Impossible Odds

by Dave Duncan

  “Apart from the shadowmen, the Duke has lost his dukedom. He is dispossessed. Powerful enchanters are trying to kill him. You would be bound for life to an exile. Another year in Ironhall and a stint in the Royal Guard is a much better proposition, lad.”

  “With respect, Grand Master,” Ringwood said in shrill and not very respectful tones, “it sounds like the Duke needs me more a lot more than the King ever will. Maybe I’m not as good a fencer as I could be a year from now, but I’m a demon by anyone else’s standards. Sir Bowman told me that yesterday!” He did not have much of a chin yet, but what he had he stuck out stubbornly.

  Unquestionably two half-trained, half-taught boys would be better protection for the Grand Duke than one. Grand Master also had a duty to defend the reputation of the Order itself, because that reputation was the first line of defense. Reputation alone would often prevent a fight from starting. If word got around that some Blade guards were incompetent, others would face more challenges in future.

  “Very well. Candidate Ringwood, His Majesty does have need of a Blade, but if you do not want this posting, you may refuse it.”

  Ringwood grinned wildly. “I will serve!” It was almost a cheer. “Thank you, my lord!”

  “Death and fire!” Tancred said. “You shame us.”

  “He’s incredible,” Grand Master agreed. “They both are. I am very proud of you both. You are living up to the finest traditions of the Order!”

  He offered a hand to Ringwood, who beamed and pumped it. “I will always try to do that, Grand Master.”

  “Just two?” Ranter sneered. “You always told us a guard needs three. Why not give me Goodwin, too?”

  Grand Master resisted a desire to bark. He was in debt to this lout and the least he could offer in return was patience. “Goodwin is too young.”

  “He’s a month older than this one.”

  “I know.” Grand Master paused to wonder how Goodwin would cope as Prime; there must be twenty candidates older than he. And how would Ironhall manage with no competent seniors to give the juniors good practice? Goodwin was a better fencer than Ranter.

  “Your future ward is resting, gentlemen, but the binding will take place tonight and he has been advised of the need for meditation. Ringwood, find Master Armorer and tell him, please. I don’t think he’s even begun making a sword for you. If he needs the Forge, we’ll find you somewhere else to meditate. Ranter, break the news to our new Prime, please. Then I suggest you both go straight to the Forge, so the juniors don’t pester you. I will bring His Grace to meet you later. Ironhall will follow the King’s lead, but you two have my permission to address him however he wants.

  “And finally,” Grand Master said with feeling, “I thank you on behalf of the King, and again I congratulate you on your courage and sense of duty.” He could not bring himself to wish them luck.

  “Come and meet your doom, jackass.” Ranter led the way to the door.

  Ringwood followed, but he paused halfway out and looked back uncertainly. “Grand Master? Er…Candidate Bellman?…”

  “Mind your own business! Bellman is not your concern.”

  “Yes, Grand Master. Sorry…” Ringwood vanished, closing the door.

  The morning bell began tolling. Prime Candidate Goodwin would waken to find himself alone—very much so from now on, poor lad.

  Sir Tancred was regarding Grand Master with a wry, quizzical expression. He did not say, “Chance smiles on you this morning, my lord!” or “How could you do that to those poor kids?” He did say, “Bellman’s still around? The healing failed?”

  Grand Master scorched him with the glare he had perfected when he was Lord Chancellor. It had worked then on everyone except King Ambrose, and it still had power to make a Deputy Commander flinch.

  “We shall deal with the Return right after the morning meal, Sir Tancred.”

  “Certainly, Grand Master.”

  • 2 •

  The bell tolled. Bellman opened his eyes.

  The usual chorus of complaint erupted all around him. Falcon was normally one of the seniors’ dorms, but there were thirty-two candidates in the fuzzy class now, and they had overflowed their own dorms, Pard and Lynx. Beardless were being promoted to fuzzy all the time, but no one could move up to senior until Bellman did. Bellman never would, because promotion, like binding, was based on seniority and fencing skill, and he fenced like a palsied turtle with its shell on backward. He was the oldest candidate in Ironhall, but that mattered not at all.

