An Armory of Swords

by Fred Saberhagen

  The guards Landry posted were as polite as their duties allowed, but it was clear that neither Burley nor Derina were allowed to leave the house. Derina was almost thankful: Burley was safe as long as he remained here, held genteel hostage. If Landry should send him to war, Derina knew, he very well might not return.

  But the blackmail served its purpose. Word came that Burley’s father Edson had brought his men into the war, and was already harassing enemy scouts and foragers.

  “What a fool this Prince is!” Landry shouted down the length of the dinner table. It was crowded with soldiers, and Landry’s family were packed in at the top. “Come to fight us over booty worth less than what he’s paying his men to take it—and last year’s loot already shared out among our men as soon as we returned home! We could not return if it we would!”

  “A fool and his army,” Reeve smiled, “are soon parted.”

  Derina caught Norward’s look, a quick glance to the head of the table—as if he would say something, but chose not to.

  The meal ended in singing, boasting, and boisterous talk of swordplay and the prospect of large ransoms. Derina, ears ringing, withdrew early, and went to bed. A few hours later Burley joined her, swaying slightly with wine as he undressed.

  “Reeve and I are to leave tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll set an ambush above Honing Pass.”

  Fear snapped Derina awake. She sprang from the bed and clung to him.

  “Don’t go!” she cried.

  Burley was bemused by her vehemence. “Don’t be silly. I must.”

  “Father—” she gulped. “Father will kill you.”

  Burley’s look softened. He touched her hair. “Your father won’t be coming.”

  “His soldiers will be there. And—” She hesitated. “Reeve. If Reeve has not changed.”

  Burley shook his head. “Landry still needs my father. I’m not without value yet.”

  Derina buried her head in the curve of his neck. “Your father is mortal. So are you. And the lord my father will take your land in the name of our child.”

  He put his arms around her, swayed gently back and forth. “I have no choice,” he said.

  Derina blinked back hot tears. When had they ever had a choice? she thought.

  Hoping desperately, she said, “I’ll speak to Reeve.”

  Reeve listened carefully as Derina stammered out her fears the next morning. Unconsciously he rubbed the scars on his forehead. “No, father has not asked any such service of me,” he said. “Nor would he—Norward and I are strong enough to stand against him now, and Edlyn and mother support us. When we refuse to let him play us each against the other, he calls it ‘conspiracy.’ ”

  “But his other men? His old veterans?”

  Reeve looked thoughtful. “Perhaps. I’ll speak to them myself, let them know that I look to them to keep Burley safe.”

  Derina kissed her brother on both cheeks. “Bless you, Reeve!”

  Reeve smiled and hugged her with bearlike arms. “I’ll look to him. Don’t worry yourself—it’s an ambush we’ll be setting, not a pitched battle. All the danger’s to the other side.”

  Reeve and Burley made a brave sight the next day, riding out in buff coats and polished armor, their troopers following. Derina, standing above the gatehouse, waved and forced the brightest smile she could, all to balance her sinking heart.

  In a driving rain, five days later, the remnants of the party returned. The tale was of the ambushers ambushed, the Prince’s spearmen on the ridge above, advancing under cover of arrows. Reeve wounded to the point of death, run through with a lance, and Burley taken.

  “His beast threw Master Burley, miss,” said an old serjeant, himself wounded in the jaw and barely able to speak. With dull eyes, Derina listened to the serjeant’s tale as she saw Reeve carried into the house on his litter. “The enemy ran him down. He surrendered at the last—and they didn’t kill him then, I saw them taking him away. He survived the surrender—that’s the most dangerous moment. So he’ll be held for ransom, most like, and you’ll see him ere autumn.”

  And then Lord Landry came howling among the survivors, Norward following white-faced behind. Landry lashed at the nearest with a riding whip, calling them fools and cowards for letting his son fall victim. Then, snarling, hands trembling with the violence of his passion, he stood for a moment in the cold rain that poured in streams off his big shoulders, and then he turned on his heel and marched back to the main house. Derina ran after, feet sliding in the mud of the court.

