The Swordsman's Oath

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “Why was I not wakened for this scrying? I would have thought I was the obvious choice for anchoring the nexus and—”

  “Archmage!” The urgency in Shiv’s voice turned every head toward him. He was still leaning over the broad silver bowl, scrying alone now. “It occurred to me to trace down the river on the other side of the watershed, to see if it offered a better route from the coast. Just look what I’ve found!”

  We crowded around to look down into the shining water. The bowl showed three ships riding easily on the calmer waters of the coastal reaches, anchored just off an inlet that I recognized from Temar’s encounter with the stolen Salmon. I looked up to see every face grim.

  “That’s where the Elietimm attacked the colony’s ships,” I told Tonin, who nodded thoughtfully, checking a much folded piece of parchment.

  At this size, each boat looked more like a child’s toy than a real vessel. Still, no child’s toy would have tiny figures moving around the decks and rigging; well, not outside Hadrumal certainly.

  “Could this be a deception?” I asked suddenly, remembering the illusions the Ice Islanders had wielded to such deadly effect before.

  “I don’t see why it should be,” said Planir thoughtfully. “They have no reason to know we’re here, after all.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Otrick elbowed his way to the Archmage’s side. “Haven’t they followed us here?”

  “I don’t think so,” mused Planir. “Could you expand the radius a little, Shiv, show me some of the coast? No, there, that camp looks well established. That’s a base for exploring the interior, I’d say. Back to the ships, if you’d be so kind, thank you. Look, that sail’s been jury-rigged, and you can see a season’s fouling on the bottom of that ship riding high in the water.”

  The Archmage looked up at the circle around the bowl. “I’d say that’s an expedition that’s spent the summer here, charting and surveying. However, I would certainly say it suggests Elietimm interest here is at least as urgent as ours.” He looked over at me. “If Messire D’Olbriot is looking to re-establish a colony here, I think he might have to evict some sitting tenants.”

  “That’s a service I think we could very well look to render the Sieur,” Kalion mused, expression intent.

  “That’s the enemy, is it?” Arest pushed Kalion aside to loom over the bowl, scowling darkly as the fat mage attempted to recover his position before thinking better of it.

  “Thank you for joining us,” Planir greeted the warrior with a trace of irony.

  “So what are you going to do about them?” demanded the big mercenary. “They’ve got four or five times our number, given the size of those ships. If they find us we’re dead and booking passage with Poldrion. You either have to kill or capture them.”

  “How far away are they?” Planir inquired of Shiv thoughtfully.

  “No more than a handful of days’ sail.”

  “Too close,” the Archmage grimaced and shook his head. “I think you’re right, corps-master. We cannot afford to risk having them at our back, or them getting wind of what we’re doing.”

  “You’re simply going to kill them?” Tonin’s expression was aghast.

  “Give me one good reason why not?” challenged Arest. “They’ll kill us without a second glance at the runes if they find us!” The scholar subsided in unhappy confusion.

  “Taking such decisions is part of the price for taking a place at the highest tables,” Kalion did not look in the least distressed at the prospect. “It’s a matter of statecraft, mentor.”

  “I’ll soon knock the bastards out of this game,” Otrick’s eyes sparked blue fire as he spread his hands over the bowl.

  “I don’t want to alert them unnecessarily,” Planir laid a warning hand on Otrick’s arm. “Use wind and wave, work with Shiv and simply drive the ships on to those rocks. That will suffice for the present.”

  “No dragons?” scowled Otrick, glaring up at the taller wizard like a terrier about to take on a mastiff.

  “No dragons,” the Archmage confirmed in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Livak slid in beside me as we all watched, unashamedly avid as the two mages bent their heads over the water, Otrick’s grizzled and tousled, Shiv’s black and neatly braided for a change, in the manner I’d seen on several of the mercenaries.

  The sky above the tiny ships began to darken; clouds swept in from the ocean in swirls of white, then gray, then forbidding black. Piling high on top of one another, lightning began to flash within the dark towers of vapor, an odd thing to see without the sound of thunder following. Where the waters had been placid and blue, green swirls of current now began tugging at the anchor ropes, the ships shifting and bucking, white teeth of breaking foam nipping at them, harrying them. The tiny figures on the decks were moving busily now, reefing sail and wrestling with flailing ropes. We saw them flinch from something, a hard rain of hail punishing them with icy blows, dimpling the waters all around but not quelling the gathering waves now ripping the vessels from their grip on the sea floor, driving them inexorably into the savage embrace of the rocky shoreline.

