Mask of Swords

by Jonathan Moeller

  A shiver of anger went through her.

  “Damn you,” she whispered. “Why did you all leave me? I shouldn’t have been holdmistress. This burden shouldn’t have been mine.”

  Neither the ancestors nor the gods answered.

  Sigaldra shivered some more and closed her eyes until the anger cooled a bit.

  She could not blame the ancestors or the gods. The Malrags had done this to the Jutai, and then Ragnachar had been there to pick the carcass. Sigaldra would save what was left of her people, no matter what she had to do. If she had to kill every last damned Tervingi with her own hands, she would do it gladly…

  A hinge creaked.

  There was a trapdoor behind the low altar, leading to the crypt beneath the chapel. Sigaldra had left the crypt undisturbed. Any corpses below would have been raised as runedead and then destroyed, and those that were left could sleep in peace. Now the trapdoor was opening.

  Visions of runedead flashed through her head, and she yanked the short sword from her belt and leveled it at the trapdoor as it swung open.

  She found herself looking into the face of a young man with brown eyes and close-cropped brown hair, a lantern in his left hand. He wore chain mail beneath a green surcoat adorned with a stylized heart, and the hilt of a heavy greatsword rose over his shoulder.

  For a moment they stared at each other.

  “Greetings,” said the knight. “Please don’t stab me.”

  Sigaldra let out a long breath, the sword motionless in her hands. “You startled me.” She felt foolish. “It was just…when the crypt door opened, it made me think of the runedead.”

  The knight did not laugh. “I understand.” A tightness came around his eyes that made him look older. “I lived through the Great Rising, too.”

  “What the devil are you doing in the crypt?” said Sigaldra. “Are you robbing it?” She glared at the young knight. “Or are you here to defile the ashes of my ancestors?”

  “Of course not,” said the knight. “I had business here, and now it is finished. Assuming you do not stab me in the next minute or so, I will walk out the door, leave Greatheart Keep, and never return.”

  “Wait,” said Sigaldra. “I know you. You’re Lord Adalar, the one who was with Lord Mazael at the gate.” She had met him once or twice before the great battle at the Northwater, but every lord, knight, and headman in the Grim Marches had been gathered there, and he had been one face among thousands. “That’s why you are here, isn’t it?”

  “Isn’t what?” said Adalar.

  “To expel the Jutai,” said Sigaldra, “and to reclaim your father’s lands.”

  “For the gods’ sake,” said Adalar. “I don’t want Greatheart Keep. I didn’t want to come back to Greatheart Keep, not after what the runedead did to it. I only came back to bring my father’s ashes to the crypt. Now that it is done, I am going to leave. Unless you decide to kill me first.”

  “Very well,” said Sigaldra, lowering the sword. Adalar set his lantern on the stone floor, hauled himself up with a grunt, and closed the trapdoor behind him. “Why?”

  Adalar straightened up, picking up his lantern. “Why what?”

  “Why sneak into the chapel like a thief in the night?” said Sigaldra, her suspicion returning. “I thought there would be a ceremony, your Amathavian priests reciting prayers as the ashes were stored in the crypt. The lords and knights of the Grim Marches like their ceremonies. Instead you have slipped the ashes into the crypt like a messenger leaving bad news for his lord.”

  “My father is dead,” said Adalar. “He wished for his remains to be interred in the crypt, and I have done so, but he is dead. The ceremonies mean nothing to him. The gods might hear the prayer, but what will they do? His already dead, his fate decided.” He shook his head. “Just as we all one day shall be dead, too.”

  He turned to go.

  “Why don’t you want Greatheart Keep?” said Sigaldra.

  He glanced back. “Does it matter? I’m not going to challenge your claim, and if I can work my will I shall never return to the Grim Marches.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Sigaldra.

  Adalar frowned. “Why not? Is my given word not good enough for you?”

  “It is not,” said Sigaldra. “This was your father’s land. Why should you not wish to claim it? Perhaps you are simply lying to gain my trust, making it easier to claim Greatheart Keep later.”

  “You are certainly mistrustful,” said Adalar.

  “Is there any good reason I should not be?” said Sigaldra.

