind, with a faithful servant, letters and sworn documents naming a bastard as their successor—me. I change my appearance a little, my servant remarks about how I look like my father.”

  He shrugged. “In time, I present myself at court to the new king as my father’s son. No one has suspected anything. No one will.”

  “We share blood. My father, my brother, Azenor, we’re your kin. Yet you do not take our part.” Anger burst through him. “You disgust me.”

  “I owe no debt to those of my blood.” Vraymorg’s voice was cold.

  Aric stared. None of it could be true. “Who are you?” he said again.

  Heath

  The camp echoed with thudding axes. Bora demanded wood for battering rams and wood he would have. Once the engines pierced the walls, he intended to ram the gates.

  “They’ll expect us to pour through the breach,” the king’s captain explained to the war council that morning. “Not come through the gates.”

  “The problem is,” Heath told his captain Dillon afterwards, “we can’t get anywhere near the gates without losing a lot of men. Aric’s archers will pick us off.”

  “It might work if it’s a double bluff,” Dillon said. “Both the charge at the gates and the breach feints. Attack from the sea side.”

  “Very good.” Heath tilted a brow. “With those wits, we’re clearly kin, cousin. I’m still better looking of course.”

  Leaving Dillon at the king’s pavilion, he stomped around bogs and rain puddles, weaving through tents, carts and cook fires to his tent on a flat hill. Hearing singing, he grinned as he pushed through the flaps. “Judith.”

  His sister soaped an arm extended from a wooden tub. She broke off her song. “Heath dear, be more than decorative for once and tell that girl I need more hot water.”

  Like an obedient puppy, Heath found the servant then wandered back to watch Bora’s men fell trees. One must find entertainment where one could. A dull business, sieges.

  He returned to find Judith dressed and towelling her hair.

  “I hope you didn’t mean to keep my presence secret, Heath,” she said. “Men scuttled off to tell the king when we rode in.”

  Heath swept up her hand to kiss her fingers. “You’re hardly the only woman in camp so Cathmor won’t wonder if I’m up to mischief.”

  “Camp followers,” she sniffed.

  “And a bejewelled mistress or two. The Lord of the Plains brought his wife and daughter. He thought a siege might amuse them. Or maybe he hopes to find a husband for the girl. What a fat fool. Gods help him if the
re’s actual fighting.”

  Judith snatched up a comb to attack her hair. With wet locks sticking to her cheeks, she looked young and vulnerable. A useful disguise. Judith wasn’t that even in the womb.

  “Your message said you have a task for me?”

  “I do. A fish to catch.”

  “Am I to look ravishing at dinner with the king and his lords tonight? For this fish?”

  “Perceptive girl. Yes, no doubt the king will insist we dine with him.”

  “And?” Judith tugged at a knot. “Am I to hook the king?”

  “Not Cathmor. You reeled him in months ago. No, this fish will be slippery. I have no idea what bait to use. Does he prefer women or goats? Perhaps he abstains from all that is fleshy and embraces his blade at night for comfort. Who can tell?”

  Judith raised an eyebrow. “Does this abstaining, blade-embracing fish have a name?”

  “He does.” He ducked as she hurled the comb.

  “Tease. Is this to do with Aric? It seems hopeless. You and I are here, on a small hill overlooking a field of mud and tents.”

  “We are without,” Heath said. “As those involved in sieges say.”

  “And Aric Caelan is behind Tide’s End’s walls, looking down at us and our mud.”

  “He is within.”

  Judith laughed. “Be serious. I’m assuming your fish is ‘without’ and not ‘within’. A pity I can’t play with Aric. He’s almost as pretty as his captain, the one you nearly cut up.”

  “Don’t forget I didn’t cut up the pretty captain, just to please you.”

  No need to tell her Pairas’ fate now. Judith did not need pretty distractions.

  “No, even if without, you can’t play with Aric. Myranthe wants to torment that fish.”

  She feigned a pout. “You spoil my fun.”

  “This fish will be fun—and to your taste.”

  “Promises, promises. Well, go on with your fish nonsense.”

  “Our fish is a young lord. One I never encountered until two days ago when he came into the king’s tent, weary, wounded and rather grimy from a long ride.”

  “That’s to my taste? Grimy and weary? No doubt stinking of sweat.”

  Heath grinned, enjoying their game. “He brought important news for the king, so one can forgive him for looking dishevelled. He’ll scrub up nicely, you’ll see.”

  “Was this important news about Khir’s bonded warrior? Don’t look shocked. It’s all over camp about Kaell. That means this lord who brought the tale is Vraymorg.”

  “Ah, so sharp you’ll cut yourself one day.”

  “I’ve heard that said of you. No one seems to understand that beneath the charm you’re really very tedious.” Judith frowned. “Why do you want me to get close to Vraymorg?”

  “Because I don’t understand him, because he’s very prickly, and the king resents him.”

  “Prickly. Hmm. If you’re interested, he must be a swordsman.”

  “He moves like a swordsman. But there’s so much more, Judith. This is a powerful man, an intense man. Quite fascinating. He almost frightens me.”

  That snagged her attention. “Frightens? That makes him singular.”

  Heath laughed. “Oh little sister, I am easily frightened. I’m terrified of muddying my boots on this hill. So troublesome. When I asked that servant of yours to bring hot water, I trembled at her glare. Not to mention when the king flies into a rage, I want to cry.”

  “There, there,” she comforted, laughing.

  But she was right. Vraymorg was singular. Heath wanted to know why.

  Before he killed him.

  Kaell

  Wind lifted his hair, its tangy breath pleasantly warm. White-tipped waves foamed over reef and rocks, brushing sand with damp fingers.

