Short Swords: Tales from the Divine Empire (The First Sword Chronicles Book 3)

by Frances Smith

  “His Highness did not wish to come and I was not about to force him,” Michael said. “There is no sense in all of us risking ourselves.”

  Amy snorted. “So that’s it. You think they’ll kill us, don’t you?”

  “Would it be so strange if they did?” Michael asked.

  “Do you want them to?”

  “No,” Michael said. “No, Amy, you must believe me.”

  “I must?” Amy replied. “You courted death not so very long ago.”

  “But in time past, nonetheless,” Michael replied. “I was a different man then.”

  Amy stared at him.

  “I swear it, upon my soul and on my faith and on my honour, which would not permit me to tell a lie to you, our Amy,” Michael said. “I do not seek the death which I fear for us.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “You would have me stay away because of what I fear?” Michael asked. “I am no coward, Amy.”

  “I know,” Amy said. “But if Princess Romana knew that you were risking your life like this I doubt she’d be happy.”

  “That is why I instructed Wyrrin not to accompany us.”

  “You think Wyrrin could be First Sword of the Empire?”

  “I think that he might find the next First Sword, if I do not return,” Michael said.

  Amy pursed her lips together. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Michael said nothing. It would have felt too much like cowardice to have confessed the same.

  Amy looked up at the night sky once again. “She was really something wasn’t she? Fiannuala?”

  Michael nodded. “We will not see her like again. And now we must tell those who loved her best in all the world that she will never return. A hard thing.”

  “Not so hard as being dead,” Amy said bleakly. She closed her eyes. “We’d best get some sleep. We have an unpleasant duty on the morrow.”

  Michael nodded. “I will call back Filia Metella. Goodnight, our Amy. Sleep well.”

  “I doubt I shall, knowing what’s to follow,” Amy replied. “But…thank you, anyway. Goodnight.”

  Michael bowed his head, and said his prayers before bed-time, as he had every night since he was a mere child whose mother would tell him storied in the night.

  Almighty Turo, King of the Seas and Master of the Waters, keep our Amy safe.

  Divine Empress, Aegea, Mother of the Empire and my undying mistress, direct the wrath of the dryads onto me that I may be the rod to catch all the anger that they feel.

  All powers of heaven that watch over mortal folk let no harm befall her, for I shall bear it all.

  Michael sat on one of the highest branches of an enormous tree, the tallest tree in the whole forest of Eena. The dryad kingdom lay spread out beneath him, all the other trees so green and lush, so beautiful and so life-giving. And beyond…so high was he that beyond the bounds of Eena he could see over half the Empire itself.

  He could see his own beloved Corona, and the south sea sparkling beyond it. He could see Davidheyr upon the Iskalon, the heart of Corona which he and Amy, along with Gideon and Jason and Filia Tullia so greatly lamented, had defended from the malice of the Crimson Rose. He could see Deucalia province to the south and Turma and Antigenea to the north. He could see the ruins of Aureliana, the dead city where Fiannuala and Tullia had lost their lives, nestling amongst the trees, a mausoleum protected and preserved from the ravages of time by the Aurelian magic.

  The world was spread out beneath him, forest and field and city belching smoke. The Empire. Aegea’s realm. The land into whose service he had pledged himself when he had sworn to follow his father as First Sword.

  It was his nation, near as much as it was Princess Romana’s. It was hers to rule, and his to protect. Every farmer’s field churned by the plough, ever tree that brought forth bounty ripe for the plucking, every river down which the barges sailed, every town where good and pious citizens dwelled in piece, all where his to defend from peril. Every man and every woman, every child, every home with all its household gods, all where his to protect from harm. He was the Empire’s sword, and the Empire was his.

  Gideon had once, half-despairingly, declared that Michael would never come to love the Empire the way that he, Gideon, did. Perhaps he was right. Michael’s heart did not thrill to the ideals of Empire as Gideon’s had, his soul did not soar at the thought of a universal nation with dominion over the world as had the spirit of his father. But the reality of the Empire…this realm that had brought such centuries of peace upon the world as had never before been seen in the history of men, this vast expanse that had brought forth such prosperity, this place of safety for such throngs of good, honest, decent people untroubled by the threat of the barbarians from the north or the Qartassi from beyond the sea that…that was a thing as worthy as any grand ambitions and that, for Michael, was enough. He could love the Empire for that, for the security that it provided and the opportunities for prosperity that it afforded.

