Oathbreaker: The Knight's Tale

by Colin McComb

  I misread that night for sure. It took longer than usual to start, and that was a bad sign, because it meant the boys were working up for a serious beating. The drunker they got, the harder they hit and the later they stopped. I wanted to pass word to him that he was in for a bad night, and maybe to put the baby somewhere safe, but it wouldn’t’ve been safe for me, and I had to live there… so I just let it go and kept my counsel to myself.

  It took at least an hour. The man finished his food and tended to the child, and when they were both satisfied, the kid dozed off. He closed his eyes by the fire, too, leaning back against the wall, and it looked for all the world like he was sleeping.

  That was pretty much the perfect moment for the boys to start in, and they took their best shot. A hell of a shot it was, too—a shout and hurled mug of beer started the whole mess off. The mug crashed into the wall by the man’s head, too close to the baby for my comfort, and that’s when the boys would have pretended to be fighting amongst themselves.

  Only the man moved way too fast for them to even start their false fight. Much faster than that—faster than any man I’ve ever seen. Before the pieces of the mug hit the floor, before Big Tom was even done recovering from the throw, before the baby could even start crying under the wet of the beer, that man was off his bench with his naked blade in his hand. He skewered Big Tom right in the shoulder, ending Tom’s throwing days for good, and then he slipped that big sword across Tom’s throat, ending Tom’s breathing and swallowing days for good, too.

  Big Tom fell backward. His friends looked at the body.

  The man looked at them. His sword arm hung loose and relaxed at his side, and his sword hummed just under hearing so you could feel the power in the thing. That’s when we all knew him for one of the King’s Chosen.

  The boys looked at each other and then at the stranger. Their night got a whole lot more serious then, and I could see them calculating their odds: a good five to one, and likely the rest of the tavern’d be on the side of the local boys. But then, he was one of the fabled Knights of the Empire, and that meant blood. That meant they’d have to finish him, and do it before he got the law on them.

  The locals watched the boys, then, ready to follow whatever card they played. With the eyes of the town on them, the boys didn’t have much choice. Wordlessly they went for him. Their neighbors came in right after, bent on avenging Big Tom, and they meant to kill the man, never you mind that Tom started it or that they were against one of the King’s Chosen.

  Now, I help out during the Harvest Festival, and I’ve seen people reaping the wheat and barley, and sometimes someone drinks a little too much and starts spinning and cutting down the stalks without a care for how they fall. This man was like that. He ducked and spun and turned and everywhere he went his sword went, too, leaving stumps and blood spraying in its wake and the bodies of the townsfolk toppling. There wasn’t a wasted movement that I could see. He made my customers look slow and stupid, and maybe they were, but he was so much faster than them that they never laid a hand on him, let alone one of their cudgels.

  It was a massacre in there, the place laid to shambles. All I could do was stand behind the counter with my mouth open. I couldn’t even run for help.

  When he was finished with his work, there wasn’t a single person moaning. They were all dead, and the blood was running in freshets from their wounds.

  He sat down again, his bloody blade dripping on my table, and those dead eyes looked at me and nailed me to the spot. I ain’t a coward, but I knew right then that he’d kill me if I gave him the slightest offense, and I went on my belly like a dog. I didn’t care then if I disgusted him, and I don’t care now. Way I figure it, if he felt contempt for me, he’d despise me, but he wouldn’t want to put a sword in me, except maybe out of pity. And I thought that his sword had just tasted battle, and that he wouldn’t want to execute someone after that heat. I guess I was right, too.

  Anyway, he fixed me with his eyes, and in that monotone voice he started talking. Said something like, “This is a bad time, taverner. We’ve all turned into sheep, because we ain’t got the sense to know who’s a good ruler anymore. We just let those arselickers in Terona make our decisions for us, and it’s making us animals, not people, and when we get too smart to keep our heads down, why, we ask for someone to put our eyes out so we don’t see too close. And then those bastards in charge take our eyes like they’re doing us a favor.”

  Now look, I don’t agree with what he was saying. I’m telling you what he said.

