The Sword of the Lady

by S. M. Stirling

  But this feels wrong, so it does. Someone is using Art, but without any thought for the order of the world, or the Law of Threefold Return. That will fall upon him in the end, but before then what evil may it do!

  ″The guards—″ he began.

  A crash came from the door. That barrier wasn′t the massive fortress-style portals that closed the exterior of the building. Carved panels splintered under the blows of heavy blades—at this moment you remembered that the shete had started out as a chopping tool a mere generation before. The steel flicked through in glimpses of brightness against dark oiled ornamental walnut. When the upper panel was a sagging mass of splinters a man′s helmeted head completed the ruin, butting through the remains.

  Heasleroad cried out in relief. ″Captain Butler! What is going—″

  The guardsman looked at him, smiling through the gashes the splinters had cut in his flesh; one eye leaked clear matter down his cheek, running in thick threads through the red of blood.

  ″Kill,″ he said, his grinning teeth wet. ″Kill—them—all. Kill—″

  ″Happy to oblige,″ Odard de Gervais snarled, and struck.

  He was a man of middling size, but strong and very quick. The longsword blurred down in a silver arc; there was a heavy wet sound, and underneath it a crack of parting bone.

  ″Haro!″ he shouted, and then the war cry of his House: ″Face Gervais, face death!″

  The head sagged free, held by only a shred of flesh. Blood spurted out into the room, but for one long instant the body′s hands scrabbled beside the severed neck, trying to enlarge the hole through the broken wood. Then it went limp, and other hands pulled it back.

  A billhook smashed through; Odard cut again, but this time the blade skidded with a shower of sparks off a sheath of steel wire wound around the wooden shaft behind the business end of the polearm. The weapon jerked back and then probed at him, thrust two-handed with a savage, skillful snap. He skipped back just in time, or a little later than that; the sharp point of the spike touched his breast, and a dark stain spread on the colorful cloth of the jupon.

  ″Here!″ Mathilda cried.

  She tossed him a shield; there were two, done up for Anthony Heasleroad′s amusement in the Lidless Eye of the Armingers, with the baton of cadency across one, and the mon symbol of the House of Liu—the Chinese ideograph for Poland, for his father′s mother, silver on red on black on the other. There hadn′t been any reason to make the shields genuine, but there hadn′t been any reason not to, either, and Mathilda had taken full advantage of the Bossman′s expense account.

  So these were the real article, elongated triangles four feet from rounded point to curved top, made of plywood and bullhide and covered in thin sheet metal, with the padded loops on the inside parallel to the length.

  ″Bless your foresight, Matti!″ Rudi said. ″Flank me—not in plain sight of the door!″

  The two Associates took up the stance Portlander men-at-arms used for fighting on foot; left fist at chin height, which put the upper edge of the shield just under the eyes and the point at shin level, and swords over their heads with the hilts forward. Rudi had no protection but the little buckler clipped to the side of his longsword′s sheath. He took that in his hand, some part of him wishing they had all their fighting gear at hand; with a western knight′s head-to-toe panoply the three of them could hold the doorway in turn, and only be badly hurt by accident.

  You fight with what you have, when you have to, he thought.

  Rudi crouched and duckwalked towards the door, keeping below the level that could be seen through the ruins of the upper panel; it wasn′t easy to stay low when you stood six-two in your stocking feet. The billhook pulled back, and pulled a chunk of the splintered wood free with the curved hook on its rear.

  The Bossman of Iowa moved forward, with the shete in his hand.

  ″Get back, you fool!″ Rudi barked.

  Even then there was some remote corner of his mind that felt a relief at the frank words, like the bursting of a boil.

  ″There′s nothing you can do here! Look to your woman and your son!″

  Kate Heasleroad added her voice to his; a little to Rudi′s surprise it wasn′t shrill with fear at all. She was in the far corner of the room near the entrance to the nursery corridor, with an upturned table sheltering her and her own body between the edged metal and the path to her child. Her eyes were wide with fear and her fair skin turned milk pale, but it was controlled fear, and she kept them fixed on the doorway to follow the action there. Her husband′s face was crimson, flushed with rage as much as with drink.

