by Dave Duncan
“Where’s Kromman?”
“Grandon.”
“And the King?”
“Gone for a gallop. He likes the exercise. And there’s a shepherd’s daughter up in the hills who struck gold a few days ago.”
Durendal gazed into the fire for a moment, trying to think. Nothing much happened, except he decided that a decent man like Bowman must be under enormous strain. He jabbed at that weak spot. “How do you feel about all this?”
The only answer he received was a mawkish, pitying smile. How Bowman felt didn’t matter. He was ruled by his binding to save the King’s life, and now the King was in deadly peril every day at dawn. His Blades had no choice except the one Lyon had tried and botched.
Durendal gestured inquiringly in the direction of the smothered sobs.
“That was your doing, I reckon, my lord.”
“Mine!?”
“When he saw who we’d brought down. That was the last straw. He fell on his sword—he just wasn’t man enough to do a proper job of it.”
Death and fire! “And was he the first to do that?”
Bowman shook his head reluctantly.
“Volunteer breakfasts? Fire and blood! If more of you were man enough to do it, then this evil wouldn’t prosper.”
Bowman colored and straightened up. “That’s easier for some of us to say than others, your lordship. You’re special. Suppose the King gives you a choice? Which end of the spoon will you choose?”
For a moment, that simple question left Durendal speechless. He had not considered so appalling a possibility. He licked his lips. “I believe that immortality on such terms is utterly evil, Sir Bowman. If I am given a free choice, I hope I will have the courage to refuse it. If I am forced into accepting, I hope I will have the courage to kill myself at the first opportunity, so that I do not go on extending the evil. But a good friend of mine was trapped into accepting and was not the same person after, so I do not know if I shall be able to do that.”
“I think you have the courage, my lord.”
“Thank you.”
Bowman chuckled hoarsely, but his gray eyes gleamed like steel. “Don’t thank me, my lord—it’s my job to identify the King’s enemies. I know where you stand. You stay in this room, Lord Roland, and behave yourself. No talking, no trying to escape. Understand? I’ll tie you up and gag you if I have to.”
“I understand perfectly. Just one more question?”
“What?”
“Do the Blades on the menu qualify for the Litany of Heroes?”
The Deputy Commander bared his teeth angrily and went slouching back down the stair. As he disappeared, he began shouting names.
Durendal rose and limped across the room to the prostrate boy. He eased down on one knee. “Sir Lyon?”
The kid looked up. His eyes were red, his lips almost blue.
Durendal squeezed his shoulder. “You’ve got more courage and honor than the rest of them put together, lad. Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to stop this.”
The boy whispered, “Sir…my lord…they don’t trust you!”
“Never mind me,” Durendal said. “I can look after myself. Don’t give up yet!” and headed back to the fireplace. He had never congratulated a would-be suicide before.
Moments later, Spinnaker and two more men came in to guard the captives. The stair was the only way out, and there were more men down in the guardroom. When Durendal tried to talk, he was again threatened with being bound and gagged.
By Bowman’s estimate, he would not be eaten for at least two days—Quarrel first, then Lyon, then Lord Roland. He would prefer that fate to being forced into the conspiracy and made to eat part of his own Blade. Whether Kromman would agree with either of these programs remained to be seen.
It was odd that they were taking so long to find Quarrel’s body. There could be no doubt that he was dead, after all. He would have crawled back into the fight on his belly trailing his guts if he weren’t. Gone to organize a rescue? No hope of that. Even if a Blade could act like that, the lodge was guarded by the world’s best swords-men. They could hold it for weeks against any force except the Royal Office of Demolition, and that would be no rescue. The rest of the Guard, back at Grandon, knew nothing of what was going on, would not believe it anyway, and was equally bound to the King.
Durendal stretched out on the nearest bedroll to wait upon events, but however hard he sought to make plans for his own extremely precarious future, his mind kept wandering back to Quarrel, that fresh-minted Blade, that meteor who had flashed through his life and vanished before he could know it. Had he been like that boy once—sharp and sparkling diamondlike, not counting costs or weighing alternatives? He could not remember.
