Storm Season tw-4

by Robert Lynn Asprin

  These outlaws were better armed and bolder than any the soldiers had encountered before, but Walegrin had no time to consider this discovery. His men were hard pressed, without their usual advantage over the hill-bred fighters. His sword stole the lifeblood of two men, but then he was cut himself and fought defensively, unaware of the fate of his men or the tide of battle. He was forced to retreat another step; the open back of a wagon pressed against his hips. The one who bore down on him was as yet un-wounded. It was time for a soldier's last prayers.

  Snarling, the attacker took his sword in both hands for a decapitating cut. Walegrin braced to take the force of the stroke on his sword which he held in a bent, injured arm. His weapon fell from his suddenly numb hand, but his neck was intact. The brigand was undaunted, his smile never wavered; Walegrin was unarmed now.

  Steadying himself to face death with courage, Walegrin's leaden fingers found an object left forgotten in the wagon: the old Enlibar sword they had found in the dust of the mine. The silver-green steel showed no rust, but no-one had exchanged his serviceable Rankan blade for one forged five hundred years before his birth-until now. Walegrin brought the ancient sword around with a bellow.

  Blue-green sparks surged when the swords met. The Enlibar metal clanged above the other sounds of battle. The brigand's swordblade shattered and, with a reflex born of experience not thought, Walegrin took his assailant's head in a single, soft stroke.

  The fabled steel of Enlibar!

  His mind glazed with the knowledge. He did not hear the hillmen take flight, nor see his men gather around him.

  The Steel of Enlibar!

  Three years of desperate, often dangerous searching had brought him to the mine. They'd filled two wagons with the rich ore and defended it with their lives-but in the depths of his heart Walegrin had not believed he'd found the actual steel: a steel that could shatter other blades; a steel that would bring him honor and glory.

  He found his military sword in the dust at his feet and offered it to his lieutenant.

  "Take this," he ordered. "Strike at me!"

  Thrusher hesitated, then took a half-hearted swipe.

  "No! Strike, fool!" Walegrin shouted, raising the Enlibrite blade.

  Metal met metal with the same resounding clang as before. The shortsword did not shatter, but it took a mortal nick to its edge. Walegrin ran his fingers along the unmarred Enlibrite steel and whooped for joy.

  "The destiny of all Ranke is in our hands!"

  His men looked at one another, then smiled with little enthusiasm. They believed in their commander but not necessarily in his quest. They were not cheered to see their morose, intense officer so transformed by an off-color sword-however good the metal and even if it had saved his life. Walegrin's exaltation, however, did not last long.

  They found Malm's body some twenty paces from the fire, a deep wound in his neck. Wale-grin closed his friend's eyes and commended him to his gods-not Walegrin's gods; Walegrin honored no gods. Malm was their only casualty, though they could ill afford the loss.

  In grim silence Walegrin left Malm and returned to ransack the headless corpse by the wagon. Its belt produced a sack of gold coins, freshly minted in the Rankan capital. Walegrin thought of the letters he had sent to his rich patron in the Imperial hierarchy, and of the replies he had not received. In anger and suspicion he tore at the dead man's clothes until he found what he knew must be there: a greasy scrap of parchment with his mentor's familiar seal embossed upon it. While his men slept he read the treachery into his memory.

  Kilite's treasury had financed his quest almost from the start. The ambitious aristocrat had said that the Enlibrite steel, if it could be found, would assure the Empire swift, unending victories-and swift, unending fortune for whomever made the legend reality. Walegrin had dutifully informed the Imperial Advisor of all his movements and of his success. He cursed and threw the scrap of parchment into the fire. He'd told Kilite his exact route from Enlibar to Ranke.

  He should have known the moment his first man died-or at least when he lost the second. The hill tribes had been peaceful enough when they'd come up through the mountains and they, themselves, could make no use of the raw ore. He counted the dead man's gold into his own pouch, calculating how far he and his men could travel on it.

  Things could have been worse. Kilite might have been able to bribe the tribesmen, but it was still unlikely he could find the abandoned mine. Walegrin had never entrusted that secret to paper. And Kilite had never known that Walegrin's final destination had not been the capital, but back in Sanctuary itself. He'd never told Kilite the name of the ugly, little metal-master in the back alleys there who could turn the ore to finest steel.