  So he′s no coward, Rudi thought. What a time to develop the virtues!

  Mathilda acted where Rudi couldn′t; she leapt forward just as a bow snapped on the landing outside, and threw herself in front of the Iowan. There was a hard crack as the point punched into her shield. It hit at a slant, penetrating shallowly and giving a malignant whine as vibration damped itself in metal and wood. She hit the Bossman under the short ribs with the pommel of her sword to stun resistance, threw him back with an expert heave of shoulders and legs, and used the motion to whirl herself back out of the line of fire. Only then did she snap the arrowhead off with another blow of the hilt, and the inch or two of shaft that had followed it through the shield.

  ″Haro, Portland!″ she cried in a valkyr shout as she took stance again. ″Holy Mary for Portland!″

  Two more arrows plowed through the space she′d vacated; they went over Rudi′s head with a vicious whissst of cloven air like angry yellow-jacket wasps, and slammed into the wall to stand quivering. Rudi came off the floor in a long lunge in the instant they blurred past, leg and arm in perfect line and the blade of the longsword lashing out into the hole in the broken door. The point drove home in meat and bone, and a bill clattered through the broken wood to lie spinning on the floor.

  Hands gripped the blade of his sword, naked flesh against the metal. He stripped it backward with a wrench, and fingers fell away from the edge of the layer-forged steel. Another bill rammed close, probing for his life as the wielder crowded among the figures thronging the landing.

  ″Morrigú!″ Rudi screamed.

  It was half war cry, half desperate appeal. He was used to fighting brave men, but not those who cared for wounds and pain and death no more than so many windup automatons.

  ″Morrigú! Come to me, Dark Mother! I am the Lady′s Sword!″

  The Crow Goddess had sent Raven to him long ago; not in dream and vision, but in the light of common day. He bore the mark of the bird′s flint-hard beak in the small scar between his brows. That pain had been brief. It flared again for an instant. Then what filled him was agony and fire, ecstasy beyond bearing, joy and horror at once. The world vanished and reappeared with jeweled clarity, and he understood. Every beat of his heart linked him to all that was, and he saw those threads.

  His dropped the buckler and his hand closed on the bill′s shaft behind the head, wrenched it free, slammed it back so that the butt cap cracked a skull. His sword thrust back and forth like the needle in a treadle-worked sewing machine. There was no rage behind the strokes, only a love that encompassed even the snarling faces behind the weapons that reached for him, a vast piteous determination.

  Dark wings beat above his head, their drumbeat the death of suns, the wind of their passage a surge of fire like surf on a shore whose sand was stars. Flames circled a single Eye. The sword moved, and men died; others crowded forward, blades lashing at him and weapons beating at the hinges of the door. Planes of black light shattered. He screamed, and the cry was the soul of grief from the Mother of All at the pain of Her children, a boiling ocean of sorrow and rage.

  ″Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy,″ Ignatius whispered, and crossed himself.

  His hands and balance halted the horse before his mind was aware of the need, and calmed the beast′s skittishness at the harsh overwhelming iron stink of blood. The rear entrance to the Emergency Coordinator′s residence ha
d been well guarded; the men wore the mail shirts and coal-scuttle helmets of the State Police, and the door on its massive hinges was panels of solid steel strapped and forge welded and riveted together into something that even a battering ram could only have dented.

  The Order of the Shield sent its knight-brothers where they were needed to succor the afflicted and rescue the weak; he had seen terrible things many times in his nearly thirty years of life, and he was just old enough to remember a little of the first year after the Change. This . . .

  ″How did they die?″ Virginia Kane whispered.

  ″They killed themselves,″ Frederick Thurston said; his voice was shocked into a machine flatness. ″Or each other.″

  He pointed with his saber towards one pair locked together; it shouldn′t have been physically possible for two men to choke one another to death that way, but the swollen purple faces and bulging eyes were unmistakable. And the same smile was on their faces, the same as all the others.