  I felt Livak shift her footing beside me.

  “Move aside, trollop.” Viltred’s harsh words startled me and as I looked up, three things happened inside the space of half a breath.

  Livak drew a dagger from her belt and lunged at the old mage, only to be sent headlong backward with a stunning flash of red fire from Kalion. Viltred ignored them both to fasten his skinny hands around Otrick’s equally scrawny neck, his rushing charge sending table, bowl and water flying. The Relshazri wizard was not big, but he was big enough, Otrick’s robust personality residing as it did in a small if wiry frame. Viltred had him down in an instant, leaning all his weight into crushing the Cloud-Master’s throat.

  I looked for Livak, to see her wringing her scorched hands, expression dazed.

  “Are you all right?”

  “His eyes, Rysh, his eyes!”

  At her scarcely coherent words, I moved to grab a handful of Viltred’s hair, wrenching his head back to show me sockets filled with featureless black.

  “Elietimm magic!” I yelled, barely getting it out before a shattering pain numbed my hands, next smashing upwards into my head and dropping me to my knees. A flash of amber light snapped audibly through the air and I looked up through tears of agony to see Viltred wrestling in toils of enchantment woven by Planir, the backlash flinging me aside.

  “Tonin, do something!” the Archmage shouted angrily, cursing under his breath as Viltred struggled in his bonds, blue flames crackling down the golden beams to set Planir’s sleeves alight. The Archmage grimaced in pain but his concentration did not waver.

  The mentor spilled his parchments on the dewy grass, tossing them aside until Parrail snatched one from the litter and the pair of them began a faltering incantation. Livak reached for me and I helped her to her feet, scarcely more steady myself. I noticed distantly that Shiv and Naldeth were tending to the fallen Otrick while Kalion was weaving a circle of unearthly, crimson flame around the Archmage and Viltred, still frantically struggling against the confines of the wizardry. A cry that sent birds fleeing their roosts all around ripped through the morning mists and Viltred suddenly collapsed, all the magic vanishing to leave a smell of burning and a riot of startled questions shouted on all sides.

  Planir ran to gather the fallen Viltred in his arms. The killing anger in his face contrasted with his gentle hands as he searched for pulse or breath. Mentor Tonin rummaged frantically in a pocket, but when he found his little vial saw there was no longer a need for his medicaments.

  “Did we do it? Did we restore him before his heart gave out?” the scholar wondered fruitlessly, more to himself than to anyone else.

  Planir just shook his head, eyes steely with an awesome wrath.

  “Ware the invaders!” Temar’s voice sounded inside my head so loudly I could not believe the rest of the encampment hadn’t heard it too. Startled, I sprang to my feet, ab
andoning questions over Viltred’s fate.

  “Ware Elietimm,” I bellowed, a bare breath before black-liveried shapes leaped out of the empty air, swords naked and hungry, pale steel soon running with the blood of startled victims. The mercenaries, caught on the back foot, ran to meet this unexpected challenge but took a moment to realize that the invading Elietimm were sweeping past anyone with a blade to cut down scholars and wizards with indiscriminate butchery.

  I ran to Planir, Livak at my side, mercenaries led by Minare dashing toward us, all of us desperate to protect the wizards gathered in a tense circle around the Archmage. Tonin tried frantically to run to one of his pupils, a young woman, harebell eyes glazed and lifeless as they stared blindly at the brightening sky, the pallor of death shrouding her young face, but two mercenaries tripped him with merciless force and dragged him bodily with them.

  “Get behind me, you imbecile,” Minare cursed the weeping mentor, thrusting him into Parrail’s startled arms. “She’s dead meat and you need to save yourselves!”

  Minare’s lads formed themselves into an angry ring of steel around the mages, blades outward, hacking down the invaders, who were throwing themselves forward again and again, taking blows from behind without heeding them as they spent their lives in a single-minded attempt at killing the wizards.

