An Armory of Swords

by Fred Saberhagen

  For what seemed a long time, Trav could not move. He stood staring at the great corpse, which was already drawing insects. There were the pig-bugs Piddling had loved as a hatchling.

  At last Trav turned away, conscious of the fact that Dragonslicer weighed down his arms and made them tremble. He hurled the blade from him. It spun through the air and landed point-down in the dirt a dozen paces away.

  But Trav kept looking at the Sword. Slowly he realized the burden he had assumed. He hobbled to Dragonslicer and pulled it from the ground, gripping the black hilt with tired but steady hands. Now he must work to slay all dragons—as Wyatt had before him.

  The Sword of Aren-Nath

  Thomas Saberhagen

  Aron felt the bite of the gray air in the openness where he perched. Head thrown back, he watched the gray clouds of the sky. They shifted and slid like silt heavy in the delta of the river of the gods. In a minute his head got light and he had to take his gaze downward for a moment to regain his balance. He locked his arms tighter about the Temple Icon and held to his spot. The Temple was the highest point of the town, and he sat upon the highest point of the Temple. But it was hard to feel too superior with the dark hill looking down. To his left the Grade rose steeply to the foot of the forest, where a mass of fat immovable trunks stood together in the fringes of a silent crowd of which no man could say he had seen the other side. But looking to the right and beneath him, Aron could see far. The soft earth fell gently downwards. Far down its side were only the gullies and rivulets made by the autumn rain. But closer up to where he perched he could see how the sparse walls of Aren-Nath were rooted in soft clay.

  Thick splinters were starting to dig into the skin of his arm. He unclasped his hands for a moment to push back his hair and kicked his foot one last time along the wall below. Then he scrambled down awkwardly and stuck his feet tentatively back into the mud of the town.

  When he came to the edge of the Templeyard, a black bird swooped down from the heights of forest. He followed its slow path downward through the town. A bell gave three plaintive cries, as if annoyed for being hit, and he heard the distant clamor of his friends bursting out of the Schoolroom. He was supposed to be with them.

  As he walked he looked over the squat brick wall of the Templeyard and saw the bald head and upraised hands of Takani the Sage. When townsmen came to the Temple with furrowed brows, it was no god they sought, but the friendship and counsel of this short man.

  But today the faces that greeted him were small and smooth. From the Master’s Stump, Takani told stories that no child of the town soon forgot. The Stump itself held a special meaning for each of them. It was the only sign that a tree had ever grown so far down the Grade, and the reason and time of its cutting remained mysterious.

  Aron approached the garden and climbed up onto a bench so he could peek up over the wall. The buildings and the short quiet children who were gathered loosely about cast strange shadows in the faint daylight.

  “...but the peril of the town aroused in his Sword the fury of the gods, and the Sword sang keenly, and Vassal Yordenko tightened his grip; and the Sword led his strokes into the creature’s spongy flesh; and the pieces of flesh flew out of the fray and burnt the flesh of the earth...”

  Takani’s open, limp hands circled the air, drawing in his audience. His sparkling eyes glanced quickly at Aron, and he incorporated a beckon into the gestures of the song. But as Aron turned to come to the garden gate, the boys of the town swept through the street behind him and pulled him in their wake.

  They ran so fast he knew that there was something they ran to see. He ran fast behind them, but couldn’t catch up. He watched their tiny, mud-covered bodies slipping and tumbling their ways Earthward. Those in back were not looking where they were going, but turning and shouting to one another as they ran.

  Aron’s friend Klin led the pack, his head fixed forward in determination. Klin was always their leader, setting them into willful motion with a few quick threats or a few kind words. Klin would stand up to the meanest adults in the town and play tricks on anyone, even sometimes Takani.

  Behind Klin and to one side easily loped the Tall Boy, unconcerned and never slipping.

  As the pack came into the Town Square, Klin slid to a stop and held out his arms, keeping the others behind him. Then he anxiously strode ahead.