  “Burley was captured!” she said. “We must send his ransom!”

  Landry turned to her as he walked, face twisting in a snarl. “Ransom? That’s his father’s business.”

  “His father’s poor!” Derina cried.

  Landry laughed bitterly. “And I’m rich? I’ve given away enough sustenance with your dowry. Don’t expect me to deliver your fool of a husband, not when you’re carrying his fortune in your belly.”

  Derina seized his sleeve, but he shook her off savagely, and she slipped in the mud and fell. Strong arms helped her rise. She looked up at Norward’s grim face.

  “I’ll speak with him,” Norward said, “and do what I can.”

  When Norward and Derina caught him, Landry had barged into the house and stood shouting in the great hall.

  “Arm!” he bellowed. “A sally! When this rain ends, I’ll have revenge for my son!”

  Servants and soldiers bustled to their work. Norward spoke cautiously amid the melee. “You need your every son in this,” he said. “Burley’s your son now, and could be a good one to you.”

  Landry swung around, derision contorting his features. “That country clod! Whip my servant, will he? Steal my valuables? Is that a son of mine?” He shook his whip in Norward’s face. “Let him rot in chains!”

  Tears dimmed Derina’s eyes and her head whirled. She heard Norward’s protest, Landry’s dismissal, then Norward’s raised voice. Suddenly there was a violent whirl of action, and Derina looked up to see Landry holding Norward by the throat, his dagger out and pricking Norward beneath the ear.

  “Think to replace Reeve, whey-face?” Landry demanded. “You’ll never be a true son to me!” Derina cried out as the dagger drew a line of red along Norward’s neck; and then Landry dropped his son to the floor and strode off, calling for his armor. Derina rushed to Norward’s side, held her shawl to the wound. Norward pushed it aside.

  “A scratch,” he said. His face was grim and pale as death. He stood, then helped Derina to a chair. “Wait here—I know how to get Burley back. But promise me you’ll say nothing—trust me in this.”

  He walked to the fireplace. He stood looking for a moment at Landry’s long battle sword, then took it from its place and walked toward the stairs.

  Derina was terrified to follow but more terrified to stay, alone and not knowing. She followed.

  “Out!” Norward cried. “Out!” He was driving Edlyn and Kendra from Reeve’s room. The two left in a bewildered flutter; but Derina, grimly biting her lip, pushed past them and into the room.

  Norward had his back to her. He stared grimly down at Reeve, who lay unconscious, pale as death, his midsection bulky with bandages.

  Derina could not say if she screamed as, in one easy gesture, Norward drew the blade from its scabbard and plunged it into Reeve’s belly.

  Landry had come down to the great hall, wearing his breastplate and chain skirts. He scowled as he saw Norward with his sword.

  “Father,” Norward said. “I suspect I know why the enemy have invaded.” He held out the sword. “The Prince wants this back. It’s one of the Swords of Power.”

  No! Derina thought. Don't tell him!

  Then was a silence in which Derina heard only the beating of blood in her ears. Landry stood stock-still, then came forward. He took the sword from Norward and looked at it carefully. Then a savage smile crossed his features, and he drew the blade from the scabbard and whirled it over his head. “Maybe you’re a son to me after
all!” he said. “A Sword of Power—ay, that makes sense! But which one?”

  To stifle any cry of surprise, Derina put her hand to her throat at Norward’s answer.

  “Farslayer would kill the Prince for you,” Norward said. “And you wouldn’t have to leave the room.”

  “And I’d have it right back again, through my heart!” Landry scorned. He stopped, looked at the sword. Then, deliberately, he spoke the words, the simple rhyme, known to all children, that would unleash Farslayer, and named as its target one of his own men, the wounded serjeant who had brought the news of the ambush to him.

  A target so near would make the job of retrieval easy enough.

  As Derina knew it would, nothing happened. Her creeping astonishment was turning to knowledge.

  She knew what Norward was trying to do, and she wondered if she dared—if she wanted to—put a stop to it.