  Ignatius mastered himself and swung down, his armor clanking. He was in the full knight′s gear of knee-length chain hauberk, coif and visored helm, plate greaves and vambraces, armored gauntlets on his hands and steel sabatons protecting his feet. The well-trained destrier stood stock-still as he dropped the reins, though its eyes rolled piteously and shivers went over its black coat. One young man still lived despite the wounds that leaked blood over chest and belly and groin; his hand was locked around a chain that held a silver crucifix, and his eyes moved towards the priest.

  ″What happened here, my son?″ Ignatius said, going down on one knee in the sticky redness that covered the asphalt.

  ″He . . . came,″ the young man gasped. ″He . . . came.″

  Ignatius nodded. Now I know where the Corwinite diabolist is, he thought grimly. Trying the rear entrance. But first—

  ″What did he do?″

  The dying man′s face jerked, and he began to sob; not with the pain, but as a lonely child might.

  ″He showed me myself,″ he whimpered, then began to thrash. ″He showed me myself! Oh, God, I′ll die and I′ll have to see him again—″

  Ignatius leaned forward, and locked the wounded man′s eyes with his, pouring his will through the joined gaze.

  ″He lied, child of God. No sin is beyond forgiveness if you accept Christ′s mercy. Throw yourself upon His love.″

  The priest felt something flow out of him . . . or through him, for it left him stronger, not weaker. A measure of sanity returned to the other′s face for a moment; he slumped, and whispered slowly:

  ″Bless . . . me . . . Father . . . for I have sinned.″

  Aloud he spoke the words as the boy died. Within himself, silently, he added: Lady pierced with sorrows, this man too was born of woman. Intercede for him, I beg. And for us all, now and at the hour of our deaths.

  Then he stood, looking up at the blank wall as he drew his sword and pulled on the leather strap to slide the kite-shaped shield around and onto his left arm. There were narrow windows running up the brick wall, one per flight, but they were covered with grills bolted to the frames. The ends of the bars curved outward in sharp points.

  ″They′ve gone through here just a moment ago, but they barred it behind them. We′ll have to go around to the front of the building,″ he said crisply. ″And pray we′re in time.″

  ″No, we won′t!″ Virginia shouted.

  She snatched the lariat free from her saddle bow and brought her horse around in a broad circle across the street and down a little. The silver spreader-weight flashed in the faint, distant light of the gas lamps as she whirled it overhead, and the nimble quarterhorse sprang off its hindquarters and came pounding down the pavement at a gallop that struck sparks from concrete and echoed off the blank walls in rattling blows of sound. Frederick ducked in the saddle as it flew over his head, and then the loop settled over the bars of the first story grill as she sped past.

  A heavy whunk sound came, a whipcrack snap as the tough braided bison hide came rigid as a steel rod, and with it a scream of equine protest as the horse was thrown back on its haunches by the shock transmitted through the lariat snubbed around the high horn of the Western saddle—for a moment Ignatius felt a cold stab of fear that the beast would be flipped backward on its rider and crush her against the unyielding pavement.

  Then there came a scream of shearing metal from above him; the half ton of fast-moving horse and rider had snapped the bolts that held the grid across. Ignatius ducked again as the buckled, twisted metal fell to the ground and landed with a nauseatingly soft sound on one of the murdered State Police troopers.

  ″Too small,″ Ignatius said, his eyes on the gap; a little light leaked out of it, as if there was a lamp several stories higher. ″Without taking off my armor, at least.″

  ″Not for me!″ Virginia said.

  She brought the horse up the stairs; it snorted and picked its way between the bodies with its ears laid back, but stood obedient with its forehooves on the topmost. The young woman from Skywater Ranch put her bowie knife between her teeth, kicked her feet out of the tapadero-enclosed stirrups, vaulted up to stand on the saddle and then jumped. Her gloved hands caught the frame of the window; for a moment she hung with her high-heeled riding boots kicking, and then she eeled her way through the narrow opening.

  ″Help her! God, gods, somebody, help her!″ Frederick muttered.

  His face went stiff as a yell came through the window; a man′s voice shouting in alarm, and then in pain; and overriding it Virginia′s wild cry:

  ″Skywater forever! Yippie-kye-ey, motherfucker!″

  ″Get ready!″ Ignatius said crisply.