  Kaell stripped off his pants. Naked, he let the tide lap his toes. Until Archanin took him prisoner in that vile ruin, he never felt ashamed of his hard body. Now it no longer seemed a part of him. Its flesh, bone and skin a shell for his impure blood.

  Gripped by a strange calm, he waded out. His breaths matched the waves’ rhythm, their hum a song in his head. Hip-deep, he dropped beneath the water.

  Shrieking sea birds, the wind fell away. Time moved softly. Deeper and deeper he sank. Why not just let his breath go and drift into death? No more shame. No fear, no doubts.

  Sun broke through clouds, filtering down into the rippling sea. Kaell squinted, an uncomfortable ache behind his eye sockets heralding a vision.

  It came from nowhere; the sea gone in a heartbeat. His back pressed chafing wood. Iron bruised his ankles and wrists. Limp pennons and standards drooped from tent poles.

  Mist swirled, damp on his skin. A man stood before him. His lord. His face gaunt with pain. He held a sword. The blade swung. At Kaell.

  Kaell’s breath rushed out. Flailing, a weight on his chest, he kicked until he surfaced above cresting waves. Desperately he gulped in air, unable to stop the vision rolling on.

  Oars splashed waves. Wind streamed Azenor’s hair, her hands clasped about her knees as a boat yawed. “Kaell,” she said. Just “Kaell,” and laughed.

  They sank onto the sand, shoulders touching, watching the boat pull away towards a red-hewed horizon.

  “Where does it go?”

  “Beyond the Enarae,” she said. “Through the veil.”

  “Why are you here?”

  Azenor stroked his face, her fingers clammy. “Don’t you know? What do your dreams tell you? You should listen to their warning.”

  She disappeared. Despite the late afternoon sun, gooseflesh pimpled Kaell’s arms. His shadow clouded the waves. The vision made no sense. But it was a bad portent.

  He found Aingear crouched by a stream in a forest-ringed grove above the cliffs. A stiffening breeze creaked through soughing trees, its summer breath nectar. Alyssum and blue bells patterned a rippling white and blue quilt. Butterflies danced in balmy air that defied the approaching dusk.

  “Did you immerse your head beneath the waves?” she said. “It is part of the ritual.”

  Kaell nodded and looked about him. “What is this place?”

  “The island is a temple to The Three.”

  “A temple?”

  “Listen.”

  Bees droned. Down a rolling hillside, waves foamed on rocks. Yet as twilight lengthened shadows, the wind groaned an eerie song and the stream whispered over pebbles.

  Kaell shivered. This island and its strange gods repelled him.

  Aingear considered him in silence for a moment.

  “Tell me of your life. I hear the Mountains fortress is a forbidding place.”

  “I felt safe there. Because of my lord.” Kaell smiled. “I remember the first time he gave me a real sword, steel, not wood. My lord dismissed the weapons master and said, ‘Show me what you know. And I’ll show you why it’s not enough’.”

  How he glowed with pleasure to have Vraymorg’s attention focused only on him.

  “A harsh man.”

  “A truthful man,” Kaell said. “No one ever matched him with the blade.”

  His belly twisted, a sharp, painful lurch of loss and loneliness. His lord always shielded him. The one certainty in his life. Whatever the trouble, he knew what to do.

  But Vraymorg wasn’t here. Kaell was alone in a land with gods he didn’t understand, in a body with appetites he wasn’t certain he could control.

  He closed his eyes, remembering how his lord hurled the sword in that cell as though he could not contain his despair. Did he care? Could he?

  The priestess rose. “Let me show you something.”

  She led him up a fat, earthy-scented hill in the island’s centre, its slopes tangled with small-leafed bushes. Feathery grass brushed his legs. Across twilight-dark waves, islands bobbed like beaten husks on a horizon ablaze with swirling orange and pink.

  The high priestess pushed through bushes towards a black stone. It was low and long with iron bands hammer-struck into its wind-beaten, flat surface.r />
  Kaell paused beside a nearby oval-shaped rock. Though worn, its edges crumbling, it was free of weeds, with words carved into its seaward face.

  “What does it say?”

  Solemnly, Aingear replied, “It says, ‘Karmarna. The king’s sword. The man’s friend.’ He came back and buried the body. That stone is a grave marker.”

  “He?”

  “Roaran Caelan nearly lost his life here long ago.”

  “When he was king? Why was he here?”

  “To pay homage to The Three as the Lord of the Isles must do each midsummer. One year, Adorean soldiers ambushed Roaran and his escort. Trapped, outnumbered, his king’s sword, Karmarna of the Icelands, sacrificed his life to delay the Adoreans so Roaran could escape.”

  She brushed a palm over the black stone. “His sacrifice makes this a place of power.”

  The unknown laid a bewildering hand on Kaell. Dry-mouthed, he shifted his eyes to the dark stains beneath Aingear’s hand.

  “What are the iron bands for?”

  But the priestess already turned away. He trudged after her back to the stream.

  She sent him to gather more wood. When he returned, she jiggled a pan in the fire. Kaell dumped an armful of branches. The aroma of frying fish roused a nagging hunger for both food and blood. He built inner walls to cage that blood lust. But should they crumble and he killed, he was lost. A pariah.

  “You promised your gods could save me. Is it true? Even if they’re not my gods?”

  “Yes. Because I now know how to bind you to them.” She hugged her knees. “It is easier, though, if you could put aside your gods—”

  “No.”

  “They failed you, Kaell. Did Khir hear your pleas when Archanin held you prisoner?”

  “You don’t know what you ask.” Kaell slumped beside her. “In battle, Khir grants me strength and Kutron the wind’s speed. I belong to these jealous Mountains gods.”

  Coiling smoke hid her expression. “Then it will be harder for us both,” she said.

  “Why? What must happen? When?”

  “Soon.”