  “Lord Mazael gave Greatheart Keep to the Jutai,” said Adalar. She expected him to grow angry, but he only seemed…tired, perhaps? He reminded her of some of the older Jutai thains and bondsmen. “He is the liege lord of the Grim Marches, and he has given you Greatheart Keep as a fief. That is that.”

  “Lord Mazael has never gone back on his word to me,” said Sigaldra, “but what of the other lords? Some of them counseled Lord Richard to wipe out the Tervingi after the battle of Stone Tower, and they would have killed the Jutai with them. Or Earnachar son of Balnachar. Do you think Lord Mazael’s commands mean anything to him? If he had the power, he would kill the Jutai and claim our land. Perhaps the Prophetess and her goddess offered him the power to do just that.” She pointed at Adalar with her left hand, the sword dangling from her right. “So how I do know you are not lying to me? How do I know you will not betray your word and return to reclaim your home from us?”

  Sigaldra knew she ought to have moderated her words, but she was too angry to care. Adalar’s presumption annoyed her, and more importantly, alarmed her. She was the holdmistress of Greatheart Keep, and he had entered the keep and the chapel without her permission. More, if he thought he had the right to enter the chapel without her permission, then perhaps he thought he would have the right to reclaim Greatheart Keep whenever he wished.

  For the first time Adalar started to scowl. “You have no right to question me.”

  Sigaldra scowled right back. “You have no right to be here without my permission, Adalar of Castle Dominus. This is my hold and I am the holdmistress. You crept into the keep like a thief in the night, without an invitation, and I find you standing among the ashes of the Jutai ancestors!” Cold certainty began to close around her anger. Perhaps Adalar Greatheart was even in league with Earnachar and his Prophetess. “So why should I believe you? Why would you not try to reclaim your home at the first opportunity?”

  His scowl darkened. “Because this is not my home!”

  She had not expected him to say that.

  “You were born here,” she said. “Your father held these lands.”

  “My father is dead,” said Adalar. “I grew up here, yes…and everyone who lived here before the Great Rising is dead. I walk the streets of the village and I know the buildings, the smithy, the inn, the cooper’s shop, all of it. But the people are gone. The runedead took them all.” He shook his head. “The village is a place of ghosts for me. Greatheart Keep has become a foreign land to me. Even if you were to leave tomorrow and Mazael gave the village to me, what would I do with it? Even if I found peasants to fill it, my home is gone, and I cannot return to it.”

  “I see,” said Sigaldra.

  “I would not expect you to understand,” said Adalar.

  “Truly?” said Sigaldra, the anger returning. She heard a rustling sound and realized it was the leather-wrapped hilt of her sword creaking in her grip. “My home is gone too, Adalar of Castle Dominus. For generations the Jutai lived in our homeland beyond the Great Mountains. All that is gone now, our towns razed and our villages burned by the Malrags. I had a mother and a father and brothers. All of them died fighting the Malrags. We were almost all gone, and then the Tervingi forced us to follow them to the Grim Marches.” Her voice grew cold, matching the icy rage inside her chest. “At least living people dwell in your home. At least the land has not gone to waste. Were the Jutai to return to our old homeland, we would find naught but burned ru
ins, bones, ashes, and Malrags waiting to slay us all.”

  She expected him to snap back, but again he surprised her.

  “I am sorry,” said Adalar. “Everyone lost family and friends in the Great Rising, and it seems the Jutai lost more than most. I should not have presumed otherwise.”

  Sigaldra let out a long breath. “You did, too. Your father?”

  “I have no family,” said Adalar. “My father died a few months before the Tervingi came to the Grim Marches. Just as well. He did not have to live to see the runedead wipe out his village and his peasants.”

  “Perhaps that is a mercy,” said Sigaldra.

  “I like to tell myself that,” said Adalar, “though I wish he were here nonetheless. He would…he would have known what to do.” He took a deep breath. “That is all I wished to do here. Place my father’s ashes in the crypt, and then to depart. That is all.”

  “To go home,” said Sigaldra.

  Adalar offered a bitter smile. “I don’t have a home.”

  “Are you not the lord of Castle Dominus in the west?” said Sigaldra.

