Luck of the Wheels

by Megan Lindholm

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, and then slipped out the door.

  ‘What the hell is that girl up to now?’ demanded a rebel of Lacey. The man could only roll his eyes and shrug. But in a few moments Willow came slipping back into the room, bearing an angular object wrapped in a piece of coarse sacking. Her eyes met only Vandien’s as she crossed the room. She stopped in front of him. ‘Are you absolutely certain you won’t fight for us?’ she asked, poisoned honey in her voice.

  ‘I already told you, Willow.’ Vandien kept his voice level. ‘Find yourself another sword.’

  She swept the remains of his dinner to the floor. Even before the bowl had stopped rolling on the floor, she shook the sacking over the table.

  The rapier fell with a clang and rolled toward him. He caught it up more by reflex than by thought, exclaiming with anger over her rough treatment of it. Then he stared at his hand gripping the hawk’s hilt, ran his eyes up the blade that still bore traces of Kellich’s blood.

  ‘That’s the only sword we’ll need, Vandien.’ Willow was coldly sure of herself. ‘You’ll kill the Duke for us. Not because you believe in our cause or for a handful of greasy coins. You’ll do it for a chance to see Ki alive again.’

  He lunged his full measure, and the tip of his rapier found the precise center of the small x he had scratched on the plank wall. The metal of the blade bowed with the impact. A solid thrust that would have emerged from a man’s back. Satisfactory sword work. Don’t think about anything else, he instructed himself. The sword is all. Don’t be distracted. Just practice. Don’t wonder how you got from wherever you were before to wherever you are now.

  After he had demanded proof that Ki was still alive, they had left him alone in the storage barn or whatever it was. Discordance had been his major impression of the group as they left. Lacey had not liked Willow’s little surprise. She had taken control from his hands, but he could not publicly argue with someone who had given him the handle he needed on Vandien. And Vandien had lain down on the cot to ponder his situation. He must have dozed off.

  And awakened here. Some kind of a loft, with a peaked ceiling and plank floor. No windows, but light leaking in between the boards. Terrible light for practicing. Tip to x again, blade bowed. Draw back. So they had moved him while he slept. That was all. Yes. Come in, picked him up, dragged him about, and left him here. He, who usually slept light as a cat, had slumbered through it all. Certainly. He lunged again, scored his mark perfectly. He would not be distracted.

  He drew back, eyed the distance, tried a balestra. A quick spring from the balls of both feet carried him forward a short distance before he immediately launched into his lunge. It was a distance closing maneuver. The tip of his rapier took the mark squarely as he extended his body to its full reach. But as the small jolt of impact reached his hand, his hilt jumped free of his fingers. A numbing cold seemed to streak up his arm, and he watched, incredulous, as his weapon clattered to the floor. He cradled his chilled arm against his belly, rubbing his fingers up and down the raised red welt that marked the passage of Kellich’s blade. He bit his lower lip slightly, anticipating pain as he prodded the length of the injury.

  Nothing. No feeling at all. He explored his hand, wondering if the hilt had somehow jarred against bone. He found no bruise. There was little sensation at all. He rubbed his arm gently, and with a sudden tingling like ants running over his flesh, it came back to life. Almost. There was still a cold along the bone, a terrible old ache. He was stooping to pick up his rapier when the trap door in the floor of the loft opened behind him. He spun to face it, his blade already challenging the intruder.

  The tray emerged first, landed, and was pushed scrapingly along the floor. Willow followed it up, clambering awkwardly over the lip of the door. She glanced at Vandien, then stood and dropped the door into place behind her. Then she turned back to him and stared at him, waiting challengingly. He neither moved nor spoke. ‘That’s your food,’ she said at last, pointing to the tray.

  ‘And you came up here to tell me that. In case I might not guess it.’

  She reddened, ran a hand through her spiky red hair. ‘I came up here to make sure you fully understand the terms of our agreement.’

  ‘What is there to misunderstand? I kill the Duke. I die. Ki lives.’ He kept his voice flat, cold.

  ‘That’s right.’ Willow tried to copy his tone, failed.

  ‘I do have one question. Suppose I refuse, or fail. Who gets to kill Ki?’