  I parried a scything stroke to my knees and swept my own blade upwards to take the man’s hand off at the wrist. Our eyes met in that instant and I saw only madness and hatred in that ice-blue, white-rimmed gaze. His life bleeding out from the wound, the Ice Islander still ripped a dagger from his belt and lunged past me, reaching over my shoulder in a suicidal bid to stab at Shiv. As I wrestled with him, feet slipping on the bloody ground, Livak slid a careful hand inside this foul embrace to stab him once in the vitals. The Elietimm stiffened in my arms, head jerked backward as foam bubbled from his bloodless lips. I flung his corpse from me, dead before it hit the ground.

  A great gout of flame reached for the distant sun and I saw Kalion ignite the ground all around him, a knot of panicked scholars clinging to the tails of his jerkin as the fires greedily licked at their boots. The handful of Elietimm who escaped immolation circled the inferno, seeking any flaw only to die at the hands of Lessay and his warriors coming up behind them, eager to channel their own fury and chagrin into killing those who had taken them so badly by surprise.

  In what could only have been a matter of moments, Arest’s harsh voice was echoing around the encampment, the stone now betrayed as such an inadequate defense, as little use to us as it had been to Den Rannion. “Any enemy still alive? No? Make sure!”

  “My lads, get your arses on to the walls!” Outrage thickened Minare’s yell.

  Lessay’s shout came hard on the heels of Arest’s. “Find your pairs, check who’s wounded and count the dead!”

  Voices harsh with the accents of Lescar came from all directions in turn, other mercenaries hurrying to fetch water, bandages and salve as calls came from the wounded. I hugged Livak close once she had sheathed her daggers and we looked around for Halice and Shiv. They were together, Shiv pale as Halice ripped away a bloody sleeve in one brisk movement.

  “I have tunics I’ve put fewer stitches in than you, wizard,” she remarked with rough sympathy as she washed the gore from a ragged slice above his wrist. “Whoever taught you to use a blade left a nasty hole in your defenses; I’m going to have to give you a few lessons!”

  “Leave that! Shiv, here, with me!” Planir caught the dented silver bowl from the ground as he strode toward us, the rim now an irregular ellipse. The Archmage swept a hand over and across it, the last remnants of the morning mist sucked down to coalesce into a feeble puddle in the mud-smeared base.

  “Your hand,” Planir caught Shiv’s fingers, still slippery with blood, the burns on his own wrist raw and angry beneath the scorched linen of his shirt.

  A flash of multi-hued light struck an image from the surface of the water, the inlet where the Elietimm had anchored, the rocky arm reaching out into the surf, the trees of the forest gently tossed by no more than a breeze, no sign of either camp or vessels.

  “Pox on it!” spat the Archmage. “Tonin, get over here!”

  The still trembling mentor peered into the bowl and shook his head slowly in mystification, wringing his hands.

  “Are they still there and somehow hiding themselves, or have they gone elsewhere?” demanded Planir.

  Tonin shook his head again. “I have no way to tell, Archmage.”

  “We’ve three dead and a handful wounded, two badly, out of the fighting force,” Arest declared, striding up. “What of the scholars?”

  Parrail peered unhappily around Tonin’s shoulder, tears carving pale streaks through grime on his face. ‘They killed Keir and Levia, mentor—”

  “How many of your number are wounded?” demanded Arest.

  “Six,” Parrail drew a long, shuddering breath and tried to straighten his shoulders. “And two others dead, Alery and Mera.”

  I winced; by my count, that meant two of every three of the scholars were fallen or injured. I was relying on them and their learning to free me from Temar’s insidious tyranny.

  “What of the wizards?” Arest looked around and cursed. I looked after him to see Kalion kneeling by a motionless figure, one of the two cloak carriers who had attended him so assiduously on board ship, a youngish wizard whose name I had never quite caught. When the fat wizard stood, his face was swollen and purple with a fury that promised dreadful retribution.

  “Get Shannet and that lass of hers off the ship,” Planir ordered, dropping both Shiv’s hand and the scrying bowl. “Arest, deploy your troops to give us a secure perimeter while we work. Kalion, over here, if you please. Kindly work with Shannet to construct both a barrier and concealment over this place; you can draw on everyone save myself, Usara and Shiv.”

