Theft of Swords

by Michael J. Sullivan

  At last, the steps ended and Royce looked up at open sky. Above him was a circular balcony with sculpted walls like petals on a flower. Statues that had once lined this open-air pavilion lay in broken heaps on the floor. At their center rested the malevolent sleeping figure of the Gilarabrywn, an enormous black-scaled lizard with wings of gray membrane and bone. It lay curled, its head on its tail, its body heaving with deep, long breaths. Muscular claws were armed with four twelve-inch-long black nails; encrusted with dried blood, they left deep groves in the surface of the floor where they scraped in the beast’s sleep. Long sharp fangs protruded from beneath leathery lips, as did a row of frightening teeth that followed no visible scheme but seemed to mesh together like a wild fence of needles. Ears lay back upon its head, its eyes cloaked by broad lids, beneath which pupils darted about in a fretful slumber, of what dark visages Royce could not begin to imagine. The long tail, barbed at the end with a saber-like bone, twitched.

  Royce caught himself staring and cursed at his own stupidity. It was a sight, to be certain, but this was no time to be distracted. Focus was all that separated him from certain death.

  He had always hated places with animals. Hounds bellowed at the slightest sound or smell. He had managed to step past many a sleeping dog, but there had been a few that managed to sense him without warning. He mentally gripped himself and pulled his eyes away from the giant to study the rest of the room. It was a shambles, broken fixtures and rubble. On closer study, however, Royce noticed that the rubble held terrible treasures. He recognized torn bits of Mae Drundel’s dress, matted with dark stains; and tangled within its folds was a bit of scalp and a long lock of gray hair. Other equally disturbing items lay around him. Arms, feet, fingers, hands, all cast aside like shrimp tails. He spotted Millie, Hadrian’s bay mare, or rather one of her rear legs and her tail. Not too far away he was stunned to see Millie’s saddle and Hadrian’s swords. Luckily, they were within easy reach.

  As he began to move around the pile, inching his way with the slow discipline of a mantis on the hunt, he saw something. The bodies and torn clothes lay atop the pile of bones and stone. But deep beneath, on the bottom stratum of built-up sediment, Royce caught the singular glint of mirrored steel. It was only a tiny patch, no larger than a small coin, which was what he initially took it for, but its brilliance was unmistakable. It possessed the same gleam as the swords on the stairs and in the rack below.

  Barely breathing—each movement keyed to a painfully slow pace that might defy even a direct look—Royce stole closer to the beast and his vile treasure trove. He slipped his hand under the strands of Millie’s tail and meticulously began to draw forth the blade.

  It came loose with little effort or sound, but even before he had it free, Royce knew something was wrong. It was not heavy enough. Even given that elven blades might weigh dramatically less, it was ridiculously light. He soon realized why as he drew forth only part of a broken blade. Seeing the etching on the unnotched metal, Royce realized his hunch was correct. This Gilarabrywn was no animal, no dumb beast trained to kill. This conjured demon was self-aware enough to realize it had only one mortal fear in this world—a blade with its name on it. It took precautions. The monster had broken the blade, severing the name and rendering it useless. He could not see the other half of the sword, but it seemed obvious to him where it lay. The remainder of the sword rested in the one place from which Royce could not steal it—beneath the sleeping body of the Gilarabrywn itself.

  CHAPTER 11

  GILARABRYWN

  It was nearing dusk when Royce, hauling three swords over his shoulder, found Hadrian and Magnus waiting at the well. The village was empty, its inhabitants holed up in their hovels, and the night was quiet except for the faint sounds of distant activity coming from the castle.

  “It’s about time,” Hadrian said, jumping to his feet at Royce’s approach.

  “Here’s your gear.” Royce handed Hadrian his weapons. “Be careful next time where you stow it. I do have more important things to do than be your personal valet.”

  Hadrian happily took the swords and belts and began strapping them on. “I was starting to worry the church had grabbed you.”

  “Church?” Royce asked.

  “Luis Guy was harassing me earlier.”

  “The sentinel?”

  “Yeah. He was asking about my partners and rode off toward the river and I haven’t seen him come back. I got the impression he might be fishing for Esra. Where is Esra, anyway? Did you leave him at the river?”

