It had a hilt bound in black leather and silver wire, a bell guard of steel inlaid with petals of mother-of-pearl, a long, slim, straight blade, and a pommel of lead caged in silver. It was indeed clearly a weapon meant for a nobleman.
Arlian glanced at the sword on Black’s belt. That, too, was a nobleman’s sword, though older and worn—but Black was clearly no lord; he was employee, not employer.
“And who are we to deny that it was made for Ornisir?” Black said sardonically. “Of course, some would consider it ill fortune to purchase a sword intended for a man who was slain in his bed by assassins.”
“And they’d be fools,” the swordsmith said with a shrug. “Lord Ornisir never set his hand on it, and it’s a fine weapon.”
“I like it,” Arlian said.
“There are a dozen others to inspect before making any decisions,” Black pointed out.
“Of course,” Arlian agreed.
All the same, an hour later it was that same sword in his hand when they left the shop.
“Do you think it was really intended for this Lord Ornisir?” he asked, as he slid it awkwardly into the new leather loop on his belt. He almost tripped over it before he got the hang of walking with the blade at his side.
Black shrugged. “It might have been; it seems a good blade. Even if it was made for someone else and rejected, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it—it might not have fit his hand well, or perhaps he thought the chasings didn’t match the color of his eyes. If it suits you, then all’s well enough—though you won’t know its true quality until you’ve fought for your life with it.”
Arlian nodded. “And your own sword? You’ve fought with it?”
“Often,” Black said.
“Did you buy it here?”
Black shook his head. “I took it off a dead man, years ago,” he said. “It’s served me well.”
Arlian nodded again.
“But of course, a sword is only as good as the man who wields it,” Black said. “Or the woman, for that matter, as I’ve seen a few women who could use a blade as well as most men.” He pointed at Arlian’s new acquisition. “That’s truly a lord’s sword you just bought, and a good one, but even if it’s the finest blade ever forged I’d rather face you with that sword than a real fighter with a butcher knife any day.”
Arlian grimaced. “I know,” he said. He looked up the street ahead.
They were in Manfort, and the city was still strange and new for Arlian. It smelled of smoke and sewage and baking bread, and when the wind was right or he walked the right streets he could smell the tanneries and dye houses along the eastern wall. Mangy dogs and wary cats foraged in the gutters and alleys, and crows circled overhead or roosted on rooftops, but except for the overcast sky Arlian thought he was nearly as enclosed in stone as ever he was in the mines of Deep Delving. The bustling streets and squares were all paved, either in cobbles or flags, and lined with shops and houses, two or three stories in height, all built of stone and roofed in tile. Since passing the gate he had seen not a single exposed timber nor thatch, nor anything green and growing.
He had remarked on this, and Black had told him, “Stone doesn’t burn. Dragons spit flame. This place was built as our fortress against the dragons. You’ll find plenty of wood and other tinder inside, but not out in the open.” He had nodded up the hill. “In the Upper City the great lords have torn out pavements and buildings to put in gardens here and there, but the common folk down here are happy with the stone.”
Manfort was also vast; the streets wound on as far as Arlian could see in every direction—though that was not far, given the curving streets, high stone walls, and overhanging upper stories. They had stopped at Black’s rented room to deposit their belongings, startling the landlady, who had thought Black was gone with the caravan; Arlian had been thoroughly lost by the time they reached the place. The city was a maze, and while Arlian was sure he could learn his way around quickly enough, he knew he was not yet ready to attempt to find Lord Dragon or his captives.
And he knew he was not yet ready to fight Lord Dragon. He remembered the speed and ease with which Dragon had drawn his sword and cut Madam Ril’s throat; he thought he could manage something not too greatly inferior against an unarmed foe, but he had the imagination to see that matching the attack was not enough. He saw that he must also defend himself against such attacks, and he knew he could not possibly do so effectively.
“Maybe I should have had a sword made new,” he said. Any advantage he could buy, he wanted.