  "We'll make it yet," he said to the darkness, not noticing that Thrusher had come to sit beside him.

  "Make it to where?" the little man asked. "We don't dare go to the capital now, do we?"

  "We're headed toward Sanctuary from this moment on."

  Thrusher could scarcely contain his surprise. Walegrin's intense dislike of the city of his birth was well-known. Not even his own men had suspected they would ever return there. "Well, I suppose a man can hide from anything in Sanctuary's gutters," Thrusher temporized.

  "Not only hide, but get our steel too. We'll head south in the morning. Prepare the men."

  "Across the desert?"

  "No-one will be looking for us there."

  His orders given and certain to be obeyed, Walegrin strode into the darkness. He was used to sleepless nights. Indeed, he almost preferred them to his nightmare ridden slumber. And now, with thoughts of Sanctuary high in his mind, sleep would be anything but welcome.

  Thrusher was right-a man could hide in Sanctuary. Walegrin's father had done it, but hiding hadn't improved him any. He'd ended his life reviled in a city that tolerated almost anything, hacked to pieces and cursed by the S'danzo of the bazaar. It was his father's death, and the memory of the curse that haunted Walegrin's nights.

  By rights it wasn't his curse at all, but his father's. The old man was never without a doxy; Rezzel was only the last of a long, anonymous procession of women through Walegrin's childhood. She was a S'danzo beauty, wild even by their gypsy standards. Her own people foresaw her violent death when she abandoned them to live four years in the Sanctuary garrison, matching Walegrin's temper with her own.

  Then one night his father got drunk, and more violently jealous than usual. They found Rezzel, what remained of her, with the animal carcasses outside the charnel house. The S'danzo took back what they had cast out and, by dead of night, returned to the garrison. Seven masked, knife-wielding S'danzo carved the living flesh of his father, and sealed their curses with his blood. They'd found two children, Walegrin and Rez-zei's daughter, Illyra, hiding in the corner. They'd marked them with blood and curses as well.

  He'd run away before the sun rose on that night-and was still running. Now he was running back to Sanctuary.

  2

  Walegrin patted his horse, ignoring the cloud of dust around them both. Everything, everyone was covered with a fine layer of desert grit; only his hair seemed unaffected, but then it had always been the color of parched straw. He'd led his men safely across the desert to Sanctuary but weariness had settled upon them like dust and though the end of their travels was in sight, they waited in silence for Thrusher's return.

  Walegrin had not dared to enter the city himself. Tall, pale despite the desert sun, his braided hair roughly confined by a bronze band, he was too memorable to be an advance scout. He was an outlaw as well, wanted by the prince for abandoning the garrison without warning. He had Kilite's pardon, the scrolls still carefully sealed in his saddlebag, but using it would eventually let Kilite know he was still alive. It was better to remain an outlaw.

  Hook-nosed, diminutive Thrusher was a man no-one would remember. Able and single-minded, he'd never run afoul of the town's dangers nor succumb to its limited temptations. Walegrin would have a roof over his men's heads by nightfall and
more water than they could drink to set before them. Wine too, but Walegrin had almost forgotten the taste of wine.

  As the afternoon shadows lengthened, Thrusher appeared on the dunes. Walegrin waved him safe conduct. He put his heels to his horse and galloped the last stretch of sand. Both man and beast had been cleansed of yellow grit. Walegrin suppressed a pang of jealousy.

  "Ho, Thrush! Do we sleep in town tonight?" one of the other men called.

  "With full trenchers and a wench on each knee," Thrusher laughed.

  "By the gods, I thought we're bound for Sanctuary, not paradise."

  "Paradise enough-if a man's not choosy," Thrusher told them all as he dismounted and made his way to Walegrin.

  "You seem satisfied. Is the town that much changed since we left it?" Walegrin asked.

  "Yes, that much. You'd think the Nisibisi rode this way. There are more mercenaries in Sanctuary than in Ranke. We'll never be noticed. The usual scum fears to leave the shadows-and if a man knows how to use his sword there's any number who'll hire him. Kittycat's gold hasn't been the best for many a month now. He's got to rely on a citizen's militia to take up the slack from the Hell Hounds. Wrigglies-every last one of them: pompous and-"

  "What manner of mercenaries?" Walegrin interrupted.