  A black riding-beast draped with a strangely rich red-and-gold cloth stood neighing quietly to itself outside the Vassal’s quarters. Renky the Idiot, who served as the Vassal’s stableboy, was leading two smaller black beasts up beside it. Then from the small doorway, Grumo the Mason and Torstein the Wheelwright emerged. Their strong workers’ hands awkwardly clasped pikes, and feathery, rusted helmets were perched atop their simple heads. They were acting as the Vassal’s personal guard. Klin took a step towards them, but Torstein let him know with a worried glance that they had all better stay back.

  They stood, shuffling their feet.

  Yordenko the Vassal stepped from his door and surveyed the Square, then turned and ushered out a lean, dark man in a green tunic—the Baron himself. A stirring of excitement went through the boys at the sight of the rapier at his side. Some of their fathers kept ancient heirloom weapons sealed beneath wedding gowns and pewter in family chests. The Vassal had taken his Sword on occasion from its wrappings and shown it to each of them, letting them trace their fingers along the cold steel Blade, the white emblem of its hilt, a crenelated wall. But seldom would a man be seen in town who had reason to carry such weapons at his side.

  The Baron’s lip was twisted with arrogance and with each step his heel twisted into the mud of the town, as if to grind some bit of foul food underfoot. He was flanked by two men of his guard, also armed, who looked strong but slouched carelessly as if this were their day off. The boys in the back of the group exchanged awed whispers. Vassal Yordenko cast a sidewise glance at the boys, and from the anguished expression on his face it looked like he knew there might be some trouble.

  Klin pelted the Baron in the back of the head with a pebble. Some of the boys giggled a little but most were too frightened. There was a sliding of metal. The Baron had spun about and held his sword in the air ready to strike. Yordenko cringed to one side and the men of the Baron’s Guard reached for their weapons. The Baron, seeing nothing but the pack of boys, sneered, then sheathed his rapier and leapt onto his riding-beast. The mount kicked wildly beneath his harsh mastery but in a moment submitted. Frightened, it carried him downward from the Square, its rear legs buckling as it slipped through puddles. The two men of the Baron’s Guard mounted their beasts more clumsily and followed quickly.

  Klin broke out laughing and the older boys started poking him and laughing also once the Baron was gone. The younger boys were in awe, some of them turning to friends and whispering anxiously, C’mon, let’s go home now....

  Yordenko did not so much as look at any of them. Aron thought he looked very tired and knew that it was very strange that the Vassal did not even come to reprimand them. Yordenko’s face was drawn in resignation as Aron had never seen it before. His green eyes moist and empty, the Vassal retired to his quarters.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Klin—I think something’s really wrong....” Aron said quietly, looking after the Vassal.

  “Are you gonna start telling me when to throw rocks now? Uh?”

  Their eyes locked. The other boys got quiet.

  Klin came up to Aron, chest out, fists balled, and stood tall to look down on him. He was about five centimeters taller. The other boys cleared out. Klin gave Aron a shove. Aron kept his gaze but did nothing. Klin advanced again and gave another shove.

  “You’re just afraid of those fools. Yeah, that’s what you are, afraid!”

  Aron leapt on him and began pounding with his fists.

  They tumbled to the ground and the other boys started cheering. Aron took a hard punch in the cheek then pummeled Klin’s stomach. They got back to their feet and started boxing again. Klin gave Ar
on one quick kick in the teeth, nearly sending him into a rage. But through the blur of his teary eyes and through the pain in his mouth, which he was sure was bleeding now, Aron’s eyes met those of the silent woman of the town. She stood on the far side of the Square, bastard child clinging at her breast. Crying, Aron took Klin down, hit him twice hard in the face, then ran downwards because that was the fastest way he could go.

  Aren-Nath behind him, his quick feet followed the hoof-chumed trail to where it met the base of the High Road where he would have to stop running and start climbing, climbing far back up into the fat trees amongst which his parents had built their home. He took the final turn downward, and though darkness had not yet set felt fleeting fears of bandits and hooligans. His heart would not slow, it thumped hard, then he was almost there. He could see the base of the High Road just below.