  Besides, he thought with a hint of a smile, the boy in him would always thrill to the sight of a flag waving in the breeze, fluttering over the head of a column of troops. And the Empire’s standard and the Empire’s soldiery would do as well in that regard as any other.

  He idly kicked his legs as they dangled above the drop from the branch on which he sat.

  “You look like a child doing that,” Fiannuala declared. “You should stand up.”

  Michael looked up. Princess Fiannuala stood above him, precariously perched on the very highest branch of the tree, ostentatiously not using her arms to hold on to something and secure her on her lofty parapet. Instead, she had her arms folded across her chest as she looked down upon him.

  Her skin seemed a brighter green than it had in life, more vivid, more…more alive in some bizarre way. Her golden hair shone in the afternoon sunshine, and her every bit as golden eyes gleamed.

  “Come on,” she urged. “Stand up.”

  “I am afraid to fall,” Michael admitted.

  Fiannuala smiled at him. “You won’t fall. Not here.”

  It would have done her an insult not to have taken her word for it, and so Michael pulled his feet up onto the branch and, doing all that he could to disguise the gingerliness of his actions, clambered unsteadily onto his feet.

  “There you go,” Fiannuala said. “That looks a little better.”

  Michael did not respond to that. Rather he said, “How do you fare, princess?”

  “I’d be lying if I said that paradise didn’t get a little dull from time to time,” Fiannuala said. “But it’s better than the alternative. And Mother is with me.”

  Michael frowned. “Even so, I-“

  “Don’t,” Fiannuala said quickly. “Don’t. Not here, not in Eena before Cati and Gwawr and father. It isn’t necessary.”

  “You died for me.”

  “I saved your life,” Fiannuala corrected him. “That isn’t the same thing.”

  “Is it not?”

  “The one implies responsibility, the other doesn’t,” Fiannuala replied. “Thank you, for doing this. They deserve to know.”

  “What else could I have done, other than keep you safe?” Michael asked.

  “I told you to stop that,” Fiannuala growled. “And don’t let my sisters give you any grief, either. I made my own choices. I fought the fight and I lost. A great warrior should accept responsibility for her own fate, unless she was never as great a warrior as she thought she was.”

  “You were magnificent,” Michael said.

  Fiannuala chuckled. “You’re not so bad yourself.” She looked away. “Thank you, for doing this yourself. You didn’t have to.”

  “No, highness, I did,” Michael said.

  “Because honour demands it?”

  “Because it is the least I could do.”

  Fiannuala looked at him again. “Remember what I said, Michael: I fought my own battles, and the outcome is on my shoulders, and no others. Remember that, and make sure my sis
ters remember it too.”

  The next morning, as rosy-fingered dawn drove the shadows of the trees into the depths of the woods with its light, Michael and Amy prepared to enter into the forest of Eena and deliver the news that would break the hearts of an entire people.

  Michael armoured himself in the leaf-pattern manicae that Fiannuala and her sisters had given to him, the last time he was in the forest. It was old armour, fire drake made from the days before the elder races had declined and men had risen up to claim their places. It was lacquered green, like fresh leaves in summer, with a pattern of leaves running up and down it so that it seemed as though nature itself protected him. It was part of a complete set of armour: cuirass, helmet, pteruges, greaves and all, but although Michael had been offered each and every part of it he had refused all save the manicae, for he had not been trained to fight weighted down with armour, and his arms were the only part of him accustomed to protection. As was his habit, he wore a black tunic, though the mourning for his brother – whose fate had been neither so cruel nor indeed so fatal as Michael had believed – had been replaced with mourning for his late adopted father, Gideon. Over his shoulders he wore the red cloak that his mother had woven for him so very long ago, threadbare though it was now becoming in places, and upon his hip he wore a single sword, the green leaf-shaped blade that Fiannuala had given him, which he had decided to call Honour. He ran his fingers over the ridged hilt, and brushed his thumb against the weighted pommel as he hesitated upon the forest edge.