“It wouldn’t make much difference,” Black said. “It’s how you use it that really matters. A new sword would be more expensive and would take at least ten days, probably more—I thought you wanted to find another caravan as soon as possible, and one might form by then. I intend to join the first one I can.”
“Oh,” Arlian said.
“Besides, there’s no reason to think one made for you would be any better, and you don’t yet know enough to be able to say what would work best for you. Not to mention that the chances are good that if you’re serious about learning to use it, that sword will get broken at some point in your training.”
“Oh,” Arlian said again. Even this leftover sword had cost more than he had ever imagined a simple piece of steel could cost—and now Black was saying it might break?
He obviously still had a great deal to learn.
“Now, most of the lords don’t bother with armor,” Black said, changing the subject. “After all, if you use your sword only to punish unarmed subordinates, or in formal duels, or to defend against assassins who will have done their best to catch you unprepared, armor really isn’t going to be worth the discomfort and expense. However, we lesser mortals, who carry weapons for money, can expect to encounter bandits or other unfriendly folks who are very definitely armed, have no interest in formalities, and who haven’t the patience of real assassins. They may be using clubs or cutlasses, arrows or arbalests—their armament tends to be quite varied and imaginative. A well-padded helmet can save your life when escorting a caravan; a mail shirt or breastplate is heavy, but turning an arrow is worth a little weight.”
“Of course,” Arlian agreed.
“And therefore, let us visit the armorer around the corner here,” Black said, taking Arlian’s elbow and turning him. Caught off guard, he almost collided with an old woman before getting himself headed the right direction.
The swordsmith’s shop had been spare and elegant, the walls draped in cloth, the smith’s forge and workshop hidden away in the back; the armorer’s shop was a startling contrast, crude and cluttered, with weapons and armor stacked everywhere and a rough wooden workbench standing in the very center.
Arlian was amused to see a rack of swords—surely, these were the “cheap cutlery” Black had mentioned. They were shorter and heavier than the weapon he now wore on his belt, with broader blades; some of them curved. He picked one up and hefted it while Black spoke to the armorer. He felt the blade, tried to flex it.
The feel of the metal was different, with little spring to it; this was clearly inferior stuff. He suspected that it would be easy to notch, bend, or break a sword like this.
“My lord!” Black called, and Arlian started. He put the sword back on the rack and turned his attention elsewhere.
Two hours later the two men finally emerged from the shop, Arlian carrying a bundle that contained a mail shirt, a helmet, a set of greaves, and three assorted blades.
Two of the blades were knives—an ordinary belt knife and a dagger. The third was something Arlian had never heard of before, which Black called a “left hand,” or “swordbreaker,” though once he had gotten a good look at it Arlian realized he had seen at least one, long ago.
Lord Dragon had worn one on the right side of his belt on that day almost eight years ago, when he had sat astride his horse looking down at Arlian amid the smoldering ruins of Obsidian.
It was, in fact, constructed much like a sword, with a
hilt and guard, but the blade was only about a foot long, and there were two four-inch steel spikes parallel to the blade, one on either side.
“Catch a sword in one of those,” Black had explained, “and you can just twist your wrist and snap the blade right off.”
Arlian had stared at the device in wonder; the maneuver Black described should indeed work.
“Every lord has one now, and those who do any serious fighting know how to use them,” Black had said. “I have one myself, though I don’t parade it about.”
“It just snaps the blade?” Arlian had asked, twisting the swordbreaker to demonstrate. “Just like that?”
Black had laughed at him. “It’s catching it that’s the hard part!”
Difficult to use or not, Black had strongly advised him to buy the thing, and he had.
They returned to Black’s room, a stuffy, dim little place high under the eaves of a bakery.
“A good day’s work,” Black said, as he opened the door at the top of the stair. “At least you’re properly equipped now, even if you haven’t any idea how to use any of it. Tomorrow we’ll start teaching you the basics, and see if there are any caravan notices posted.”
“Thank you,” Arlian said, as they stepped into the room. “You’ve been very kind.”