  He sat up and stretched, steeling himself for another day, another round of ignominious failure. His ordeal must end soon. Grand Master had been incredibly patient, but he could not turn a blind eye forever. The logjam must be broken and Candidate Bellman’s feet set upon the long road over the moor.

  The door flew open and crashed against a wall. Candidate Mark was short of stature but long on volume. “THE GUARD’S BACK!” he shrilled. “THERE’S GOING TO BE ANOTHER BINDING!”

  This announcement was greeted with a barrage of boots, pillows, and youthful vulgarities, but Mark was already gone to spread the word elsewhere. Bodies piled up against the window, and yes, a pair of blue-liveried Blades were walking across the quad. Where there were two, there would be more.

  Fierce debate broke out. Would Grand Master allow even one senior to be bound when he only had three of them? Fuzzies were fanatical at keeping track of every candidate’s fencing skills and they knew Ranter was still mediocre by Blade standards. He couldn’t even beat Sir Lewis, the worst lubber in the Guard. Ringwood was Ironhall’s best, but Ranter must take precedence.

  Nobody mentioned the utterly inept Candidate Bellman, but there would be no new seniors as long as he still ate the King’s bread. Seniors were very grand; they wore swords. Fuzzies salivated at the prospect. They dreamed of it all night long.

  This had to be the end, Bellman decided. He rose and pulled his better hose from the hamper beside his cot. He would shave, wash, and make himself as respectable as possible for the final, painful interview. The agony of waiting had gone on too long. If Grand Master did not kick him off the cliff today, he would do the honorable thing and jump.

  Free! Free at last! Ringwood had trouble not breaking into a run as he went in search of Master Armorer. He found him right away, stoking up a fire in the Forge. The big, echoing crypt was the mystic heart of Ironhall. Eight anvils stood around the walls, each with its own hearth and a water trough fed by the Forge’s own spring. Here the magnificent cat’s-eye swords were made, and this was where Blades were bound, on the ninth anvil, a coffin-shaped block of steel at the center of the octogram inset in the rocky floor.

  Tonight at midnight Ringwood would sit there with his shirt off so his future ward could ram a sword through his heart. The thought gave him shivery feelings in his belly, but they were exciting shivery feelings. He’d seen lots of bindings and nobody ever died. Release! Four years’ imprisonment ending.

  Master Armorer was a cheerful young giant with a bloodcurdling Westerth accent, two apprentices older than himself, and more skill at swordmaking than any other armorer in the entire world. He was clad, as usual, in a pair of boots and knee-length leathers that exposed arms and shoulders speckled with ancient burn spots. His muscles were the envy of every boy in the school, and his swords a state treasure. He frowned on hearing the news.

  “Prime are no hitch,” he declared, running massive fingers through his hair. “Give him an ax will do he. Ain’t given little thought to you yet, pecker. You promise me you warn’t not be going to grow none more?”

  “I hope I do. Grow, I mean. Have you made a sword for me yet?”

  “Narn. Give me a hint.”

  “Rapier? I’m not much good with a broadsword.”

  “You’re not bad with sabers. I seen. You comes with me, pecker.” Master Armorer set off across the Forge.

  At the far side he unlocked a chest and threw up the lid to reveal scores of rapiers and slender thrusting swords. He rummaged, taking
them out one at a time, unwrapping them to inspect them, then replacing them. “See if one of these might do. Call ’em ‘blacks’ on account of this.” He pointed to the pebble forming the pommel of the one he was holding. “Same weight as a cat’s-eye. Try an’ this fellow, pecker.”

  Only Master Armorer ever called anyone “pecker.” After tonight people would call Ringwood Sir Ringwood, although he wouldn’t be a real knight. Never mind, he was more interested in that sword. Thin, straight, and incredibly beautiful! The blade was double-edged near the point, single-edged otherwise. It was not much heavier than a rapier and had finger rings for control. Even now he could manage the extra weight, so he wouldn’t lose very much agility, and having an edge would be good if he ever had to hack pieces off a shadowman. (Gulp!) He tried a few lunges, a cut or two. To have this for his very own! Forever! Or as long as he lived, say a couple of weeks…

  Master Armorer took it from him and offered a rapier.