  “He didn’t stop back here?” Royce asked. They shook their heads. “Doesn’t mean anything; he’d be a fool to come back to the village. He’s likely hiding in the trees.”

  “Assuming he didn’t get swept away by the river,” Hadrian said. “Why did you leave him?”

  “He left me with a very don’t follow me attitude, which under normal circumstances would ensure that I followed him, but I had other things on my mind. Before I knew it, the sun was going down. I thought he had already left.”

  “So did you find anything valuable inside? Gems? Gold?”

  Royce suddenly felt stupid. “You know, it never even crossed my mind to look.”

  “What?”

  “I completely forgot about it.”

  “So what did you do in there all day?”

  Royce pulled the bare half blade from his belt. It gleamed even in the faint light. “All the other swords were in a neat display case, but I found this buried almost directly under the Gilarabrywn’s foot.”

  “Its foot?” Hadrian said, stunned. “You saw it?”

  Royce nodded with a grimace. “And trust me—it isn’t a sight you want to see drunk or sober.”

  “You think it broke the blade?”

  “Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  “So where’s the other piece?”

  “I’m guessing it’s sleeping on it, but I wasn’t about to try and roll it over to look.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t wait until it left.”

  “With our client leaving in the morning, what’s the point? If it was an easy grab—if I could see it and didn’t have to spend hours digging through … well, stuff—fine, but I’m not about to risk my neck for Esra’s personal war with the church. Besides, remember the hounds in Blythin Castle?”

  Hadrian nodded with a sick look on his face.

  “If it can smell scents, I didn’t want to be around when it wakes up. The way I see it, Thrace has her father, Esra has access to the tower, and Rufus will rid the village of the Gilarabrywn. I say our work here is done.” Royce looked at the dwarf, then back at Hadrian. “Thanks for keeping an eye on him.” He drew his dagger.

  “Wha—wait!” The dwarf backpedaled as Royce advanced. “We had a deal!”

  Royce grinned at him. “Do I really look trustworthy to you?”

  “Royce, you can’t,” Hadrian said.

  The thief looked at him and chuckled. “Are you kidding? Look at him. If I can’t slit his throat in ten seconds, tops, I’ll buy you a beer as soon as we get back to Alburn. Tell me when you’re ready to count.”

  “No, I meant he’s right. You made a bargain with him. You can’t go back on it.”

  “Oh please. This little … dwarf … tried to kill me and damn near succeeded, and you want me to let him go because I said I would? Hey, he lived a whole day longer for helping us. That’s plenty reward.”

  “Royce!”

  “What?” The thief rolled his eyes. “You aren’t serious? He killed Amrath.”

  “It was a job, and you aren’t a member of the royal guard. He upheld his end just as agreed. And there’s no benefit to killing him.”

  “Enjoyment,” Royce said. “Enjoyment and satisfaction are benefits.”

  Hadrian continued to glare.

  Royce shook his head and sighed. “All right, okay, he can live. It’s stupid, but he can live. Happy?”

  Royce looked up at the great motte of the castle, where already
the torches of that night’s contestants were assembling. “It’s nearly dark; we need to get inside. Where’s the best seat for this dinner theatre I hear they’ve been holding at the castle? And when I say best, I mean safest.”

  “We still have an open invitation to the Bothwicks’. Theron is there now and we’ve been—”

  A screeching cry from the direction of the river cut through the night.

  “What in the land of Novron’s ghost is that?” Magnus asked.

  “You think maybe lizard wings found out his rattle was stolen?” Hadrian asked apprehensively.

  Royce looked back toward the trees and then at his friend. “I think we’d better find a better place to hide tonight than the Bothwicks’.”

  “Where?” Hadrian asked. “If it comes looking for that blade, it will rip every house apart until it finds it, and we already know the local architecture doesn’t pose much of a challenge. It’s gonna kill everyone in the village.”

  “We could run them all to the castle; there might still be time,” Royce suggested.

  “No good,” Hadrian countered. “The guards won’t let us in. The forest, maybe?”

  “The trees only slow it down. It won’t stop it any more than the houses.”