Black glanced at him as he closed the door. “I have, haven’t I?” he said. “You know, I’m not sure why.”
Arlian started to say something, thought better of it, and coughed on his own saliva as the words caught in his throat.
“I think, my lord, that it’s time you told me more about yourself,” Black said. “Let us start with my suspicion that you have somehow availed yourself of a sorcerous glamour.”
Arlian’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “What?” he said. He had been expecting questions and suspicions, but not that one. He had seen no magic of any kind since he entered the mine, and had almost forgotten such things existed.
“Well, my lord, you must admit that there’s something peculiar about your circumstances,” Black explained. “You seem to have been exceptionally fortunate in deceiving your pursuers—I understand that the town patrols in Westguard questioned Lord Lanair, and never once suspected that he might be the fugitive they sought.”
“I wasn’t what they were expecting,” Arlian protested. “A woman taught me that—people see what they’re expecting to see.” His throat thickened at the mention of Rose, as he remembered how he had last seen her, lifeless and bleeding. He swallowed. “So I made sure I wasn’t what they expected,” he continued. “They were looking for a fleeing vagabond, not a young nobleman demanding lodging.”
“And a good ruse it was, surely…”
“You saw through it quickly enough, though, didn’t you?” Arlian interrupted, suddenly troubled.
“Indeed. If I were easily fooled I’d have been dead years ago. But on the other hand, my lord, consider that you and I are both here, in my lodgings, when by rights I should be twenty miles east of here on the road to Lorigol, leaving you to make your own way in Manfort. Why is that?”
“Do you think I ensorcelled you?” Arlian asked, flabbergasted.
“The thought had crossed my mind—and much later than it should have.”
“I haven’t,” Arlian said. “I know nothing of sorcery.”
“Then we have a mystery.”
“Perhaps I’ve just been lucky,” Arlian said. “Fate is being kind to me at last.”
“Perhaps,” Black conceded. “I tend to think it’s something more than that, though. There’s something in your eyes, and your manner—you have a certain charm about you, and I find myself wondering whether it might be a literal charm, rather than a figurative one.”
“If it is, it’s none of my doing.”
Black nodded, and stared at him thoughtfully.
“You know,” he said at last, “I’ve seen it before, I think. In certain of the nobility. There’s an air about them, as if they were born to command those around them. It’s hard to doubt you, or to deny you.”
Arlian snorted. “If you see that, then it’s sheerest artifice, and a recent acquisition.”
“Oh, I see it,” Black said. “No one could doubt your noble birth. It’s a strength, a power—in lords or warriors they call it the heart of the dragon, and men who have it make great leaders.”
“‘The heart of the dragon’?” Arlian’s gorge rose as the words suddenly brought back the memory of lying on the cellar floor, pinned beneath his grandfather’s corpse, with that blood and venom dripping into his mouth. He could almost taste the ghastly brew …
Was there a connection?
“I’m not of noble birth,” he said, more to distract himself than anything else. “I was born to a family of freeholders. Tradesmen and artisans.”
“Oh?”
“They’re all dead,” Arlian said. “I was sold into slavery.”
“Yet you look every inch a lord.”
“I was taught to look like one, and act like one,” Arlian said. “By women. And they’re dead now, some of them. Or gone.” He thought of Sweet, carried off in Lord Dragon’s coach, and wondered where she was—was she somewhere in Manfort? Was she nearby, perhaps?
Would he ever see her again? He ought to be out searching for her—but he needed to know how. He couldn’t simply roam about the city at random.
“If that’s all it is, then they did a good job,” Black said. “I suspect there’s more to it than that. And why did these women choose to teach you?”
Arlian shrugged. “A whim.”
“You said you were a slave; how did you get free? You must have had help.”
“I saved an overseer’s life,” Arlian said.
“And he freed you, in gratitude?”
“Yes.”
“In my experience gratitude is an emotion more common in children’s tales than in everyday life.”
Arlian frowned and said nothing.