  Frederick tumbled out of the saddle and reached for an arrow. Ignatius poised, light on the balls of his feet despite the sixty pounds of gear and fifteen of shield, blade ready over his head. There was a metallic clanking as the door swung wide, and the woman catapulted backward out of it—she′d pushed it open with a thrust of her shoulders, and turned the motion into a controlled tumble head-over-heels as a shete lunged for her.

  Snap. An arrow from Frederick′s bow flashed by, and then a crack as it slammed into and through the overlapping plates of metal-rimmed lacquered leather that covered the Cutter′s chest. His face went slack and he fell forward, the weapon spinning away. Another was on his heels, heavy curved blade raised and round shield up.

  ″Jesu-Maria!″ Ignatius shouted from deep in his chest, and sprang forward crabwise, left shoulder tucked into the curve of the long western shield.

  His met the smaller round plainsman′s model blazoned with the rayed sun of the Church Universal and Triumphant. There was a hard thudding impact, and he grunted as his own weight and momentum overbore the other man′s charge. That rocked the soldier of the Sword of the Prophet back staggering on his heels, and the warrior-cleric′s blade came down. His lips drew back from his teeth as he felt the edge cleave leather and then flesh.

  God forgive him, he thought as he wrenched it back with furious urgency. And me.

  ″Back me!″ he called to the others as he pushed through the door.

  He came in crouching a little so that the shield covered him from eyes to shin; he left the visor locked up for better vision in the dimness, but there was no part of him not covered except the narrow space between shield-rim and eyes.

  ″I lead. I′ve got the gear for this!″

  The two youngsters followed, arrows on the strings of their powerful recurve bows. The stairwell was dark, but not absolute blackness. It showed the shadowed outlines of two more Corwinites rushing down at him, and the faint light caught blue on the honed edges of their blades.

  ″Cut! Cut! Cut!″

  ″Jesu-Maria!″

  ″Skywater!″

  Then Thurston′s bellow; some distant corner of Ignatius′ mind made a silent tsk sound:

  ″Ho la, Odhinn!″

  More feet were pounding on the metal treads above, the heavy ringing sounds of boots with iron heel plates and metal-stra
pped toes.

  We′re not enough, not with only three, Ignatius knew; he knew also that they must try anyway. Where are our friends?

  ″Can we kill ′em?″ Jake sunna Jake asked. ″Please?″

  Beyond him on the crest of a roofline two dark figures came to their feet and gestured urgently. They used the broad gestures of Battle-Sign, which was common to Mackenzies and Dúnedain: Come quickly.

  Edain Aylward Mackenzie swallowed; the folk from the west—from Montival, he thought—had taught the Southsiders some of the formulas of courtesy, but this please wasn′t quite the sort of usage they′d had in mind.

  The Chief said not to hurt any of the town folk if I could help it. Now, can I help it, or not?

  The mob gathered ahead of him wasn′t large, only a hundred or so, though it loomed larger than you′d think in the darkened street and filled it from side to side—that cramped feeling was one reason he didn′t like cities. A milling churning mass of dark clothes and pale faces with a brabble of voices in the harsh clipped Iowan dialect. An ugly sense of menace, almost a scent, musky and raw, beneath the horse piss and coal smoke of the city.

  And the herd of strangers was between him and where he was supposed to go to help the Chief and his comrades. Down this street to the end, past a church, and to the big building on the square. It was past time he got there, too; something had gone wrong.

  ″Rudi-man says Iowa fuckers ′re friends,″ Jake added, his tone growing more dubious still. ″Dese′re no friends.″

  ″Bionn gach duine go lách go dtéann bó ina gharrai,″ Edain muttered.

  That was something he′d picked up from Lady Juniper when she′d come to judge a dispute over straying livestock between his Dun Fairfax and the folk of Dun Carson that had almost come to blows.

  ″Wha thayt?″ the Southsider said.

  ″That everyone′s a friend. Until your cow wanders into their garden,″ he said.

  And I understand what Rudi meant. We can′t afford to make these Iowans think of us as enemies, or bloodthirsty savages. That′s the politics of it. The Chief′s in danger—that′s what I know of it.