  “No,” Ringwood said. “I think I need something with an edge after all. My ward has trouble with walking dead.”

  Master Armorer raised his eyebrows at that, but said only, “Try this ’un, then.”

  In a happy daze, Ringwood tried out more than a dozen swords. Time passed unheeded; he wasn’t allowed to eat today anyway. Always he came back to that first one. Finally he raised it and kissed the blade.

  Master Armorer’s eyes twinkled. “Love at first sight, pecker? She’s a hair long f’r ye.”

  “I’m still growing.”

  “What’s her name to be, then?”

  “Bad News!” Seeing the armorer frown at this insult to his precious work, Ringwood explained, “Sir Tancred woke us up this morning and said he was bringing bad news. Ranter thought so, too, but I thought it was wonderful news if it meant I was going to be bound. So this sword is good news to me and very bad news to my ward’s enemies.” He’d thought of that on the way to Grand Master’s study.

  The big man laughed. “I like it! You know what that Ranter wants on his?”

  “Invincible.”

  The chest boomed shut, echoing through the Forge. The armorer scowled. “Then you’ll be telling me a good way of spelling that, pecker?”

  Under the sky of swords in the hall, a white-faced Goodwin sat all alone at the seniors’ table, so the whole school knew what was happening. Ranter good riddance, but Ringwood? He’d been a senior less than a week. The hall buzzed like a jostled hive.

  Bellman went over to wish Goodwin luck and shake his hand. He also asked him to tell Grand Master that Bellman wanted to see him—meaning Goodwin would have company at the table soon. Goodwin wished him luck, also.

  And then the Returning. That ceremony was usually only a formality, for most Blades lived to a mellow antiquity and octogenarians’ deaths meant nothing to healthy, overactive youngsters. It happened every week or two. But when Deputy Commander Tancred spoke Bernard’s name, it was greeted with cries of shock. Everyone had liked Bernard. The sobs were not restricted to the soprano tables, and Tancred’s brief account of the shadowmen was certain to inspire many nightmares in the near future.

  Bellman had been close to Bernard, so he was as moved as any, and felt a burning anger as he strode out of the hall. There had been a lot of very odd ends left untied in that yarn about these so-called shadowmen. It did not make sense.

  A finger poked in his ribs. “Want to talk with you.”

  He turned to view the gap-toothed grin and antler mustache of Sir Hazard, notoriously the worst gossip in the Guard.

  He returned the grin. “Absolutely forbidden to tell you! What about?”

  “But you will exchange hints?”

  “I don’t have anything to trade.” Bellman could think of no scandal he knew that Hazard wouldn’t. But Hazard would certainly be his best source of information about the deaths. “Ask me.”

  They found a quiet corner in the quad and sat on grass browned and crisped by the summer heat. The visiting guardsmen were trying to organize some fencing lessons, but most of the inhabitants were standing around in solemn groups, discussing the bad news. Even masters and knights were gossiping.

  “Now,” Hazard said intently. “A few months ago there was talk of you being our next champ. We’ll need someone to keep those awful garlicky Isilondians at bay when Cedric gets senile. I even laid a little far-out money on you for King’s Cup in 408 or 409. I won’t tell you the odds I got, but I was planning on buying a farm.”

  “I was never that good,” Bellman protested. “I was just older than most when I was admitted.”

  “Then Grand Master must have seen something special in you,” Hazard said triumphantly.

  What he had seen in Bellman had been a very early death, but that was another story and certainly not one to share with Lord High Trumpetmouth. Age had helped, though. Bellman had never been one of the boys and by his beansprout year even the knights had been speaking to him as an adult.

  “Then there came talk that you were slipping,” Hazard went on, “but the last time you and I crossed steel you beat me silly. Two weeks ago—they left me at home to clean the crown jewels, you may recall—they had a big inquest over you, here in Ironhall. Leader, Tancred, Cedric, Grand Master, the whole gang of scoundrels. Now there’s whispers on the wind that you’re going to be puked for stumblebummery, but nobody’s talking! Why? What’s the matter?”