“It seems to me that whatever else may have happened, there is something about you that prompts others to your aid,” Black said. “You say it’s not sorcerous; very well, I believe you. Nevertheless, call it nobility, or the dragon’s heart, or the urging of Fate, I think it’s real.”
Arlian remembered the taste of his grandfather’s blood. “Perhaps it is,” he said. “It’s not of my choosing, but if it aids me in the pursuit of my destiny I’ll not quibble.”
“You think you have a destiny, do you?” Black asked.
Arlian glanced at him, expecting to see sardonic amusement in his face, but found only a thoughtful expression.
“Yes,” Arlian said. “Or at any rate, I have sworn an oath I mean to fulfill, if it takes all my life.”
“And what would that oath be?”
“To destroy the dragons who destroyed my village, and to bring justice to others who have wronged me and those about me,” Arlian replied.
Black stared at him silently for a moment. “Dragons,” he said at last.
“Yes,” Arlian said defiantly. He knew that his oath sounded stupid, a child’s overblown fantasy—no one had ever killed a dragon. Still, he intended to try.
“Your home was destroyed by dragons?”
“Three of them,” Arlian said. “I saw them.”
“You speak our tongue like a native, and you are too young to be from Starn, in the Sandalwood Hills,” Black said, “so you must mean Obsidian, on the Smoking Mountain.”
“Yes,” Arlian said. He swallowed. It was odd to hear that name again after so long.
“Was your family there?”
“My parents, my brother, my grandfather,” Arlian said.
“And you? Where were you?”
“I was there,” Arlian said. “I hid in a cellar. Looters found me, and sold me to the mines in Deep Delving.”
“So you saw the dragons?”
Arlian nodded. “I looked one in the eye,” he said. “Before I hid.”
“Perhaps that’s it, then,” Black said contemplatively. “You
looked Death in the eye and lived; perhaps that’s what it is.” He frowned. “But I’ve faced death at times, and while it changed me, I haven’t the dragon’s heart as you do. Maybe it’s the dragon itself that makes the difference…” He sank into silent thought for a moment. Then he roused himself and said, “And you’re resolved to waste your life hunting dragons? Then why come to Manfort?”
“Many reasons,” Arlian said. “First, where better to go to learn about dragons? This is where men first defied them, isn’t it?”
“True enough,” Black agreed. “The secrets are still kept secret, though.”
“Then I’ll still learn them somehow.”
Black nodded. “And another reason?”
“I need to know more about everything, if I’m to have any chance of success,” Arlian explained.
“And where better than Manfort?”
“Exactly.”
“You seem to be more concerned with learning the sword than with sorcery, though, and surely magic is your best chance against dragons.”
“I’m leaving the dragons until last,” Arlian said. “I’m not a complete fool; I know I probably can’t kill them. I intend to try, but I know I’ll probably be killed myself. So I’m going after the others first.”
“Others?”
“The looters,” Arlian explained. “Lord Dragon and the six he brought with him.” He shuddered at the memory. “They took me from the ruins before I’d had a chance to mourn. They sold me as a slave. They took everything we owned that the dragons hadn’t destroyed—the obsidian, my mother’s jewelry, even the cheeses from our cellars! They’ll pay for that—and payment’s long overdue.”
“By eight years, or thereabouts,” Black agreed. “Now, that’s a goal I can believe in.”
“And Lord Dragon ordered Rose killed,” Arlian said, beginning to lose control of himself. “He had Sweet’s feet cut off. He had the House burned. He cut Madam Ril’s throat. He and Lord Kuruvan and the others…” He gasped for air, and burst out weeping.
He had held it in for so long, but he could do so no more; it was all too much. He had never had a chance to mourn any of them properly—not his mother, or his grandfather, or his father, or his brother, or Hathet, or Rose, or Silk, or the two others dead in the brothel. He didn’t even know which two they were. He didn’t know where Sweet was, whether she was alive or dead, or what had become of all the others. He stood and wept uncontrollably.
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