  “Damn it.” Hadrian looked around desperately. “I should have built the pit out in the village.”

  “What about the well here?” the dwarf asked, peering into the wooden-rimmed hole.

  Royce and Hadrian looked at each other.

  “I feel so stupid right now,” Royce said.

  Hadrian ran to the bell, grabbed hold of the dangling rope, and began to pull it. The bell, intended for the future church of Dahlgren, raised the alarm.

  “Keep ringing it,” Hadrian yelled at Magnus as he and Royce raced to the houses, sweeping their cloth drapes aside and banging on the frames.

  “Get out. Everyone out,” they yelled. “Your houses won’t protect you tonight. Get in the well. Everyone in the well now!”

  “What’s going on?” Russell Bothwick asked, peering out into the darkness.

  “No time to explain,” Hadrian shouted back. “Get in the well if you want to live.”

  “But the church? They are supposed to save us,” Selen Brockton said, huddling in a blanket in the arch of her doorway.

  “Are you willing to bet your life? You’re all gonna have to trust me. If I am wrong, you’ll spend one miserable night, but if I am right and you don’t listen, you’ll all die.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Theron said, storming out of the Bothwick house, buttoning his shirt, his massive figure and loud harsh voice commanding everyone’s attention. “And it had better be good enough for the lot of you too. Hadrian has done more to save this village from death in the past few days than all of us—and all of them—combined. If he says sleep in the well tonight, then by the beard of Maribor that’s what I’ll do. I don’t care if the beast was known to be dead. I’d still do it, and any of you who refuse, why, you deserve to be eaten.”

  The inhabitants of Dahlgren ran to the well.

  Loops were tied into the rope for footholds, and while the well was wide enough to lower four or even five people at a time, because they did not trust the strength of the windlass, they lowered them in groups of only twos and threes, depending on weight.

  Although people moved quickly and orderly, obeying Hadrian’s instructions without argument, the process was excruciatingly slow. Magnus volunteered to go in and drive pegs into the walls to form footholds. Young Hal, Arvid, and Pearl, being too small to go down first, raced around the village fetching more shafts of wood for the dwarf to drive into the sides. Tad Bothwick went down and worked with Magnus, feeding him the wooden spikes as the little dwarf built makeshift platforms.

  “Whoa, mister.” Tad’s voice echoed out of the mouth of the well. “I ain’t never seen no one use a hammer like that. It took six weeks to build up these walls, and I swear you look like you coulda done it in six hours.”

  Outside, Hadrian, Theron, Vince, and Dillon did the work of lowering villagers in. Hadrian lined them up, sending women and children down first into the darkness, where only a single candle that Tad held for Magnus revealed anything below.

  “How long?” Hadrian asked as they waited to lower the next set down.

  “It would have been here by now if it had flown the moment we heard it,” Royce replied. “It must be searching the tower. That gives us some time, but I don’t know how much.”

  “Get up in a tree and yell when you see it.”

  When everyone was in, Hadrian lowered Theron and Dillon, leaving only Hadrian, Vince, and Royce aboveground, where they waited for Magnus to finish the last set of wall pegs. Up in a poplar tree, Royce stood out on a thin branch, scanning the sky while listening to the dwarf hammering the last stakes into place.

  “Here it comes!” he shouted, spotting a shadow darting across the stars.

  Seconds later the Gilarabrywn screamed from somewhere above the dark canopy of leaves and the three cringed, but nothing happened. They stood still, staring into the darkness around them, listening. Another cry ripped through the night. The Gilarabrywn flew straight for the torches of the manor house.

  Royce spotted it in the night sky flying over the hill where the next challenger for the crown prepared to meet the beast. It descended, then rose once more. It issued another screech; then the beast let loose a roar and fire exploded from its mouth. Instantly, everything grew brighter as fire engulfed the hillside.

  “That’s new,” Hadrian declared nervously as he watched the ghastly sight. The crowd of challengers lost their lives with hardly the time to scream. “Magnus, hurry!”

  “All set. Go! Climb down,” the dwarf shouted back.

  “Wait!” Tad cried. “Where’s Pearl?”