  “You know,” Amy said as she came to stand beside him, both standing on the threshold as though they were waiting for an invitation. “The First Sword of the Empire probably ought to dress better than you do.”

  “Her Majesty did not make me First Sword in order to adorn myself like a white peacock and strut about the nation displaying my plumage,” Michael said.

  “Maybe not, but if I do say so myself I think I’m proof that you look like a mandarin dragonet and still bite like an orca,” Amy said, gesturing to her bejewelled and gorgeously adorned armour, the bone-yellow covered in a riot of shades of blue and the glittering of many sapphires, armour that was not only wondrous to look upon, but was testament to craftsmanship lost in the darkening of the world, to the glories of a race of god-crabs vanished, and all without taking into account the fact that if damaged the armour would grow back in time to be as good as new. “You’re the Empress’ right hand, and that of Princess Romana too, you shouldn’t really look as scruffy as you do.”

  “I do not look scruffy,” Michael replied. “I look poor.”

  “It’s much the same thing, in the upper classes,” Amy said. “I find, anyway.”

  “This is hardly the time, our Amy,” Michael said quietly.

  “No,” Amy said. “But maybe if I take your mind off it enough you might actually go into the trees.”

  Michael snorted, which then turned into a brief chuckle. “Thank you.” He looked back to where Metella waited, wearing an expression somewhere between concern and acceptance. “We shall return before nightfall, Filia Lieutenant.”

  Metella nodded. “I will wait for you here. Go with good fortune.”

  Amy tightened her grip upon her helmet, tucked underneath her arm. “Shall we go?”

  Michael hesitated for a moment longer, looking up at the great trees, which he knew concealed even greater and more ancient trees beyond. Trees planted over the graves of Eena’s kings and queens that their bodies might nurture in death the forest they had ruled in life.

  I promised Fiannuala that one day such a tree would be planted over her grave. But there will be no tree in the heart of the forest for Fiannuala, and if any sprouts over her burial it will be in Aureliana, which cannot be found by any save for I.

  Forgive me, princess.

  “Let us go,” he said.

  Together, they walked into the forest of Eena.

  Though it sat surrounded by the Empire on every side, Eena was the possession of the dryads who had fled there after the battle that men called the Field of Shattered Chains but was known amongst the elder races as the Field of Shattered Hopes. For centuries they had resisted all efforts by Deucalia, Turma and Antigenea to rest their woods away from them, living for a time under the protection of the Aurelians who dwelt nearby. When the Empire had come, and conquered all the realms that ringed Eena about and cast down the Aurelian power, the dryads had been prepared to fight to resist them, too. But the Empire had seen little glory in the conquest of a forest, and so a treaty had been made with the dryads of Eena: the Empire would not trespass upon the woods, and the dryads would not leave it, and as far as possible each would pretend that the other did not exist. When first Michael and his companions had entered into Eena it was only Gideon who had been aware that anyone lived in Eena at all.

  It had been Princess Fiannuala, middle daughter of King Gerallt, who had broken the laws of her people and brought men into the forest realm. Michael and his companions had been assailed by the Crimson Rose, and Michael had hovered at the edge of death thanks to a poison given to him by the rebels. Fiannuala had shown herself not only brave but kind, and had brought him under the eaves and tended to his wounds and saved his life. Michael had repaid that debt by helping her to avenge her mother, Queen Cerys, upon her murderer, but Fiannuala had then displayed her valour by deciding to accompany the party on their journey to defeat Quirian, and save the Empire and Miranda from his lust for vengeance.

  And on that journey she had perished, fighting against Quirian himself in the ruins of Aureliana. Michael could still see her: looking so wild and fierce as she danced with a spear in one hand and other arm burning with sorcery. He could still hear her cry of pain as Quirian’s fire consumed her. He could still feel her breath upon his skin as she had given up the last of her life to save his own.

  She had been a princess noble and valiant, and yet she had died that he might live, who had been nothing then but a freedman of Corona. And she, who had owed him nothing, yet fought beside him still; when he summoned the First Sword’s right of spirit magic to defend the Empire there she was, standing beside him, her smile bright and her hair wild, urging him on, lending him her strength in battle.