  The girl looked suddenly rattled. ‘That … that hasn’t been discussed. If you do as we say, it never will be.’

  ‘I just wondered. I thought that, as you had laid out this plan, you’d be the one to implement it. It obviously wasn’t Lacey’s doing. In fact, he didn’t look pleased about it at all. But you had … persuaded Kellich’s friends to help you with it, so what could he say? Turn against you and risk splitting his rebellion into factions? Besides, I know how much you hate both of us, after we treated you so badly, our deliberate cruelty to you and all. And I know how dearly you love this cause. I thought perhaps you’d claim the honor of killing Ki. By the way, how do you plan to do it? If I fail or refuse, I mean? Knife? Strangulation? Slow starvation?’ He nudged the tray with his foot. ‘Poison?’

  ‘You’re disgusting.’ Her face was white, but she spoke without stirring.

  ‘No. Your plan is disgusting. You’re asking me to murder a man I’ve never seen before, by treachery, and lose my own life in the process. And that’s if everything goes right for us. If it doesn’t, I die anyway, and you cold-bloodedly murder my friend.’

  ‘The Duke is a tyrant,’ Willow flared back. ‘A cold-hearted beast! No method of death is too cruel for him, no treachery too underhanded. Our land groans under his cruelty, our farmers suffer and their children shiver in …’

  ‘The harsh rains of the Windsingers. Is that something you have to memorize to join this club? Willow, all winter rain is cold down the back. Neither tyrants nor weather should be taken so personally. If it rains, build a shelter and get out of it. And if you are tyrannized, band together and refuse the tyranny. A consortium of lesser nobles, backed by landowners and merchants …’

  ‘Would take too long! We must act now!’

  ‘This land will be awash in blood, then. You have no plans after you kill the Duke. At the end of it, you will only discover that the most dull Brurjan can be a worse tyrant than the most dedicatedly depraved Human.’

  ‘That’s how you see it. After all, what do you care? You hitch up the horses and move on; you have no ideals, no dreams of freedom …’

  ‘No wish to assassinate anyone. It’s not my quarrel, Willow. Nor yours. You aren’t in love with the cause, with this rebellion. You were in love with Kellich, and willing to aid the cause to please him. You don’t have a stake in this any more than I do. You could walk away from this right now. Knock out the guard downstairs, help me find Ki and free her and we’ll go across the border and be gone. Walk away from this whole thing.’

  For an instant he thought he had carried her. Her eyes went wide and empty, as if visualizing the unwinding road that led to better places. But then her brows drew down in a frown. ‘You expect me to be a traitor to all Kellich believed in?’ she demanded angrily.

  ‘Why not?’ Vandien exploded. ‘He betrayed everything you believed in! You believed in love, and marriage and children. Life. Kellich believed only in death.’ His voice became harsh. ‘He wanted to be the glorious hero, not the contented husband. You were just a prop in his pageant, Willow. The beautiful lover left behind to mourn the fallen patriot. To become a symbol of the revolution. And damn you, you’re playing it out! He didn’t have the courage to live for you, Willow. All he was looking for was an excuse to die!’

  Halfway through his words, he regretted them, but they spilled out anyway. Her face went harder and colder, her mismatched eyes becoming the colors of glacier ice. ‘And you gave him that excuse, didn’t you? You made sure of it for him.’


  Cold jolted through him, and he didn’t know if it came from his arm or her eyes. He transferred his rapier to his other hand, cradled his injured arm against him. She watched him coldly. And in her eyes … what? Satisfaction? Before her eyes went empty again. A dreadful suspicion grew in his mind.

  ‘You promised me proof that Ki is all right. I want to see her.’

  ‘No.’ For the first time he pinned down the uneasiness that had unnerved her. Whenever Ki’s name came up, she sidestepped like a nervous filly.

  ‘Why not?’

  She hesitated too long. ‘We’ve decided it wouldn’t be wise. Bringing her here would attract too much attention. We can’t spare the men to do it, and …’

  None of it sounded right. His mind made the leap. ‘You’ve already done it, haven’t you?’ His throat closed up on him suddenly. He felt a light-headedness that made him sway. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’ Of course they’d already killed her. It made more sense. Tidier. Smarter. And soon he’d be dead, and the whole thing neatly wound up.