  "Sacred Banders," Thrusher admitted with noticible reluctance.

  "Vashanka's bastards. How many? And who leads them-if they're led by a man?"

  "Couldn't say how many; they camp Downwind. Banders're worse than Hounds; a handful of 'em's worse than a plague. Some say they belong to the Prince now that their priest's dead. Most say it's Tempus at the root of it. They train for the Nisibisi, but Tempus is building a new fortress Downwind."

  Walegrin looked away. He had no quarrel with Tempus Thales. True, he was inclined to arrogance, sadism and he was treachery incarnate, but he moved in the elite circles of power and, as such, Walegrin could only admire him. Like everyone else he had heard the Tempus-tales of self-healing and psuedo-divinity; he professed to doubt them-but had Tempus gone in search of Enlibar steel, no one would have dared stand in his way.

  "They call themselves Stepson-or something like that," Thrusher continued. "They're all in Jubal's turf; and neither hide nor hair of Jubal seen these last months. No hawkmasks on the streets either, 'cept the ones found nailed to posts here and there."

  "Sacred Banders; Stepsons; Whoresons." Walegrin shared the prejudices of most in the Imperial army towards any elite, separate group. Sanctuary had been the dead-end of the world as long as anyone could remember. No right-thinking Rankan citizen passed time there. It boded ill if Sanctuary had become home to not only Tempus but a contingent of Sacred Banders as well. The Empire was in worse shape than anyone thought.

  What was bad for Sanctuary and all of Ranke, though, was not necessarily bad for the re-discoverer of Enlibar steel. With luck Walegrin would find good men in town, or good gold, or simply enough activity to hide behind. But whenever Walegrin thought of luck he thought of the S'danzo. They had marked him for ill fortune: if he had good luck it could have been better and when his luck turned sour, the less said about it the better.

  "What about that house I asked you about?" Walegrin asked after the conversation had lulled a moment.

  The scout was relieved to speak of something else. "No trouble-it wasn't hidden, though no-one knew much about it. Right off the Street of Armorers, like you said it'd be. This metal-master, Balustrus, he must be a pretty strange fellow. Everyone thought he'd died until the Torch-" Thrusher stopped abruptly, slapping himself on the forehead.

  "-Gods takes take me for an idiot! Nothing is the same in Sanctuary; the gods have discovered it! Vashanka's name was blasted from the pantheon over the palace gate. Vashanka! Sacred Band's Storm God burned clean. The stone steamed for a day and a night. The god himself appeared in the sky-and Azyuna, too."

  "Wrigglies? Magicians? Were the Whoresons involved?" Walegrin asked, but without interrupting the flow of Thrusher's theological gossip.

  "The Torch himself was nearly killed. Some say a new god's been born to the First Consort and the War of Cataclysm's begun. Officially the priests are blaming everything on the Nisibisi- and not saying why the Nisibisi would wage magical war in Sanctuary. The Wrigglies say it's the awakening of Ils Thousand Eyes. And the mages don't say much of anything because half of them're dead and the rest hiding. The local doomsayers're making fortunes.

  "But our Prince Kittycat, bless his empty, little head, had an idea. He marches out on his balcony and proclaims that Vashanka is angry because Sanctuary does not show proper respect to his consort and her child and that he has blasted his own name off the pantheon rather than be associated with the town. Then Kittycat proclaims a tax on every tavern-a copper a tot-and says he's going to make an offering to Vashanka. Sanctuary will apologize by ringing a new bell!"

  Walegrin empathized with Sanctuary's naive, blundering young governor. Actually his idea wasn't bad; much better than involving the mageguild or setting the Wrigglies against the outnumbered Rankans. That was Kittycat's problem; his ideas weren't half bad, but he wasn't even half the man it would take to have people listen to them without laughing.

  A new idea grew in Walegrin's thoughts. The Prince had turned to Balustrus, metal-master, to cast the bell for Vashanka. Now he, Walegrin, would approach Balustrus to make Enlibar steel-for the Prince, perhaps, but not Vashanka. A pattern of fortune might emerge-might be stronger than the S'danzo curse. He imagined himself with the Prince; the two of them together might make one irresistable force.

