The Swordsman's Oath

by Juliet E. McKenna

  Parrail scrambled to his feet hastily. “It’s what we compiled from the dreams, the most common images that were seen. You see, that one there, the chatelaine, all the evidence suggests it belongs to a mature woman with rather noticeable pock marks and—”

  Shiv thrust the list at the scholar. “You read it out. Tavie and Buril, come with me and see if you can find anyone matching his descriptions.”

  The mercenaries shared an uncertain look before joining Shiv and then Usara in slowly quartering the cave as Parrail read out brief and often unflattering descriptions of the people they sought.

  “Oh dear.” Guinalle stifled a hesitant smile. “Mistress Cullam always preferred to be called robust or sturdy rather than fat.”

  “Are you up to doing this?” Livak was looking at Guinalle with open skepticism.

  The slender woman lifted her chin and a spark of determination lit her eye. “I am, but first we should revive as many Adepts in artifice as we may. They will be able to support me in restoring the others.”

  “Can you identify them for us?” I took a step toward the others.

  “In a moment.” Guinalle turned to Temar’s motionless form. “I cannot leave him in the darkness any longer.”

  She knelt to lay her hands on Temar’s own, where they clasped the hilts of the sword. I gripped Livak’s fingers so hard that she flinched. Again I felt that shadowy touch, like a breath of cold air, but it passed and I felt a curious sense of release as Temar drew a first, long shuddering breath. As he opened his eyes Guinalle drew him close to her and, by unspoken agreement, Livak and I turned to leave the pair of them alone.

  “How are you getting on?”

  Shiv looked up from a child’s tiny form at my question, an enameled silver flower on a bracelet in his hand. “Pretty well, but we’ve artifacts for fewer than a third all told, even with those still back in Hadrumal.” He shook his head. “We’d better be careful whom we chose to revive. I hope Guinalle can identify people for us; I don’t fancy finding I’ve woken a child whose mother is still no better than dead.”

  I looked back over my shoulder to Guinalle and Temar, still clinging to whatever reassurance they could give each other.

  “She says we should try and revive any Adept in Artifice,” I commented.

  “Can you,” Shiv hesitated. “I mean, do you think—”

  “I can still remember the dreams, if that’s what you’re trying to ask,” I managed a weak grin, but in fact when I looked through my memories the dread that had colored the images for so long was absent. I could still remember, but now it was like recalling a story, a tale I’d heard, something that had happened to someone else, if it had ever happened at all. I walked a little way and pointed to a long-boned woman with a smear of old blood dark against the white of her frozen hands. “This is Avila; I’m pretty sure she chose a brooch, set with rubies and little pinkish diamonds.”

  “It’s a cloak pin and has an inscription on the underside,” said Guinalle, coming toward us, hugging herself and shivering slightly. “It was from her betrothed, an Esquire For Sylarre.”

  “You remember that kind of detail?” Parrail wrapped his cloak around Guinalle’s shoulders and she thanked him absently. “Of course,” she replied with a faint smile. “It was only yesterday, after all.”

  I felt a presence at my shoulder and turned to see Temar waiting. Livak stirred under my arm and I held her close to silence her.

  “I must apologize for my conduct,” the young man began stiffly; I sympathized with his struggle between pride and embarrassment, but I shook my head.

  “No, you weren’t to know,” I said firmly. “I bear you no ill will.” I was relieved to find I meant it, too, if a little surprised at myself. Having had the smallest taste of imprisonment within my own head, I found I simply could not blame the boy.

  “I should make some recompense,” Temar’s jaw jutted obstinately. “You should keep the sword, it is the only thing of value I possess.” His eyes looked lost, clinging to this hollow notion of honor.

  I shook my head in absolute refusal. “No, I’m sorry but I cannot accept it.” A tremor in my voice showed me I was not yet so secure as I thought.

  “I insist—” Temar tried to lay the scabbard in my hands, so I put them behind my back.

  “It was never mine,” I told him firmly this time. “I don’t want it!”