  So then he kept going, saying, “We don’t believe in real heroes anymore. We believe in jesters and mummers and monsters who suck away our dreams and give their tiny visions, and instead of trying to dream bigger than that we pretend this is the limit of the world.”

  His voice held me there, and I knew he was speaking treason but I didn’t have the strength to stop him. It seemed like he was speaking too much sense then. Not that I agree with it, though, oh no! He talked longer in that vein while the fire died down on the hearth behind him and the bodies started cooling, and I think he’d have kept talking ’til dawn came if the baby hadn’t started crying then.

  He let those eyes slip off me then to focus on the infant, and I found I could breathe again. He set the baby down on the bench gentle as can be, stood, turned from me, and stoked the fire ’til it burned brightly again.

  “Pack me a bundle, taverner. Include bread, milk, water, and whatever fruits you have in season. Pack the best you have, if you value your life.”

  I hurried off to do that. I don’t think there was any doubt in his mind that I’d follow his order. When I was done, I came back and laid the pack down beside his blade.

  He didn’t take his eyes off the child, but he grabbed my right wrist and pinned it to the table.

  “Taverner.” His eyes met mine.

  “Yes, m’lord?” I tried to keep my voice from quaking.

  “You knew what they were planning.”

  “No, my lord, no! I had no idea!”

  “You lie, taverner. I saw you watching me. I saw you watching them. You thought of warning me, but instead held your tongue. You also overcharged me for the inferior food you brought before you knew who I might be. You thought you’d take advantage of a tired man, a man who needed help.”

  “No, Sir Knight, no, that’s not the case, no,” and I found my tongue running away from me as he settled the baby down into his lap. I tried to tear my hand away, but his grip was like stone. He drew his knife from his belt, said, “You’ll suffer only lightly for your sins,” and took my hand off with a single blow.

  He let go of my spouting wrist and picked up his sword as I howled. It hummed to life again, and I crawled backward away from him, and I knew then what my death looked like. But instead of killing me, he grabbed my stump and laid his blade on it and the blood stopped spraying from the wound, and that hurt worse’n all the rest put together.

  He stood above me, and I could see he was tired, but oh lords, still powerful! I curled up on the floor. He wiped his blade on my shirt and stuck it back into its sheath. He turned and picked up the baby and bundle of food. He bent to the hearth and picked up a piece of burning wood and walked toward the door while I struggled to stand up. He stopped at the door and said, “Get out.”

  I hurried past him, and as I rushed out, he tossed the brand behind him into the tinder by the fireplace. Then he told me that I better not put it out, or I’d find out that losing my hand wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen to me.

  He took himself to the trees right over there. I saw metal glimmering in the firelight from behind me, and it moved out of the woods and I realized it was his metal horse. He swung himself up and rode west without looking back as my inn burned.

  I didn’t dare put it out. The villagers who came to put out the flames stopped when they saw the bodies inside. Even those who might have helped, I stopped—I didn’t want him to come back, because I know you fellows always keep your
vows.

  The village put me out because they thought I’d had something to do with the deaths of their friends, even when I showed them where I used to have a hand. I was lucky to escape town with my life. I’ve been without a home ever since, begging because I have no hand and know no other work. He stole everything from me. The way I figure it, the knighthood owes me at least a way to get out of the fix I’m in.

  And I been helpful to you, ain’t I?

  Recommendation: Execute this man for treason.

  Recorded,

  Winthorn

  RECOMMENDATION SIGNED

  The Sailor’s Tale

  The errant knight met me on the streets of Westport. He offered money—and steel to back it up—for us to carry him to his destination, but we turned him down. We thought that’d be the end of it.

  The dockhands shouted curses at each other as they heaved the Ocarina to. We waited on board ’til they had finished, and when the massive breakwater gates slammed shut at the mouth of the harbor, we started off-loading our cargo. As usual, we were exchanging friendly insults and stories with the lubbers about the far-flung coasts we’d seen, but aside from the storms, the trip wasn’t anything special, not like the time we’d seen a wizard’s castoff eyeing the ship hungrily and we had to waste ten shots from the heavy guns at it. The ports we’d visited had been dull, deadly dull. So we invented some tall tales to make ’em feel like they were missing out on more than salt spray. But our hearts wasn’t in it, and they could tell, too. They didn’t rise to any of our half-hearted jokes, and that put a damper on everyone’s night.