  Landry looked at the hilt. “The white hand,” he said. “Which sword is that?”

  Norward shrugged. “The white hand of death, most like. What does it matter? What matters is that the war is won the moment you use the blade.”

  A grin crossed Landry’s features. “The men are all to mount,” he said. “We’ll empty the place. You’ll ride with me, and have pick of the Prince’s loot!”

  Derina, wide-eyed, stood and said nothing. Decided to say nothing.

  A few hours later, as the last raindrops fell, Lord Landry and his army rode from his flint-walled house on his mission to crush the Prince and his army with their own weapon.

  A few moments later Derina watched her mother’s astonishment as she saw Reeve strolling casually down the stair, a crooked grin on his face. Even his burn scars had vanished.

  “I seem to have improved,” he said.

  Four days later Norward was back with the body of Lord Landry, who had been killed leading a reckless charge on the enemy army. “The Prince has his sword back,” he said. “The war is over.”

  Derina, standing in the courtyard, looked numbly at the body of her father, lying cold on his litter hacked by a dozen armor-crushing blows. Her brother Reeve put an arm around her.

  She looked at her mother Kendra, who stared at Landry as if she didn’t believe her eyes, and at Edlyn, who looked as if she were just beginning to dare to hope.

  “Burley?” she asked.

  “Alive,” Norward said, “and his ransom well within our means. We’ll pay his release as soon as the Prince’s army reaches the lowlands again, and then you’ll have your husband back.”

  Derina cried out in joy and threw her arms around him. He—Lord Norward now—stood stiffly for a moment, then gently took her arms and released himself from her embrace.

  “Our father always wanted me to kill someone,” he said. “Who’d have thought he would himself have been the victim?”

  Landry would never have understood, Derina thought, a man such as the Prince, who would fight a war for a talisman not of destruction, but of healing.

  “You didn’t strike the blow yourself,” Derina said.

  “I misled him. I knew what would happen.”

  She took his hand. “So did I.”

  He looked at Landry and tears shimmered in his eyes. “Woundhealer would not kill, not even for our father,” he said. “I wish I could have thought of another way, but there are some so maimed they are beyond the help even of a Sword of Power.”

  Fealty

  Gene Bostwick

  Templar Jarmon’s eyes strained in the dim light to pick out Lord March’s body. The debris-laden cellar smelled more than a little of recent enchantment, a honey odor that hung in the dusty air. Thick, blood-red wine oozed from the seams of huge casks along the basement’s far wall, and rats with oddly human faces stared from the shadows. March had dabbled in strange magics.

  Wide pine planks from the deck above hung down with jagged edges, and a long oak ceiling timber, roughly hewn and broad as two men, lay splintered and broken across the stone floor. One end had crushed March’s chest.

  A shiver ran down Jarmon’s back, not entirely due to the cold. He hunched low and worked his way forward, smudging the patterns of frost that decorated crates and stores for the coming winter. His chain mail and braced leather armor were not meant for these tight quarters, but the Delfland border was close enough to demand caution. As he neared the body, something larger than a rat stirred in the shadows, and he pulled out his dagger. The rats squealed and retreated, and the shuffling noise stopped, replaced by an eerie quiet. Jarmon had heard stories of how an exposed blade could dampen the effects of magic, but he wasn’t sure what had aided him here, anti-magic, or the simple threat of the weapon.

  As he reached the body, he kept his dagger ready lest some residual sorcery still animated the flesh. March had already stiffened with rigor. His eyes bulged from the shock of the impact, and blood had pooled in his mouth. The tyrant was dead.

  Under a shattered scrap of beam, the Sword lay nearby, still sheathed in its scabbard. March had stretched out his left hand and clutched the hilt, but he’d died before he managed to bare the enchanted blade.

  The priests at the Temple of Dawn had prayed to Aurora for divine intervention against Lord March. The goddess had obliged, striking a blow before March could react. Her immense fist had shattered the small lodge, piercing roof and floor, and pinning March where he now lay. Templar Jarmon glanced up through the jagged hole, half-expecting to see her radiant face. The first stars of twilight glinted back at him.