  ‘No. No, she’s fine, and she will be as long as you continue to do as we say.’ Willow spoke very rapidly. ‘But you can’t see her just now. It’s my decision, really. I’ve seen you two together. She draws strength from you, and would become more difficult to handle. We might have to hurt her. And you’d do any stupid thing for the sake of protecting her.’

  ‘Like killing a Duke,’ he said. His voice sounded distant. He could feel his heart beating in his chest. He knew his face had gone white.

  ‘Eat.’ Her voice was expressionless, but her eyes betrayed some secret panic of her own. ‘You should eat that food right away.’ She crouched by the trap door, tapped on it. ‘And practice. You’ll have to take my word that Ki is alive now. If you want Ki to still be alive tomorrow night, you’d better be at your best.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ His words were an empty reflex. Ki was dead. He could read it in Willow’s hasty effort to leave, the way she resisted any further talk with him. Ki was dead already. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. Ki was dead, and … the last piece suddenly slipped into place. He’d been a fool. The cold emptiness that flooded his heart set off a glaring white light in his mind, mercilessly illuminating everything he had hidden from himself. The cold-blooded logic of their plan was suddenly revealed to him. Very tidy. No loose ends.

  ‘Eat it anyway.’ She sounded worried.

  ‘I don’t like the flavor.’ He watched her face carefully as he added, ‘Every damn thing sent up here tastes the same, same herb or spice in the bread, the tea, the stew.’

  There it was, the tiny widening of her eyes. Her control of her face was good, but too late. ‘It’s a strengthening herb, well known in this part of the world. I’m surprised you don’t know of it. We’re trying to give you every advantage we can.’

  He snorted, kept the suspicion from his voice. ‘Herb lore. Something to bemuse old women after their children have grown up. Three-fourths of it doesn’t do what they say, anyway.’

  The trap door in the floor heaved upward, the closed face of the guard appearing briefly. He glared at the bared rapier in Vandien’s hand, then drew back to allow Willow to descend.

  ‘What’s it called?’ he asked as she reached a leg down for the ladder.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The strengthening herb. What’s it called?’

  ‘Oh.’ She paused – overlong, it seemed to him. ‘Thwartspite.’

  His heart sank, his belly went cold. But he kept his voice even. ‘Think about what I said,’ he called after her, with little hope that she would, knowing it could make no difference anyway. All things were fixed now, lashed into their courses.

  ‘No. You think about what I said.’ Her voice floated back to him. ‘Festival starts tomorrow. The first matches will be just after noon.’

  He waited until the trap door was shut completely, heard the bolts securing it shot home. Then he allowed himself to sink slowly to the floor, still cradling his arm against himself. Not that it hurt. It felt fine, now.

  ‘Bloodfriend,’ Ki had said, nudging the small, blue-flowered plant with the toe of her boot. ‘Cleans poisons from the system, some say.’ She had stooped to pinch off a handful of the small flowers, shaking her head. ‘Doesn’t really. But it makes a sick animal feel healthy and strong, so it shows well enough to sell. Makes a good poultice for an infection is all I use it for. Thwartspite, I’ve heard it called, too.’ He sat very still on the attic floor, remembering the angle of her jaw as she had looked up at him, the way her long hair swung forward of her shoulders, the easy way she flowed up from the ground to stand.

  Gone. Everything. Ki was dead. He’d lost his honor in a fight against a fanatic with a poisoned blade. He looked down at the sword in his hand, at the blade that had betrayed him. He considered the puckered seam on his forearm. Not even Kellich had been what he believed. A poisoned blade. Vandien had even played the fool to him. And now, nothing was left. No family. No name. Only himself to think of. Only one last satisfaction to give himself.

  ‘Fight the Duke and die,’ he mused aloud. ‘Hell, I might as well. I’m dead already.’ He picked up the bowl of cold soup and sipped at it, tasting the antidote to the poison that already chilled his arm and moved through his body with every beat of his heart. Setting down the bowl, he lifted the mug of lukewarm tea in a mocking toast to the empty room. ‘May you all go down with me!’ he declared, and grinned a smile Ki would not have recognized. ‘You bastards.’ He drained the mug.