  Kalion nodded, eyes burning with determination now he had a task on which to focus. “The only thing that will get past me will be embers blown on the wind!”

  “I’ll provide that,” croaked Otrick hoarsely, rubbing darkly purple bruises on his throat with a shaking hand.

  The Archmage spun on his heel to fix Tonin with a challenging eye.

  “Mentor, who is your most adept pupil still unharmed?”

  “That would have to be Parrail,” Tonin quavered.

  “Then work with all the others, wounded or not, to weave whatever enchantment you think might conceal or protect us from aetheric magic,” the Archmage commanded him crisply. “Get to it at once, if you would be so good.”

  “What do you want with the lad?” asked Tonin, shuffling through his parchments nonetheless.

  “You’re going up river, scholar,” Planir turned from the gaping lad to me. “Ryshad, we need to find that cavern and fast. You and Shiv, take the boat, take ’Sar and as many troops as Arest can spare you. The Elietimm will be here as soon as they can. If they’ve crossed the ocean, they almost certainly have magic to work against the weather, so it could be any time. Otrick, Kalion and I will be able to hold the river mouth for a good while, but the faster you find the colonists, the happier we’ll all be!”

  I could feel Temar’s exultation echoing around the back of my mind. “Of course, Archmage,” I replied with some difficulty.

  “I can scout for you and we’ll ask Minare for some of his lads.” Livak spoke up from where she was holding Shiv’s arm secure for Halice’s needle. “Go on, Rysh, find him while we finish up here.”

  I did as I was instructed and we had the ship manned and rigged for river sailing before the sun was halfway across the morning sky. I stood on deck, looking up at the Den Rannion steading, no heads visible against the greenery although I knew full well archers now waited patiently on every trust-worthy section of the wall walk, ready to send a deadly rain of arrows down from the battlements. Equally unseen, Kalion’s magic was enclosing the whole area in defenses of elemental fire, Shiv assured me, while Planir’s power stalked beneath our fe
et and Otrick’s skills rode high on the winds above. Parrail had tested the aetheric barriers with repeated attempts to contact his colleagues, each failure perversely boosting his confidence.

  “Are you sure you’re doing it right?” Livak demanded a breath before I could come up with a more tactful version of the same question, but Parrail was not affronted by this.

  “Quite sure, my lady,” he replied in the cultured tones of Selerima, one of the great trading cities of western Ensaimin. “I am one of the most well-versed practitioners of these arts, as we so far understand them,” he added with simple pride.

  “Do you know what you have to do to revive these colonists?” I asked, trying not to let my desperation show. At least Parrail was proving older than I had first thought, being a rather baby-faced youth with softly curling brown hair above a snub and freckled nose. His rueful hazel eyes told me he was well used to this kind of reaction, as he nodded, clutching Tonin’s ornately inlaid casket to his chest. “I will continue to study our theories as we travel,” he assured me earnestly.

  The word theory had a worrying lack of certainty about it, but there was nothing I could do about that. The boy had earned the silver ring to prove his scholarship, hadn’t he? I waved to Halice, who nodded to the mercenaries waiting with her on the wharf side. They cast the ropes securing the boat into the water. Raising a hand, I signaled to Shiv who was standing by the captain of the ship at the tiller. Defying both current and tide, masts and spars bare of canvas, rails lined with mercenaries, bows at the ready, the boat moved upstream, slowly at first and then more rapidly, a spur of foam at her prow frothing with green light.

  “Now we should see an end to this, Arimelin willing,” muttered Livak, coming to stand beside me, offering a cup of tisane.

  I took a sip of the steaming liquid, feeling the bracing bite of herbs at the back of my throat. “You’re sure you want to do this? I’d understand if you wanted to steer well clear of any aetheric magic—”

  “And stay with Planir? To risk being skewered by an Elietimm who thinks he’s an Eldritch-man or get myself fried by Kalion getting overenthusiastic?” Livak shook her head. “I’d sooner challenge one of Poldrion’s demons to a draw of the runes for free passage to the Otherworld!”