  "Did you see this bell of the metal-master's? Is it worthy?" he asked Thrusher.

  "Worthy of what?" Thrusher replied, not following Walegrin's thoughts at all.

  3

  Dawn's first light pierced the shadows and sent the denizens of the night scurrying. The streets of Sanctuary were almost quiet. Flocks of seabirds wheeled silently over the town, swooping suddenly as, one after another, the houses opened their doors to jettison nightslops into the street. A cowled, burdened monk slipped out the upper window of a tavern and disappeared down a still-dark alley. The brief moment of calm magic faded; the day had begun.

  The establishment ofBalustrus, metal-master, was among the first in the armorer's quarter to come to life. A young woman opened the upper half of the front door and struggled to raise the huge, dingy slops-ewer to her shoulder. She froze, nearly dropping the noisome thing, when a man stepped out of the shadows. He wore a monk's garb, but the cowl had fallen back to his shoulders. A warrior's tore held his straw-blond hair over his brow.

  Walegrin had had three days' rest and washed the desert from his face, but he was still an ominous figure. The woman gave a small yelp when he took the ewer from her and carried it some distance before upending it. When he returned to the doorway, the metal-master himself stood there.

  "Walegrin, isn't it?"

  If the young soldier was ominous, then Balus-trus was positively demonic. His skin was the color of mottled bronze-not brown, nor gold, nor green-nor human at all. It was wrinkled like dried fruit, but shone like metal itself. He was hairless, with features that blended into the convolutions of his skin. When he smiled, as he smiled at Walegrin, the dark eyes all but vanished.

  Walegrin swallowed hard. "I've come with business for you."

  "So early?" the bronze man chided. "Well, come right in. A soldier in monk's cloth is always welcome for breakfast." He hobbled back from the door.

  Walegrin retrieved his sack and followed him into the shop. A single oil lamp set over a counting-table cast flickering shadows on the metal-master's face. He rested a pair of iron crutches against the wall behind the table and seemed to hover there, unsupported. Walegrin's eyes adjusted to the dimmer light. He saw the price sheets nailed to the wall and the samples of bronze, iron, tin and steel; he saw the saddle-like perch in which the metal-master sat. But his first impression of the eerie place did not change and he would have left if he could.

  "Tell me what y
ou've got in your sack, and why I should care?" the metal-master demanded.

  Forcing himself not to stare, Walegrin hoisted the sack to the table-top. "I've found the secret of the steel of Enlibar-"

  The bronze man shook with laughter. "What secret? There's no secret to Enlibar steel, my boy. Any fool can make Enlibar steel-if he's got Enlibar ore and Ilsig alchemy."

  Walegrin untied the sack, dumping the blue-green ore onto the table. Balustrus stopped laughing. He snatched up a chunk of ore and subjected it to an analysis that included not merely striking it with a mallet, but tasting it as well.

  "Yes," the wizened metal-master crooned. "This is it. Heated and ground and tempered this will be steel! Not since the last alchemist of Ilsig sank into his grave has there been steel like the steel I will make."

  Whatever else Balustrus was, he was at least mad. Walegrin had first heard the name in the library at Coombs, where he'd gotten the shard of Enlibrite pottery Illyra had read. Kemren, the Purple Mage, had been supposed to read the inscription and Balustrus would make the steel and both men swell in Sanctuary. Kemren had been dead when Walegrin arrived in the city, but not Balustrus.

  It was said the metal-master had been mad when he first came to the city, and Sanctuary had never improved anyone. He claimed he knew everything about any metal but he made his living mending plates and recasting stolen gold.

  "I have another ten sacks like this one," Walegrin explained, taking back the ore. "I want swords for my men and myself. I don't have much gold; and fewer friends, but I'll give you a quarter of my ore if you'll make the swords." He continued refilling his sack.

  "It will be my priviledge," the cripple agreed, touching the stones one last time before they disappeared. "Perhaps when you have the swords you'll tell me where you found this. At least you'll tell what friends you have that it was the Grey Wolf who forged their weapons."