  Bellman laughed. “Is that all?” It was no secret around Ironhall. “My fencing stopped getting better, yes. Then it started getting worse. Much, much worse. And nobody could understand why. That’s the only secret—they’re all ashamed to admit that they missed something so obvious.” Including himself, who did not like to feel he’d been stupid. “Cedric the Invincible? Grand Master, the greatest ever? Master of Rapiers, Master of Sabers. Some of the old knights were great in their time, you know. They were all there. They worked me over the whole day.”

  “And?”

  “And it was Cedric who finally saw it.”

  “Saw what?” Hazard demanded, the ends of his mustache quivering.

  “Why I could still do well against some of the Guard but just about nobody above soprano in Ironhall.”

  “And why was that?”

  Bellman heaved a deep sigh. “I’m not allowed to say. Now, what’s all this about these shadowmen?”

  “The King is an idiot,” Ranter proclaimed, “giving us away like a brace of partridge to a threadbare tinpot parasite! What good will that do for Athelgar or Chivial or the Guard? He has the brains of a fungus. They cover for him all the time, you know. He used too many nails putting his crown on.” He continued to pace restlessly around the Forge.

  If he talked like this about Athelgar now, how was he going to rant about their ward after they were bound? Ringwood was sitting on the floor, leaning against the great anvil, which was chilly against his backbone. The Forge was never cold, because of the hearths, and in Eighthmoon it was snug going on cosy. The thought of cold baths in those water troughs had a lot of appeal. That was part of the ritual. Master of Rituals joked that it was a test of courage for candidates being bound in Firstmoon, but of course the whole purpose of the ritual was to give a man enough loyalty and courage to die for his ward.

  He wished Ranter would shut up and sit down. They were supposed to be meditating. Meditating, for example, about the wonderful prospect of freedom, of seeing something other than stone walls and moorland all day every day, of not having to sleep in the same room every night. Travel. Adventure. Bearing a sword and guarding a ward. Making his life mean something, as Dad had wanted.

  “And what sort of Grand Duke loses his throne and then gets chased all the way across Eurania by evil conjurers?” Ranter continued bitterly. “What does he expect the Pirate’s Son to do about it? March the Yeoman over there and arrest that Volpe swine? The most he could do would be to give him money, and Baels don’t do that. He won’t give the Duke the time of day.”

  “Grand Duke. Yes, he will. Now he will. Not much, but h
e’s going to toss him a purse of gold and ship the whole gang of us out of Chivial so fast our feet won’t touch the ground.”

  Ranter kicked at an anvil, not hard enough to hurt his foot, but enough to scuff his boot. “Doesn’t want any more shadowmen, you mean? I suppose so. I ran into Sir Lewis on my way over here and he says Krapina is two hundred leagues east of Fitain and smaller than Dimpleshire.”

  “That’s Krupina, not Krapina.”

  “Shut up! I’m your leader now, sonny, and I won’t have you standing around correcting me all the time.”

  Ringwood looked up in alarm. “What?”

  “Every guard must have a leader!” Ranter leered. “That’s a Blade rule. The ward chooses, although his Blades can elect another if they disagree. This Duke can pick a man or a boy. Which do you think he’ll want?”

  Ranter as his leader? For the rest of his life? Vomit! Ringwood didn’t want to meditate on that.

  Once again the quad rang with sounds of steel. Fencing lessons were under way. Bellman lay on his back, staring up at fake battlements against cloudless blue. Farewell to good times. This was the last day of the happiest days of his life. Maybe soon his last day, period. How much of a start would they give him?

  “That’s him,” Hazard said. “On his way to see Grand Master, methinks.”

  Bellman sat up. Four men, two of them guardsmen, were crossing the quad, heading for First House. Activity stopped as they went by the fencing pairs, leaving a trail of staring eyes behind them.

  “The fat one?”

  “No. The fat one’s Baron von Fader.”

  “Just as well,” Bellman said. “I’d hate to think of that butterball shimmying down a rope of bedsheets. How did Rubin escape from Evil Uncle Volpe, anyway?”

  “Not yet.” Hazard’s dark eyes gleamed. “First you tell me what was wrong with your fencing that Cedric saw but everybody else had missed?”

  Bellman sighed. “He noticed I cocked my head to one side.”