  He was tumbling down the hill. Something had grabbed his leg from behind, and he was falling now, and there was another body falling and rolling through the mud with him, over him, then under him. He fought it off. It was Klin. At the bottom of the hill, Aron got himself untangled, stood, and started walking and slipping along the path again.

  “C’mon, Aron,” Klin called, getting up and running to his side. Aron felt a hand clap him on the shoulder and rest there. Silently they turned up onto the High Road together. “That was a pretty good fight. You still got some blood on your chin, though. Don’t let your mom see that I did that....”

  They talked. Aron said something was wrong with the Vassal, and Klin shouldn’t be messing with him right now. Klin said maybe he was right, but he had no idea what was wrong with the Vassal. “Beats me,” he said, shrugging.

  Aron knew that despite his foolery, Klin had a heart greater than those of the other boys and worshiped the Vassal with all of it. But Klin’s attention was elsewhere, he had forgotten the whole issue and was telling some story about what had happened in the workshop this afternoon, how so-and-so had ripped the hammer off from the smith and so-and-so was selling it.... Aron wasn’t listening. He was wiggling his teeth gingerly, wondering if they’d stay in place. He was still angry about the fight but at the same time glad to have his friend back.

  When they got up to the fork that headed back toward town, Klin stopped Aron firmly and looked him over for a moment in silence.

  “Tonight...” he breathed. Then he told Aron his plan. Always before had Aron refused to go on their nighttime excursions. He didn’t like the things they did. He was afraid. But he would never let Klin tell him so again.

  Aron lay in his bed that afternoon thinking about the girls in his class. There was one girl he thought about quite a bit more than the others. He had been hoping somehow he could be alone with her for a while, but then he heard one of the other boys talking about how ugly she was and he figured that he had better stay away because he didn’t want to be seen with her.

  Aron’s house had only two rooms, the beds and the kitchen in one and Father’s workbench in the other. The boards creaked under the thin stuffed mattress as he shifted around and opened his eyes a little to see what Mother was doing. She was at a stool by the window testily pulling handfuls of feathers out of a dark, dead bird and stuffing them into a bag. She was still young, her face just beginning to harden. Her thin but strong shoulders and arms had once been soft. She set the limp bird down on the floor and got up to ladle herself a cup of water from the waterbarrel.

  At her feet beneath the table huddled sister Cainy, three years old, quiet, blonde, and with eyes that held a deep understanding. She was carving something into the floor with Father’s pocketknife, as she occasionally would. At first the family had tried to stop her. Then they discovered it was useless. If they took the knife away she scratched with her fingers until they bled, and such a look of anguish came into her eyes that it made them worry more about not giving her the knife than giving it to her. They watched her carefully at first, but she had never hurt herself. Some of her carving was magnificent. Father would pick her up, take the knife gently from her grasp, and shake her up and down proudly. “At least we don’t have to worry about what craft she’ll choose,” he would say, smiling.

  When the bird was no more than a bag of bristly skin Mother set it on the counter, then got the broom to sweep up stray feathers. With the coming of the broom, Cainy dropped the knife and sat in place. When it was upon her she got up and scrambled out the back door.

  Father came in the front door, axe gripped by the neck in one strong hand, a bundle of wood locked under his other arm.

  Night had long fallen. The chill had dispersed the clouds, and the moon had already had time to make most of its long progress across the sky. His stomach still felt warm with his mother’s stew. He lay perfectly still making shallow breaths and listening to every breath of his parents and every creak of the boards their bodies rested on. He waited. He heard the crickets. The chill crept in beneath him and around his covers. His stomach forgot about the stew and started rumbling.

  A cold hand was on his shoulder. He sat up, startled. The back door was open to the night, but he had heard nothing. His heart was jumping, then he saw that the dark figure was Klin. He had known that all along, but the silence had startled him.

  Klin raised a finger to lips which Aron was sure were smiling in the dark. He grabbed Aron by the arm, got him out of bed, and steered him toward the door. But now in the doorway was Cainy, her body tiny in the dark, her eyes looking silently up to them. Klin smiled and gave her a gentle shush, then took Aron out and closed the door with little Cainy safely inside.