  Something in my voice must have convinced him; he colored and belted the weapon on without another word. I watched him look around for Guinalle and hurry toward her, now on the far side of the cavern, Parrail attentive at her side.

  “Your Messire gave you that sword,” commented Livak, her hard eyes still following Temar.

  “He did and look where it got me,” I said grimly. A gasping cry echoed round the vast expanse of the cavern and we saw Guinalle embracing Avila, the older woman rubbing at her eyes with one trembling hand, the other clasping her brooch as if it were the only constant thing in her world.

  Shiv joined them, concern plain in his stance, while Parrail hovered, uncertain and unsure in the face of some abrupt challenge from Temar. Avila struggled to her feet, still shaking, and, thrusting aside Shiv’s offer of support, made her way to a woman lying next to three children swaddled together under a rough blanket. Her words were lost at this distance but I watched with growing dismay as Shiv shook his head, pointing first to one of the children, then to another, something bright glinting between his fingers. Parrail stepped forward and rummaged in his coffer, finally shook his head in a helpless gesture over the tiny middle figure and the woman.

  Blood drummed in my ears as I remembered the belt buckle that Kramisak had used to weave his snares around Kaeska. I’d had no notion of its significance—how could I have?— but now guilt seared me. If only I had retrieved it. When would this little family be reunited once more in the sunlight, not left still and cold in their rocky tomb? Avila’s sudden sobs shattered the silence until she stifled them in her hands as Guinalle desperately sought to comfort her, tears now streaming down her own cheeks.

  “I want no more of this!” I turned blindly to escape the gloom of the cavern.

  “Let’s get out of here,” agreed Livak abruptly. “We should let them know on the ship what’s going on, and get some food organized for when they start waking these people up.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I confessed.

  “Halice did,” grinned Livak, the fear and strain finally leaving her eyes soft as new leaves in the sun. I followed her readily back up toward the fresh daylight and out into the warmth of the living sun. I had done my duty by my patron, the wizards and the lost colonists of Kel Ar’Ayen, I decided. Someone else could answer the questions, make the decisions and deal with the problems, for a while at least. Livak and I got the mercenaries who had remained on board ship busy gathering firewood, flushing game from the surrounding woods and preparing to feed whoever emerged from the cavern. We left them to it and found our own secluded glade, where I proved to Livak that she now had my undivided attention any time she wanted it.

  I woke the next morning feeling more fully rested than I could remember in seasons. Leaving Livak curled in the nest of blanket we had shared, I went down to the riverside to wash the sleep from my face and found Shiv frowning over a cup of water.

  “Caught a worm or something?” I asked with a grin.

  “Morning, Rysh.” Shiv looked up. “How are you feeling, in yourself?”

  He winced as he heard his own words and I laughed. “Pretty much my old self. It’s nice not having a lodger inside my skull. So, what are you doing?”

  “Trying to scry the settlement.” Shiv shook his head. “Only Kalion’s put up such a strong barrier that I can’t hold the focus together. Oh well, I’m sure they’d summon us fast enough if there was trouble.”

  I nodded. “How many have you revived all together?”

  “Close on five hundred, as you would know if you hadn’t managed to lose yourself so thoroughly last night,
” replied Shiv with a strained smile. “It was no Festival Fair, I can tell you, trying to explain what had happened to them all, in terms that would make even the slightest sense.”

  I looked at the ship, straining at its moorings in the current. “You’re going to have to make several trips and you’ll still be packing them in like salted herring,” I commented.

  “Most will be staying here—they’re too confused to do anything else at present.” Shiv emptied his cup into the river. “Some of the mercenaries too, to defend the cavern if need be, while we take some of the Artificers down river to meet Planir and help decide what to do next.”

  “Shivvalan!” We both looked around to see Guinalle hurrying toward us.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “What were you doing, just then?” Guinalle looked startled, flushed with haste.