  When it was done, we wanted to get to the Hulden guildhouse, get our pay, and go drinking—that might put some life back into us, but likely it’d take another sea voyage to wash this taste from our hearts. Besides, it was a dark night, and the sky was low with spring clouds, and none of us wanted to spend any more time in what would likely be a hell of a gusher when the clouds finally let loose. Still, we gathered the local gossip and discovered that we’d have the guildhouse to ourselves, a rare occurrence indeed—the other ships the Huldens or the Dengs controlled weren’t due in for a few days or had left earlier in the afternoon, laden with parts from the forges, steamshops, and alchemical presses. There was a single dirigible docked at the mast in the square, and that meant no friendly rivalries with those crews. We could have passed our time by visiting the guildhouses of other merchants, but that usually led to brawls, and we'd have enough of those in the days ahead, we figured. That was a last-ditch effort for fun.

  Loading done, we collected our pay chits from Galves, the first mate, gathered our gear, and tramped up the hills of Westport to our bunks at the Hulden Sailors Guild. If you’ve never been, it’s a low-slung, rough stone building, with hewn beams and arches holding its weight. With some crowding, it can hold about three ships’ worth of sailors—about three hundred. The ranking officers and mates stay on board their ship. The guild’s outer walls are dark and its windows are small and high—after weeks or months on the high seas, most of us’ve had enough of the damned sun.

  Well, except for sailors like me. My name’s Camila Voris. I’m a tiller’s engineer, so I spend most of my time below decks, slaving away on the great gears that keep the boat moving in the direction Captain “Early” Jon Meyels wants it to go. Working sixteen-hour shifts don’t give me much latitude to get up on deck, and when I do, I haven’t usually got time to watch the scenery, but what I do see, I hold as close to my heart as my lungs. I take the best chance I can to make up for that lost freedom when we hit land and we’re laid over for two weeks. So naturally, the weather set me off—I’d been hoping for sun and shine, and instead I got this coming rain. My berthmates, Pol Austin and Skag Madison, recognized it in me and kept mum, or more likely were as glum at the thought of rain. Even if we’re not aching for the sight of sun on land, none of us fancies being trapped inside during our leaves.

  So that might explain why we were less than courtly polite when we found our way blocked by that young man.

  Let me tell you about the Ocarina. She’s a fast vessel—not one of the fastest, but fast. She’s tough, too—again, not the toughest, but tough. She’s outrun the pirates of Elsidon and gunned down their fastest scout when it wouldn’t give up the pursuit. She’s a cutter with a steam engine that provides us enough power to haul heavy cargoes or other vessels and still make it to our destination on time, or else to put on a burst of speed when we’re running high. She’s got three heavy guns and two light guns each to port and starboard, and the iron-clad hull boasts a tempered-steel prow in case someone gets a little too friendly with us. She’s got three masts on the deck and three levels below-decks, and one of those masts can double as a mooring for a light dirigible if we've got our heavy anchors down. The steerhouse sits on the top of two levels at the stern of the ship, with mage-hardened windows all ’round. She’s got a speaking-tube system that lets the captain communicate across the ship, and he runs the ship hard and well. He runs the ship for House Hulden, and they lease her services to other merchant Houses of the Empire, at least in name. In practice, Early Jon picks and chooses the contracts he wants, and he’s good enough and generous enough that he’s kept his sailing crew working with him for years. He's canny in the ways of the sea, he rises before us and is abed after. The Ocarina is the best ship most of us’ve ever sailed on, and it’s because of that that we’re in the position we’re in today.

  “Out of the way,” Pol snarled, and she reached out to shove the interloper aside. I say she reached because he wasn’t there when her hand got to where he’d been.