  “Aye, I am,” said Adalar. “But there is little enough there. The runedead rampaged through Mastaria and slew thousands. What was Greatheart Keep like when you came here?”

  “An empty ruin,” said Sigaldra, “abandoned by both the living and the dead.”

  “Entire regions of Mastaria are like that,” said Adalar. “I suppose in time they shall be rebuilt. But I doubt I shall see it in my lifetime.”

  “The Jutai have built a new home for ourselves in the ruins of yours,” said Sigaldra. “Perhaps in time you will be able to build a new home in Castle Dominus.”

  “Perhaps,” said Adalar.

  There was neither sadness nor anger in his expression. Just numb exhaustion. Sigaldra had seen that expression on the Jutai thains and bondsmen as they had toiled west, without hope but refusing to yield to death. It occurred to Sigaldra that Adalar had not wanted to come here, but had done so anyway. It spoke of an admirable devotion to duty.

  “I will grant you this as the holdmistress,” said Sigaldra. “I give you the freedom of Greatheart Keep. I know not the rituals of the men of the Grim Marches, but whenever you must pay pilgrimage to your father’s ashes or offer his spirit sacrifices, you may come to Greatheart Keep without hindrance and stay under my roof.”

  “Thank you,” said Adalar. “That is very generous.”

  Sigaldra shrugged, realized that she was still holding her short sword, and returned the blade to its scabbard. “I understand what it is to be devoted to one’s duty, no matter how grim the path.”

  “I suppose the last holdmistress of the Jutai would understand that,” said Adalar. “Though…there is no headman? You are both holdmistress and headman?”

  “Aye,” said Sigaldra. “Most of our men of rank were killed by the Malrags. I am the daughter of our last hrould, and the burden has fallen to me.”

  “You don’t look like the other headmen I have seen,” said Adalar.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” said Sigaldra.

  “Usually they have longer beards,” said Adalar, gesturing at his chin.

  Sigaldra bristled in anger, and then to her astonishment she burst out laughing.

  “It wasn’t that funny of a jest,” said Adalar.

  “No,” said Sigaldra. By the ancestors, she had laughed so hard tears had come to her eyes. “No. It is…few people are so direct with me.”

  “The Jutai seem like a direct folk,” said Adalar.

  “We are,” said Sigaldra. “If you want to listen to windy poetry or endless boasting about the deeds of mighty Tervingar of old, go talk to the Tervingi. If you want to deal with honest men, visit the Jutai.”

  “Ah, good,” said Adalar. “I worried that I offended you by pointing out your lack of beard. Now I see that I was simply respecting your customs. Perhaps I shall continue to respect your customs through blunt speech.”

  “Do not be too blunt,” said Sigaldra, “or you shall offend me.”

  Adalar frowned. “How will I offend you with blunt speech?”

  “Truly?” said Sigaldra. “You are a great lord with vassals and knights of your own, and yet you know so little of women?”

  Adalar blinked, and then laughed. “Ah. Now you are teasing me.”

  “I owed you for that beard remark,” said Sigaldra. “The Jutai pay their debts.” For some reason his stare made her suddenly uncomfortable, and she gestured at the stone urn. “You may rest assured that your father rests in valiant company.”

  “Your family?” said Adalar. “Lord Mazael said that the Jutai inter their dead in…ancestral urns, I think he said.”

  “Yes,” said Sigaldra. “This urn holds the ashes of my family, for as far back as we can remember. All my kin, save for my sister, are interred here.” She touched one hand to the cool, carved stone of the urn’s surface. “My mother, killed when Malrags overran our hold. My brothers, slain fighting the Malrags. My father, killed in single combat with a Malrag balekhan. My sister and I are the only ones left.”

  “I…am surprised that you can speak so calmly of them,” said Adalar. “The grief must be very great.”

  “It is,” said Sigaldra. She had wept her final tears years ago, long before they had left the middle lands. The Jutai needed her to be as strong and as hard as steel, for if she was to preserve her people she had to be strong. “But they all died valiantly. My brothers died with swords in their hands. My father slew the balekhan with his dying stroke. All deaths worthy of Jutai warriors…and perhaps quicker than dying in bed of old age many years.”

  But she wished they could have lived to die that way. Oh, how she wished it.