  He turned his attention to the Sword. The scabbard was splintered and torn, and what showed of the long blade glimmered with intricate scrollwork. It retained its fine twin edges despite the mayhem recently at work around it. Jarmon brushed a shred of wood aside and studied the hilt. Half concealed by March’s fingers, the only adornment was a simple banner. Mindsword. The Sword of Fealty.

  An urge seized him to take it up, and his hand reached out. He stopped short of touching it. “Gods devour me,” he cursed, low and angry. “The temple has sworn me against you.” He glared at the Sword as if it could reply. “The world cannot stand another empire from your hand.”

  The urge diminished, and Jarmon gritted his teeth as he set to work. He used his dagger to cut through March’s arm at the elbow, a slow, grisly process without saw or hatchet. March’s death-grip on the Sword held, and Jarmon slid arm and blade aside. The unearthly quiet lifted abruptly, and sounds of evening drifted down to him, cold wind in the pine trees and the flutter of bats’ wings. Up the canyon behind the ruined lodge, an owl hooted twice.

  Other creatures would be prowling soon, and Jarmon hurried. Starting under the arm, he sliced March’s side open with his blade. The dead man’s innards were still soft, and they bubbled out as Jarmon cut through belly and intestines. When he reached March’s groin, he paused, sweating from the effort, and took a measure. March had been a tall man, a hand short of two meters. With the Mindsword’s point shoved through his neck and into his skull, the weapon would just fit inside his body.

  Jarmon used March’s hand and his own dagger to set the tip of the Sword at the body’s neck. A hard shove drove it upward into the head, and a final kick of his boot buried it in the cold flesh. As March’s body swallowed the weapon, Jarmon lost any remaining urge to take up the Sword. Jarmon fell back, panting. His stomach churned, and the smell clawed at his throat, but he’d completed the worst of the job. Satisfied, he felt himself relax.

  In the next hour he levered the beam aside and dressed March in fresh servant’s clothes from the quarters above. As cold seeped into the dead body, the smell of death ebbed. He borrowed from March’s finer wardrobe to replace his own splattered garments, and cleaned his mail and leather with icy water from the kitchen cistern.

  March’s followers had fled with his riding-beasts, but Jarmon found a small wagon and hitched his own mount to the yoke. With a blanket and a few bales of straw to cover the body, he pointed beast and wagon northward and departed from Lord March’s once-grand abode. A ha
lf moon hung overhead, and the clear sky promised a very cold night.

  Keaf crouched among the scrub oak and watched as the young men from the village of Palmora played a rough game of football. He wanted badly to join in the competition, but Keaf lived in the graveyard hut, and at seventeen he’d just inherited his stepfather’s profession. Gravediggers were the shunned people, in a class with sin-eaters and demon dancers.

  Among the players, Lane was the biggest, and he used his size cruelly against the others. He charged into Kaye, the village barber’s youngest son, and knocked the boy over into half-thawed mud. Kaye sprang up, fists clenched and charged after the wool-stuffed ball.

  The young men didn’t like Keaf hanging around, but most of the time they ignored him in favor of the game. Chancing that they would leave him alone today, he toed his own ball around in a small circle, practicing a few moves as the game continued. It felt good to stretch his muscles in the cold.

  He’d fashioned his ball out of leather taken from a corpse’s tunic, and he’d watched Lane and the others until he knew every play by heart. He still had aspirations that extended beyond the cemetery fence, and in those dreams he was one of the team, a good player, admired by his friends. Friends. Keaf had only had one in his life, his father, and he’d buried him six months past. Time had dulled the hurt, but it hadn’t reduced his need for friendship.

  Kaye deflected a pass intended for Lane and sprinted down the field before the bigger lad could catch him. Two teammates helped finish the play, scoring easily against Evar. The moneylender’s son was too slow and too lazy to really play, but the other boys knew, even in their teens, that he was destined to inherit power in Palmora.

  Lane stormed up to Kaye after the goal was made and cuffed him alongside the head. “Cheater!”