So much promise wasted.
He was hard on his Blades. Wolfbiter had lasted two years, and Quarrel only five days.
QUARREL
VII
1
Quarrel parried a slash from the Blade on his right, half dodged and half tried to fend off a cut from his left. He felt a searing pain in his shoulder, but before he took time to worry about that, he put Destrier at the gate and was flying. Wonder horse! Again a voice yelled, “Take them alive!”
Destrier came down with perfect grace, and then it was reaction time. Spooked by the scuffle and smell of his rider’s blood, he laid back his ears and fled off along the track as if all the spirits of fire were after him.
Quarrel must put Reason back in her scabbard before he dropped her. He must do something about the bleeding, or he’d never get back into the fight. He must turn the horse, or the fight would be over before he did get back to it. He looked behind him just in time to see Gadfly tumble and Paragon thrown free. By the eight, that was disaster! Even Paragon couldn’t jump up from a fall like that and fight off nine Blades. Oh, turn, blast you! But Destrier hurtled along the track, heedless of reins and heels.
First he must stop bleeding. He needed his right hand for the reins. His left hand wasn’t moving properly. Spirits, but his shoulder did hurt now! He let Destrier have his head for a moment while he grabbed the left side of his cloak and tried to pull it tight to staunch the bleeding, but then a swerve by his horse almost threw him. His cloak caught on something, tore its pin, and was gone. Let it go. Forget the blood—he was going to die anyway. He had to get back in the fight and die there. No Blade ever ran away. Not one single Blade had ever run away, not in almost four hundred years.
A wagon loomed up unexpectedly, blocking the trail, its two ponderous cart horses looking almost as astonished as the driver. Destrier slid to a halt and reared, bucked a few times and spun on two feet like a cat. He took off again. Somehow Quarrel stayed on, although by all odds he shouldn’t have, and every impact jolted fire from his wound. Now they were going back to the fight. Except there wouldn’t be a fight. Paragon would have been stunned by the fall at the very least, if he hadn’t broken his neck. Dragon had shouted to take them both alive, but a Blade must never let his ward be taken alive while he lived himself.
He had failed horribly. Only five days ago he had been bound to Paragon himself—the second Durendal, Earl Roland, Lord Chancellor, the greatest swordsman of the century, perhaps the greatest ever, Ironhall’s most celebrated son since the first Durendal. Not since he had been the Brat had he ever dreamed of an honor like that—Paragon’s Blade! He still had a very clear mental picture of all those green, green jealous faces at his binding, from Hereward all the way down to the sopranos, just drooling at the thought of being bound to Durendal himself. After only five days he had let his ward be killed or captured. Back into the fight! He must die. There could be no life with such shame, not an hour, not an unnecessary minute.
There was his cloak in the road, staining the mud red. Then five horseman ahead, coming after him. He tried to reach for his sword, and Destrier took the chance to leave the track altogether. Angry shouts faded in the background as the big black pelted across a meadow at full gallop, dodging willows, dodging boulders. The pursuer
s shouted and followed.
Quarrel doubled up with his head alongside the horse’s sweaty neck to avoid having it knocked off by branches. He tried not to scream. He yelled instead. “Turn ’round! Turn ’round! That’s twice you’ve done this to me, you carrion brute! I’ve got to fight. I’ve got to die with Reason in my hand.”
Destrier raised his ears for the first time since the gate, appraising the river ahead: steep banks, foaming white water, sharp rocks.
“You can’t!” Quarrel screamed, then gathered up the reins and sat into the saddle and did everything he could to help as the black took wing.
They made it with about an inch to spare, but it felt as if they landed on his shoulder and the world swam in blackness.