  “My father died in bed of illness,” said Adalar, voice quiet. “At least it was quick.”

  “What manner of man was he?” said Sigaldra.

  “He was a knight of the realm,” said Adalar. “He was fierce in battle, loyal to his lord, generous to his friends, open-handed to his peasants. He served Mazael’s father and brother Lord Adalon and Lord Mitor for years, even though Adalon was weak but kindly, and Mitor weak but cruel. He always did what was right, even when it cost him. When Lord Mitor tried to launch his fool’s war against Richard Mandragon, my father counseled him against it, even though Mitor stripped him of his office as Castle Cravenlock’s armsmaster.” He sighed. “He was a good and wise man. He was what a knight should be.”

  “He sounds a valiant warrior,” said Sigaldra. “He would be worthy to rest among the honored ancestors of the Jutai.”

  “Thank you,” said Adalar. He hesitated. “Forgive me if this is impertinent, my lady…but I hope you are successful against Earnachar.”

  Sigaldra raised an eyebrow.

  “Greatheart Keep is no longer my home,” said Adalar, “but I had expected to find it an empty ruin. Instead you have built something…something that will take root and grow further. Riding here from Mastaria, I saw so many dead villages, so many empty towns, so many ruined castles. It is…it is good to see a growing village.”

  “Thank you,” said Sigaldra. “Will you stay and aid Mazael? The hrould could use every sword against Earnachar and his sorceresses.”

  “No,” said Adalar. “This is not my home any longer. Tomorrow I am going to ride west for Knightcastle.” He shrugged. “Besides, I have a duty to my lord Gerald. If these valgast creatures and the Skuldari are allied in the service of the soliphage goddess, then Knightreach itself may be under threat from them. Someone must carry him warning.”

  “Like your father,” said Sigaldra. “You shall do your duty.”

  “I shall,” said Adalar, his voice quiet.

  “I hope his spirit watches over you,” said Sigaldra. She hesitated. “I am glad you are not a foe of the Jutai people, Adalar Greatheart of Castle Dominus. I would have hated stabbing you.”

  “Thank you, I think,” said Adalar.

  “It is ill fortune to kill a man in the sacred heart of the Jutai n
ation,” said Sigaldra with a serene smile.

  “You are teasing me again,” said Adalar.

  “Probably,” said Sigaldra. “Valor and good fortune to you, Lord Adalar of Castle Dominus.”

  “And valor and good fortune to you, Lady Sigaldra of Greatheart Keep, holdmistress of the Jutai.” Before she could react, he bowed over her hand and kissed her fingers in the fashion of the Marcher lords, and then walked from the chapel without another word.

  Sigaldra watched him go with a flicker of…regret, was it? She understood why Liane had called him the rusted knight. His eyes were far older than the rest of his face. Sigaldra had seen horrors in the middle lands, but she suspected Adalar Greatheart had seen horrors of his own in Mastaria. It was a pity his lands were so far away from Greatheart Keep.

  He would have made a welcome ally of the Jutai nation…

  A faint noise echoed through the chapel.

  “Wait,” said Sigaldra.

  Adalar turned. “What is that?”

  Sigaldra hurried past him, her boots clicking against the flagstones of the great hall. Adalar ran after her, his hand twitching towards his weapons. Sigaldra burst through the doors and onto the top of the hill. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the village, smoke rising from the chimneys as the Jutai kindled their fires for the night.

  Again the note of a horn came to her ears.

  “What is that?” said Adalar. “A signal?”

  “Aye,” said Sigaldra, dread clenching within her. “The watchmen have seen enemies outside the walls.”

  Chapter 10: Painted Masks

  Mazael hurried through the streets to the northern wall, Romaria, Timothy, Sir Wesson, and Arnulf following him.

  The village of Greatheart Keep exploded into motion. Old men and young men alike burst from their houses clad in leather and chain mail, spears and bows in hands. Women, too, ran for the walls, carrying bows and quivers of arrows. Those too old or too maimed to fight readied buckets of water to douse fires and bandages for the wounded. Even children went to work, helping their elders with their burdens. Sigaldra had drilled her people well, and Mazael had seen only a few militias of the Grim Marches that could match their efficiency.