  SIXTEEN

  Festival time had come to Tekum. Sparkling shards of glass and tiny bells swung from the branches of trees that lined the main street. The sweet high ringing kept time with the light that flashed from the glass whenever the wind stirred their branches. Bright booths had mushroomed in the shade of the trees, selling everything from toys to tonics. The Human population of the town seemed to have increased fourfold, with here and there a T’cheria or a Dene to mark the contrast. The Brurjans, of course, were everywhere. They were not near as numerous as the Humans, but their hulking size and the near-visible violence that shivered around them made them the dominant element of the crowd. There was no uniformity to their battle harness or weapons, but they needed no badges to mark them as the Duke’s. Vandien watched them moving effortlessly as the Human crowd parted to give them way, and wondered if the Duke knew what he was doing to give his safety into their hands. But instead he asked Lacey, ‘What’s the occasion for this festival?’

  Lacey snorted. ‘The Duke ordained it, twelve years back. It’s to commemorate his coming to power.’

  ‘Why hold it in Tekum?’

  Lacey’s eyes squeezed shut briefly. ‘We had a militia, then. Stationed here, along the caravan route, to keep down robbers and such. Young fool in charge rallied to the Duchess’s cause. Duke brought his Brurjans in. Didn’t take long.’ Lacey nodded to the long line of trees. ‘Wasn’t a tree here that wasn’t swinging a body, and a hell of a lot of them had two.’

  The high singing of the bells became suddenly a mocking carillon to Vandien’s ears. ‘So this is how he reminds you, every year, that you depend on his largesse to survive. And that even the best of you will never better him at swords.’

  Lacey looked at him in bewilderment. ‘I never thought of it that way before,’ he muttered disgruntledly. ‘It’s just a thing the Duke does. Very typical of him. Doesn’t matter why he does it, anyway. It’s our only chance at him, that’s all that counts. Come on, now. The others will already be gathering. Duke always holds it on the threshing floor in Merp’s barn.’

  Vandien nodded curtly and followed him through the press of folk. He walked behind Lacey, letting the heavier man forge a pathway for them. As he passed through the crowd, eyes swung to him, held an instant, then darted away. Damn fools. Was there anyone in this town who wasn’t in on the plot?

  A manic grin settled on his face, and he took to meeting all eyes for the fun of watching them widen and then jerk aside. He felt good.
The realization of that startled him for a moment, and then he felt the full impact of it. Damn, he felt great. These bastards had plundered his soul, had taken from him all that he had ever valued. He had nothing left to save. Not even his own life. Ki had gone, and her passing had left less than nothing within him. The gentler parts of his nature had died with her, leaving him only the hard and sharp to do with. The impulsiveness that had always characterized his decisions was now in complete control. It was a heady feeling.

  He was totally aware of his body, his skin tingling and tightening at the slightest brush of a stranger’s cloak. His heart was pumping steadily in his chest and he was cognizant of each surging beat, counting out the moments of his life’s passing. He wondered if it were the poison affecting him so, or the stimulation of the Thwartspite. Perhaps it was only his knowledge that he could die today, that this blue sky might be the last he would walk under, that these smells of dust and sweat and food cooking might be the last ones he would breathe. How slow was the slow poison from Kellich’s blade? Another handful of days? A few hours? He looked out over the crowd and wondered how many of these folk were also squandering their last day, blissfully unaware of it. For some, he’d make it certain.

  He had not been paying attention to where they were going. The threshing barn loomed up before them. The structure was little more than a roof supported by massive timbers and a smoothly bricked floor. A gathering place as much as a threshing ground, for dancing and village celebrations. Today it had been swept clear. At one end of the barn, a raised dais of new wood held a single massive chair. Nothing would block the Duke’s view. Common spectators had spread their cloaks or mats on the ground and sat on them, eating and drinking and talking loudly to one another. Contestants were scattered over the smooth floor, some standing nervously or idly, others limbering muscles or showily practicing for the onlookers. Vandien ran practiced eyes over them. Only four struck him as competent, and two others as possibly dangerous. The others looked to be tavern louts and barnyard boasters, their weapons cheap bazaar blades or Grandfather’s ancient shoulder-wrencher. He frowned slightly, knowing that going against them would be more like fighting with staves than true fencing. He turned to Lacey, speaking low.