Loss of blood was making him feebleminded, perhaps. He howled at his horse to turn back, but Destrier refused. The Guard had balked at that impossible leap and even at trying to ford the torrent, which meant that Sir Quarrel, companion in the Loyal and Ancient Order, etc., had escaped when he was never supposed to escape. He would be the first Blade in four hundred years to run away and leave his ward to die. Just dying of loss of blood in the woods would still be a disgrace, if he couldn’t do it nearer his ward. But it would be better than nothing.
The dog-food horse had found a game trail to race along.
If only he were certain that Durendal was dead! Then he could dismount, unsaddle Destrier, and happily bleed to death himself. But Dragon had been shouting to take the fugitives alive. Human sacrifice—they wanted Paragon so the King could eat him. First Blade ever to run away, first Blade to let his ward get eaten. If they did take him alive, they might not kill him until they were ready to do the conjuration—dawn tomorrow.
Rescue?
He’d tried to die. If he hadn’t been wounded he could have controlled this worthless hack, and then he would have died as he was supposed to. It wasn’t his fault that he was alive! But since he was, wouldn’t it be a sensible idea to try and organize a rescue, just in case his ward was still alive?
Who?
Having lost most of his terror, Destrier was growing rather tired of all this exertion. He slowed to a trot, which jarred hot knives into Quarrel’s shoulder. He kicked the brute back into a canter.
Who? Who would help a disgraced, wounded, runaway, cowardly Blade against the King and his Guard?
The Queen’s men, of course.
Mad! Crazy! Absurd! They were half the kingdom away. Delirium.
He would never reach them. His horse had worn itself out already. He was still bleeding and covered with blood, so he’d certainly be challenged and stopped by somebody. He would die and drop off before he got close. Even if he made it, he couldn’t possibly convince them and bring them back before sunrise tomorrow. They wouldn’t believe him. The masters and knights wouldn’t let them do anything about it if they did. They couldn’t possibly achieve anything against the Royal Guard.
The fires they couldn’t! A dozen of the best swordsmen in the world?
A time to thrust and a time to parry, Paragon had said.
He patted his horse’s lathered neck.
“Home, Destrier,” he whispered. “Take me home.”
2
It seemed to Durendal that he had achieved a sort of immortality already, for that morning went on forever. His guardians would neither speak in his presence nor let him speak. It was a commentary on their tortured state of mind that they did not even fall to playing dice, the Blades’ traditional pastime of last resort. He heard men being relieved and sent off down to the village to eat. He heard a meal arriving for the King, because the royal household could not know that the dying man had gone off to gallop a horse over the hills.
He was startled to discover that there was another reborn in the lodge. A pale-faced man, young and stringy in servant’s livery that seemed too short for him, came scurrying out of the King’s bedchamber, shot a frightened, wide-eyed gaze at the prisoner, and disappeared rapidly down the stairs. It took Durendal several minutes to realize that it had been Scofflaw, the King’s eternally ancient valet, who wasn’t ancient anymore. The pump down in the kitchen squeaked for a while, then he came trudging back up with a metal bucket in either hand. Without looking at Durendal at all, he placed them on the dormitory fire to warm, filled two more, and took those into the bedchamber. Later he went down to fetch firewood also, but he was no more talkative in his youth than he had been in his old age, and rather more obviously short of wits.
It was past noon when sounds of horses outside, then new voices down in the guardroom, caused his guards to break into smiles of obvious relief. The King had returned safely.
Memory: Before he was Durendal, on his second night in Ironhall, when he had been very new as the nameless Brat, very lonely, and very frightened by this strange new life—things had turned suddenly even worse. He had been informed that he must participate in a conjuration, not merely with the exalted Grand Master, but also with Prime Candidate Montpurse, whom the rest of the school almost worshiped already, and Crown Prince Ambrose, who had come to bind Prime to his personal guard. He’d been almost thirty, just three years before his father died—a domineering young giant, fiery and handsome, with brilliant amber eyes, with hair and beard of fine-spun red gold. He had filled all Ironhall with his personality, rousing the candidates to wild enthusiasm for the glory that would come when he ascended the throne. He had not noticed the Brat, and the Brat had been so afraid of forgetting his lines that he had barely noticed the Crown Prince.