  The night was cold, terribly cold, but Aron thought at least he was out in it now and not trying to hide from it beneath his covers. They ran. At first Aron’s knees felt weak and his steps were unsure. The air was cold. But they were outside, they were in the forest. It was night. They couldn’t see a thing. His worries about what they were to do nagged at him only a little now, crying out to him from some region of his mind far removed from what his eyes saw and his skin felt.

  They came upon Aren-Nath and slipped through its loosely bound wooden gates. The streets were black and muddy and empty. Aron could not stop looking around to see if anyone his parents knew would see him out here, away from his house at this hour. He thought he kept seeing people in the shadows, but they shrank back into darkness when he turned to look. Ahead there was one glow of light. It was the only light in the whole town at this hour. But Aron had never seen it before. He had never seen the town at this hour before. The light that shone out into the night came from the tavern.

  When they came nearer, the darkness was no longer enough to stifle its eruptions of laughter and blasts of music. Outside its doors, a few figures shuffled together around the street, on the verge of collapse.

  Aron glanced at Klin, then realized that his look might betray apprehension. But Klin merely nodded and gestured down an alleyway. They picked their way through its puddles in darkness and came up towards the rear of the tavern. The thin boards of its walls could not hold in its warm yellow glow or the raucous calling of its laughter and song. Aron wondered if he knew anyone who was inside, and was frightened.

  Beside the tavern was the shack where the town’s dead were kept on blocks of ice until their day of cremation. Klin used a crate to climb onto the roof of this shack. From there he hoisted himself to the roof of the tavern. Aron followed, wordlessly. What else would he do? For a moment he thought about telling Klin he would just wait outside, but then decided he couldn’t. Not only did he fear standing alone in the alley, but a desire to see inside the tavern grew powerful within him and began to overpower his other concerns.

  Standing on the roof of the tavern, he could see the whole town scattered like a bunch of broken pottery beneath him and rising up with solid-looking shapes to the forest above, but the only hint of the warm light of men was from beneath them. Klin was ducking into a hole in the roofing. Crouching, Aron found his way along the beam and ducked in after him.

  Inside, the n
ight was forgotten except that the feel of the lampglow told everyone that it could not possibly be daytime. The musicians completed a song, and cheers went up. Aron and Klin were in the rafters. Between thin boards and through knotholes of the ceiling they caught glimpses of rumpled hair and tables and the colors of women’s dresses. A rat scurried across the beam beside them, then disappeared into the shadows around the perimeter. Klin got down on the beam and began inching his way carefully to the other side of the room. Most of the light was streaming in from over there, and Aron knew that Klin was going to get a better look. The musicians began anew with a song featuring the flutist. Klin lay down on the beam and bent his head down to and almost through a hand-sized hole in the boards. Aron squeezed up right behind him, so Klin got up to a crouch, holding on to a rafter for support and making a little space for his friend. There was just enough room beneath Klin’s feet for Aron to slide up the beam and get a good look.

  The hole was over a spot behind the bar. First Aron looked straight down the neck of the barmaid’s tight dress. One man’s laughter rolled out above the din. Then Aron saw the barmaid’s hair, the stacks of grubby glasses behind her, kegs piled carelessly against the wall. He scooted forward another few centimeters, butting up against Klin’s ankles, and turned his head to get a better look. The dust of the beam was on his face; it smelt like his mother’s old dress. The bar was wet with beer, and it seated old men stirring their soup and young men laughing and throwing back their heads and downing pints. The young ones belched and put their hands on young, dirty ladies who pushed them away, while old, toothless hags rubbed the old men’s heads. A smiling girl bounced through the room, then hopped into an older man’s lap, threw an arm about his neck, and kicked back uproariously, nearly peeling him from his stool. She swung back up onto her feet, lifted her skirt off the floor and did a little jig, dancing off into a corner where Aron could not see her but from which he heard a great deal of laughter.