  Shiv looked down at his cup. “It’s called scrying. I believe you can work something you call a far-seeing? It’s similar but I believe we reach rather further—”

  “You also lay your minds open to any attack an adept might care to make!” Guinalle shook her head. “I was weaving my own spell, making sure no invaders were anywhere near and I found you at once, defenseless as a newborn babe.”

  Shiv grimaced. “That’s how they got to Viltred then.”

  “Who? Never mind.” Guinalle frowned, irritated. “The thing is, I can sense a considerable working of Artifice along the coast. I can’t tell its purpose, not yet, but it has to be the invaders, from what Parrail was telling me last night.”

  “We’d better get back to the settlement as fast as we can.” I stood up; my respite clearly over for the moment. “Make sure there are enough here to defend the cavern, but we’ll need all the troops and magic we can spare if Planir’s facing trouble.”

  Shiv nodded. “ ’Sar and I were talking about this yesterday evening, looking at routes here if the Elietimm have somehow got wind of what we’ve done. That other river’s the only fast way in, so we started work early to block it a good way downstream.”

  “How did you do that?” inquired Guinalle.

  “ ’Sar did the rocks, I did the water,” Shiv grinned, “you see—”

  “You can tell her when we’re on the boat.” I paused, disconcerted to realize I had no sword at my hip. “We need to get things moving—and I need a new sword.”

  “Take my spare.” Tavie handed me a serviceable sword, a little heavy for my taste and marred with a couple of deep notches. “It’s nowhere near the quality of that Empire blade, though,” he added dubiously.

  “Trust me, that’s not a problem,” I assured him. The weapon was probably worth about a handful of copper and I accepted it with pleasure. Now that Shiv had the current working with him, our progress down the river was rapid enough to make the newly revived colonists gasp. I noticed that Guinalle spent the trip deep in conversation with Usara, doubtless swapping theories on magic, with Parrail hovering attentively at her elbow while Temar looked on with no small measure of annoyance. I moved to join him at the far rail, finding myself drawn by a sympathy I didn’t fully understand.

  “If she doesn’t want you, lad, it makes no difference, no matter how badly you want her,” I told him.

  “Thank you, but I fail to see how it is your concern,” he said stiffly.

  “You’ve been making it very much my concern for most of the past season.” I raised a hand. “No, I don’t blame you; we’ve covered that, haven’t we? I just thought you might like to benefit from the mistakes I made when I was your age.”

  After a moment, Temar smiled faintly at me. “I lost all my elder brothers, you know.”

  “I know, and I lost my younger sister, so I’ve no one else to boss around anymore.”

  As the ship sped silently down the rapid river, Temar and I stood in the prow and talked, swapping tales of family and friends, discovering just how it was that we came to have so much in common that the Artifice had been unable to prevent a connection. I also gained some understanding into just why my older brothers Hansey and Ridner sometimes found Mistal and I more than a little trying. Parrail joined us after a while and volunteered some theories about aetheric sympathies, but I have to admit they made little sense to me. Noon came and went and we rounded a bend in the river to see three tall-masted ships securing themselves at anchor in the estuary.

  “Dast’s teeth!” I swore, “Elietimm!”

  “They must have seen them from the camp.” Livak hauled herself up on to the rail of the ship to get a better view. “Why hasn’t someone raised the alarm? What are they playing at?”

  The smoke of several camp fires curled lazily upwards from the walls of the steading. I could see sentries patrolling, bows resting casually against shoulders, no sign that they had seen anything amiss at all!

  “It’s a ward, a very powerful one. Someone on those ships is using artifice to make anyone looking out from your camp see only what they have seen before.” Guinalle was at my side, face pale and set. “Look, the enchantment must be concealing those soldiers, over there. They’ve landed men to make an unexpected attack.” As she pointed, I saw small detachments of black-liveried troops making their way cautiously through the undergrowth to take up positions to encircle the unsuspecting wizards.

  “Saedrin seize it!” I looked around to see Shiv peering at the distant wall, a faint nimbus of green around his hands as he quelled the magelight that would betray us to the Elietimm lurking down river. “It’s no good, I can’t reach anyone.”