  “She’s looking for wood,” Vince said. “I’ll get her.”

  Hadrian grabbed his arm. “It’s too dangerous; get in the well. Royce will go.”

  “I will?” Royce asked, surprised.

  “It’s lousy being the only one to see in the dark sometimes, isn’t it?”

  Royce cursed and ran off, pausing in homes and sheds to call the little girl’s name as loudly as he dared. It got easier to see his way as the light from the hill grew larger and brighter. The Gilarabrywn screamed repeatedly and Royce looked over his shoulder to see the castle walls engulfed in flames.

  “Royce,” Hadrian shouted, “it’s coming!”

  Royce gave up stealth. “Pearl!” he yelled aloud.

  “Here!” she screamed, darting out from the trees.

  He grabbed the little girl up in his arms and raced for the well.

  “Run, damn it!” Hadrian shouted, holding the rope for them.

  “Forget the rope. Get down and catch her.”

  While Royce was still sprinting across the yard, Hadrian slid down the coil.

  Thrump. Thrump. Thrump.

  Hugging Pearl close to his chest, Royce reached the well and jumped. The little girl screamed as they fell in together. An instant later, there came a loud unearthly scream and a terrible vibration as the world above the well erupted in a brilliant light accompanied by a thunderous roar.

  Arista paced the length of the little room, painfully aware of Bernice’s head turning side to side, following her every move. The old woman was smiling at her; she always smiled at her, and Arista was about ready to gouge her eyes out. She was used to her tower, where even Hilfred gave her space, but for more than a week, she had been subjected to constant company—Bernice, her ever-present shadow. She had to get out of the room, to get away. She was tired of being stared at, of being watched after like a child. She walked to the door.

  “Where are you going, Highness?” Bernice was quick to ask.

  “Out,” she said.

  “Out where?”

  “Just out.”

  Bernice stood up. “Let me get our cloaks.”

  “I am going alone.”

  “Oh no, Your Highness,
” Bernice said, “that’s not possible.”

  Arista glared at her. Bernice smiled back. “Imagine this, Bernice: you sit back down and I walk out. It is possible.”

  “But I can’t do that. You are the princess and this is a dangerous place. You need to be chaperoned for your own safety. We’ll need Hilfred to escort us, as well. Hilfred,” she called.

  The door popped open and the bodyguard stepped in, bowing to Arista. “Did you need something, Your Highness?”

  “No—yes,” Arista said, and pointed at Bernice, “keep her here. Sit on her, tie her up, hold her at sword point if you must, but I am leaving and I don’t want her following me.”

  The old maid looked shocked and put both hands to her cheeks in surprise.

  “You’re going out, Your Highness?” Hilfred asked.

  “Yes, yes, I am going out!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up. “I may roam the halls of this cabin. I may go to watch the contest. Why, I might even leave the stockade altogether and wander into the forest. I could get lost and die of starvation, eaten by a bear, tumble into the Nidwalden and get swept over the falls—but I’ll do so alone.”

  Hilfred stood at attention. His eyes stared back at hers. His mouth opened and then closed.

  “Is there something you want to say?” she asked, her tone harsh.

  Hilfred swallowed. “No, Your Highness.”

  “At least take your cloak,” Bernice insisted, holding it up.

  Arista sighed, snatched it from her hands, and walked out.

  The moment she left, regret set in. Storming down the corridor, dragging the cloak, she paused. The look on Hilfred’s face left her feeling miserable. She recalled having a crush on him as a girl. He was the son of a castle sergeant, and he used to stare at her from across the courtyard. Arista had thought he was cute. Then one morning she had awoken to fire and smoke. He saved her life. Hilfred had been just a boy, but he had run into the flaming castle to drag her out. He spent two months suffering from burns and coughing fits that caused him to spit up blood. For weeks he awoke screaming from nightmares. As a reward, King Amrath appointed Hilfred to the prestigious post of personal bodyguard to the princess. But she had never thanked him, nor forgiven him for not saving her mother. Her anger was always between them. Arista wanted to apologize, but it was too late. Too many years had passed, too many cruelties, followed by too many silences like the one that had just hung between them.