  “Don’t do that,” the stranger said. His voice was flat, his face empty, and it nailed Pol to the spot. If he’d flashed or growled, she might have tried again. She backed down, though, the first time I’d ever seen her do that. And now, thinking back on it, I think she might be a better fighter than I ever thought, because I guess she never got into a fight she wasn’t sure she could win, and she never’d backed down before. At least not in front of me. But this time, she put her hands down and spoke.

  “What do you want?”

  “I need to speak to your captain,” the stranger said. “I need a ship, a fast one, for myself, my charge, and my steed.”

  “Guild’s empty,” I said. “We’re just in, and we ain’t leaving.”

  “You will. I can pay.”

  Skag broke in: “We won’t. We been out to sea for a month now, and we’re due leave. You won’t find a crew willing to take you for at least a few days, unless you have truly excellent money.” Skag looked the man up and down. “A lot more than it looks like you’re carrying.” Skag had been third mate before he’d been busted back down, and he knew how a ship ran. “Anyway, the captain won’t see anyone ’til he’s seen to the replenishing of the ship.”

  “I do not ask,” the man said. “I require.” His hand drifted to his sword handle, idly, slowly, and it was suddenly perfectly clear to me that it wasn’t idle at all, that this man didn’t make threats, not like sailors do.

  “But you can’t require,” continued Skag. “Our ship is light-staffed as it is, and our sailors have spread through the city. No way we can run a ship without our men, and no way we’ll be able to find them all in this city in the next few days. They’re at the whorehouses or the gambling dens, or they’ve headed out into the country. Like I said, we’re due leave, and our sailors take it when they get it. They’ll hear if we put the word out that there’s more money to be made, but I don’t make any guarantees.”

  The stranger looked at us, one after the other, studying us. Though he didn’t like it, he saw the truth in our faces like sun off the water. He nodded, tilted his head a tiny piece, and said, “My apologies for the waste of your time. I shall return tomorrow evening to speak with your captain, and with enough money to hire your services.” He turned and headed up toward Candlemaker’s Square. That’s when the clouds broke, and that’s when we bolted in.

  We spent that night insid
e, playing cards and drinking ale, cursing the weather. It poured through the night, filling the hilly streets of Westport with the water the clouds’d reclaimed from the sea. When we stepped out the next morning, I was surprised there weren’t fish flopping in the gutters and dying on the stones. The alchemical smears from the presses had been washed away, down to harbor, leaving the streets momentarily bright and clean. The day was dry, though the sky promised to unload some more water on us later. It was under that sky that our first full day of leave began.

  What does a sailor do on leave? What do we do when we’re off that boat after a month or more cooped up together?

  That’s an answer I’ll leave to your imagination, but I can guarantee that most of us spent the day in the seedier parts of town, the kinds of places with proprietors who give their cut to the Bhumar thugs who stand quietly in the corners. And despite having seen the same faces in close quarters for all that time, I can guarantee that most of us spend our leave in the company of our shipmates—from what I hear, it’s like how small-town folks never move away for fear of the strange, how they stay and marry the same people they’ve seen all their lives and never cut the apron strings that hold ’em close to home. In our case, though, it’s different. Every day we’re someplace else, every day we’re cast on the waves.

  But even sailors need someplace to call home. Our shipmates are our anchors, the islands in the sea of time. So we find our homes in them.

  We spent the day doing those things that make vice lords richer and us poorer, and who’s to say who came out of it better? Of course, we split off from each other at one point or another and took care of our own business. Me, I went looking for the scenery and for new people to talk to. Over by the steamworks, I found a pilot who called himself Dracogen, who flew in the Deng fleet, but he'd got himself drunk and they lifted off without him, so here he was, stranded and without a paycheck, and would I be so kind as to lend him a coin or two. Seeing as he'd worn out his welcome with the pressers, I took him with me back to our part of town and introduced him around. Some of our crew'd been drifters once, and they put him to the test. Maybe he was what he said or maybe he was playing a beautiful con, but either way, he’d keep us entertained enough that he'd be guaranteed to drink and whore for free for days. He was pretty enough that he wouldn't have trouble on that end, that's for sure.