  “We’re pissing in the wind, trying to get through Kalion’s defenses,” Usara cursed with equal frustration. “He’s not Hearth-Master for nothing.”

  “What can you do?” I demanded of Guinalle. “Can you break the ward, was that what you called it? Can you make our people see the truth of what’s out there?”

  She looked down river, scanning the banks and the distant vessels. “Until I can find who’s doing this, I can’t combat the ward. Even then, their Artifice might be too strong, if there are several people working together,” she scowled. “We need to do something they’re not prepared for. The only way they’ll drop the ward and betray themselves is if we can really distract them, and they’ll be expecting Artifice, defending against it. I can tell from the way they’re baffling the wards that Parrail’s friends are trying to maintain. Whoever is doing this is a master of illusions.”

  “Let’s try something a little less subtle then.” Usara breathed and sent a shaft of ocher magic into the river. The waters roiled and bubbled, mud and weed swirling upwards from the river bed. “I’ll give them something they’re not expecting.”

  “Let me help.” Shiv spread his hands and a dark mossy green light began to glow in the depths. The magic suddenly sped away, down toward the Elietimm ships. As it drew closer, a massive shape erupted from the water in an explosion of foam and noise. If I had thought the sea serpent in the Archipelago was huge, it was a bait worm compared to the monster the two wizards conjured from mud and magic. Rearing out of the water to reach higher than the tallest mast, it crashed down on the deck to split the vessel clean in two, ragged planking embedded in its sides as it rose up again, blunt head darting this way and that to snap struggling figures out of the water. Ropes snaked down into the waters as the other boats hastily cut their anchors to flee, sails flapping frantically as the mighty shape dived back into the water, only to rear up once more between the ships and the safety of the open sea. Shooting across the surface of the river, the great beast smashed broadside into one, sending it reeling over to start taking water in every hatch while the monster’s tail lashed mercilessly at the remaining vessel, sending splintered spars splashing into the water.

  “Wizards keeping shipwrights in work again, are they?” Livak shouted from somewhere behind me. I heard mercenaries cheering as they armed themselves for a fight. “That should have attracted everyone’s attention!”

  “Get me something shiny, quick,” Usara was calling to her. “And a candle, anythin
g that will burn.” Snapping his fingers to light a spill of kindling wood, the wizard angled the magical flame to reflect against some mercenary’s rough scrubbed pewter plate.

  “Otrick, answer me, curse you!”

  “What is it? ’Sar, is that you?” The old mage’s perplexity traveled clearly enough through the faltering spell.

  “Don’t you see the ships?” Usara shouted. “Get Kalion to drop his cursed barrier so I can talk to you properly.”

  “Those are Elietimm ships! Saedrin’s stones, where did they come from— ”

  “They’re landing troops to attack you! Get ready to defend the walls,” yelled Usara as the spell flickered and weakened.

  “Target anyone wearing a metal gorget,” I bellowed as the light died away. “Do you think they heard?”

  Usara shook his head, face aghast. “Something’s happened to Otrick!”

  Given the chaos erupting around their ships, the Elietimm had abandoned their attempts at stealth and were charging towards the Den Rannion steading, harsh battle cries sounding across the waters.

  “Get us ashore, curse you,” Livak was shouting at the master mariner.

  “We can mount a counterattack.” Buril looked up from conferring with his fellow mercenaries.

  “Let us at them, Esquire,” one of the colonists urged Temar, receiving nods of agreement from the others. “We have a fair rate of scores to settle!”

  A crack of lightning silenced everyone as black clouds boiled out of nowhere and spears of magic lanced downwards to send black-liveried bodies flying, scorched vegetation burning merrily. Where a detachment tried to stamp out the flames, a surge of crimson fire leaped up from the ground to seize one man greedily by the arm, burning him to the bone despite every effort to quench it, rather transferring itself to anyone who came to the hapless soldier’s aid, leaving only charred remnants behind. Screams of fear and pain began to rise above the war cries.