Heavy tread came up the stairs. First to enter was Dragon, hairy and suspicious, a black bear of a man. He looked the prisoner over and then stood back beside Spinnaker and the others, his hand on his sword hilt.
Durendal stood up, having already decided on his strategy. Whatever the ethics, Ambrose was still his liege lord. Outright defiance would be profitless, while unquestioning deference would not deceive anyone who knew him as well as the King did. Between those two extremes, he must be respectful to the monarch and opposed to his actions. Nothing new in that.
In rolled Ambrose, restored to the prime of manhood, virile and intimidating. There was even something of that long-ago demigod about him once again, but the conjuration had not removed his fat, so the big man was a grotesque parody of what he should have been. Nor had he yet had time to acquire a suitable wardrobe. Even allowing for the predictable horse sweat and grass stains and general dishevelment, he was an untidy mess, with clothes bulging in the wrong places and loose in others. He stopped and stared at Durendal, fat hands on widespread hips. What he saw seemed to amuse him.
Durendal bowed.
“By the eight, you look old!” The fat man laughed, but his laugh was heartachingly familiar as the King’s laugh, which no one had heard for almost two years. It took all the sting out of the remark. He had his charm back.
“Your Majesty looks much better.”
The tiny boar’s eyes seemed to stab through his guard and scan his innermost thoughts. “And you are pleased to see this, Lord Roland?”
“I rejoice to find you in good health, sire.”
“But the medicine disturbs you? Long live the King!” His little mouth puckered in a smile. “Say it, my lord. Say the words.”
It had not taken him long to demolish Durendal’s defenses and drive him back to that one place beyond which he could not retreat. The King is dead, long live the Queen? But that would be suicide. The Blades were already glaring dangerously. Bowman had come to join them.
Durendal said nothing, waiting for the thunderbolts.
But the King was in excellent humor, chuckling as if he had expected that reaction. “Come on in. We need to talk.” He began to move, and the Blades surged forward in a mass. “Not you!”
Dragon hesitated. Bowman growled, “Leader!” warningly.
“This one’s dangerous, sire!” the Commander said.
“Dangerous? That old man? Here!” The King pulled out his dagger and tossed it hilt-first to the Commander, who c
aught it with a catlike flash of his hand. “There! No weapons. Do you think I can’t handle him now?”
He was a head taller than Durendal, twice his weight, thirty years younger. Chortling, he marched into the bedroom with his former chancellor slinking at his heels like an aging hound. Durendal closed the door, although he was certain that Bowman would eavesdrop through the chinks in the garderobe wall.
“Took you long enough to get here!” The King hauled off his coat, brushing away Scofflaw’s fussy attempts to help him.
“Was that why you sent me that assignment warrant, sire? To bring me running?”
Off came the sweaty shirt, buttons flying. “I thought it might. You always got loud and impudent when I tried to give you a Blade. But this time you accepted. Well, that kept you out of the Bastion, didn’t it? You should have heard Master Kromman! Blast you, Scofflaw, can’t you even heat a bath properly?”
The King proceeded to sit down in a copper basin much too small for his blubbery mass. Water cascaded over the brim and drained away between the floorboards.
“You didn’t keep him long, sirrah! Flaming waste of one of my Blades. Give me the soap, man! I suppose you think he belongs in the Litany, when he died fighting his king? They haven’t found his body yet. Well, he can still serve me when they do!” The piggy eyes glanced at Durendal, appraising his reaction to this abomination.
“Sire, how long have you known that Kromman knew the ritual?” That was a gamble on the King’s good humor, for monarchs should never be questioned.
Today he was too pleased with himself to take offense. “I guessed right away. Surprised you didn’t. Memory enhancement’s standard for inquisitors.” Ambrose lathered and splashed for a moment. “Immortality didn’t interest me much in those days, of course. He brought up the subject…oh, about ten years ago, I suppose. Parliament being stingy voting taxes. Could have used the gold.”