  Truly he was blessed beyond his deserts.

  And now the time had come for him to answer for that.

  Michael and Amy stuck together as they picked a slightly winding path between the mighty oaks, the tree canopy casting mottled shadows over them as the leaves intermittently blocked out the sunlight. They stepped over jutting roots, and heard the insects and the rodents of the forest scurrying about around them.

  “Hello, there,” Michael called out, knowing – or believing at the least – that there would be dryads close to the edge of the forest, keeping watch against intruders. “My name is Michael Sebastian Callistus. I beg leave to speak with the king, and with the princesses Cati and Gwawr, upon a matter of great import.”

  It was but a few moments of waiting patiently before a male dryad stepped out of the shadow of a great tree, with a spear clutched warily in both hands, while a female dryad with a bow in hand dropped down from out of the high braches, using wood magic to extend a supple vine down as a rope for climbing, to stand beside him. Their skin was green, marking them as young dryads on whom age had not yet begun to exact a toll, and they both regarded the two intruders warily, but with some hint of recognition in the eyes of both of them.

  “You are two of the companions of Princess Fiannuala, are you not?” the female asked.

  “We had the honour,” Amy murmured.

  “And yet the princess is not with you,” the male muttered.

  “No,” Michael replied, his voice as soft as spring rain. “She is not. We must speak with the king, and with Princess Fiannuala’s sisters.”

  “On what business?”

  “On business that must be told to them before any other,” Amy said, with a sharpness matching the edge of her sword.

  The two dryads glanced at one another
.

  “Humans are not permitted within the bounds of Eena,” said the male.

  “Yet they were the friends and companions of Princess Fiannauala,” the female replied.

  “Who is not here,” the male snapped. He glared at them. “Where is she?”

  “You will learn that when we have spoken to the king and the princesses,” Michael said.

  “Tell me now.”

  “I will not,” Michael said. “It would not be proper.”

  “Men are not permitted here.”

  “I am the Empire’s First Sword, anointed of the Divine Empress by whose grace you hold this land,” Michael declared. “If I am turned away the Empire will not look kindly on it, I assure you.”

  He hoped that Fiannuala would forgive his blustering – and it was all bluster, for certain sure he would never have done anything to harm Fiannuala’s people – but he could not bring the news of Fiannuala’s death to strangers before her he had informed her own kin. If a little empty posturing was required in that purpose, then he would do it.

  “Very well,” the female said. “We will bring you before the King. You have named yourself already, and the other must be the naiad knight Amy, yes?”

  “I am,” Amy said.

  The female dryad nodded. “And I am Gwenhwyvach, I will bring you before the king. Owain, run on ahead and see that the princesses are both informed of this.”

  “This is not wise,” Owain said.

  “This is my decision,” Gwenhwyvach replied.

  Owain nodded, tersely, and spoke in a tone that left no doubt of his continuing unhappiness. Then he turned, his long brown hair flying behind him, and began to sprint deeper into the recesses of the forest.

  “Follow me,” Gwenhwyvach said. “I cannot bid you welcome here, but I can promise you the audience you seek.” She was silent for a moment. “I do not expect you to tell me, but I fear the forest’s fiercest flower has perished, or why else would she not come? Follow on, and quickly now.”

  The forest of Eena was a curious place; Michael believed it to be infused with some last vestige of slumbering Dala’s magic, in the same way as Dala’s Woods in the spirit realm, where Fiannuala’s deathless soul now rested. Intruders such as Amy and himself, who did not belong here and had not been welcomed, could never have found the path down which Gwenhwyvach led them, though it seemed clear as day and so easily found a babe in arms could have walked it once she showed it to them. Without her help they could have wandered for days, tripping over roots, being overshadowed by great trees, ending up back at the forest edge if they found any way out at all. And yet in moments Gwenhwyvach was able to show them a straight path, open and uncluttered, with sunlit grass upon it and a break in the trees that allowed Michael and Amy to both look up and see the sky above them. At times the path would look as though it was overgrown or blocked off by fallen trees or some such obstacle, but once they came to the place they found it was as clear as if it had been cleared especially for them.