King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  “Rotten ground for fighting, but equally rotten wind for them, eh?” Barend said, grinning.

  “Might work for us.” Inda hunkered down. “Ground will be rotten for them, too. Give me your gold case.”

  Barend tossed it to Inda, and the untouched paper and traveler pen he’d packed with it. Inda wrote to Evred, who promptly wrote back on a thin strip of paper saying only that he hadn’t received any messages from anyone.

  Barend snorted when Inda read it before he ripped it to bits and buried it under rubble. “They won’t write to him, they know he hates these magic things. They’ll write to you.”

  Inda glowered at the golden case. “Should I write to everyone to report in, or would that seem like I was breathing down their collars? We should have practiced with ’em, maybe. Set up some kind of protocol—”

  He stopped, and Barend finished wryly, “Except Sponge wouldn’t have liked that, either.”

  Inda was surprised and then displeased at his spurt of impatience. It was disloyal. If Evred distrusted magic, he probably had a reason to. He’d been reading about it while Inda was out at sea and hadn’t touched a book in years.

  “Hai! Some kind of signal went out. They’re shifting sail again—”

  Barend had been sailing master for Inda’s fleet. He peered through his glass, and though Inda watched as well, he couldn’t predict movements with square sail like he could with fore-and-aft rigged craft.

  Barend had no problem. “Advance landing, only one. They must have seen those rocks. That and the wind freshening, they’d be crazy to come in.”

  “Or they’d have some land commander above the navy in chain-of-command, doesn’t know bow from stern.” Inda spewed out his breath. “Give ’em a nice welcome. I’d better ride back.”

  Barend grinned. “You don’t want to stay for the fun?”

  Inda rubbed his scarred jaw. “I’m blind, here. I didn’t think about that until I reached the cliffs. I’m blind without that case. I thought I could come while my archers are getting the canoes—”

  “Canoes?” Barend repeated.

  “We have to ride down the river.”

  “What river? No, don’t bother wasting your breath.” Barend shook his head. “This is even stranger than taking on Marshig and the Brotherhood. Here. An extra twenty or so.” He brandished the arrows he’d finished. “We won’t need ’em here. You take ’em wherever you’re going.”

  “You’ll need ’em tomorrow.” Inda waved the arrows off. “Those rocks are going to do your business as well as your archers, but that’s just today. I don’t see any more storms coming. They’re going to land down south if they can’t here.”

  “Soon’s we see ’em haul wind, we’ll be off to reinforce Rat and Buck.” Barend tipped his head.

  “They probably sat out there during the storm making shields for their landing boats.”

  Barend’s grin had vanished. “I know. I was thinking that last night. We bought ourselves a couple of days. Maybe that’ll make a difference.”

  There was nothing useful to say to that. So Inda just picked up his arrows, backed downhill, and left.

  There was no new flag over the gate, just the crimson-and-gold eagle banner indicating the king in residence, so Inda was surprised to find the castle swarming with men, a lot of them gray-haired or balding, mixed with loud, shoving young fellows who looked a year or so younger than Inda’s own age.

  He didn’t waste time talking to any of them. They didn’t know who he was. So he just turned the horse over to a harassed stable hand and used his considerable strength to muscle his way inside, leaving behind a trail of “Who’s that?” “Hey, Scarface, who’s burning your butt?” and “Stop shoving, there are enough Venn for all of us!” protests. He finally emerged into free space when the duty guards spotted him and summarily cleared the way.

  This time the commentary was more specific: “Who’s the strut with the earrings?” “Didya see the scars?” “Damn! That’s not the pirate boy they were talking about . . . ?”

  He left the answers, if any, to the guards to make, vaulted up the stairs, and reached the office to find a flushed, grinning Evred talking rapidly to a big-shouldered fellow of Inda’s height, with butter-colored hair even more unruly than his own.

  He knew that face, didn’t he? “Tuft?”

  “Inda!” Tuft Sindan-An roared, bounding around the table and pounding Inda on the back with such enthusiasm that Inda coughed, eyes watering.

  Inda spotted his case, untouched, where he had left it. He half listened to Tuft’s exclamations and questions as he grabbed the golden box and flipped it open. A paper lay inside. For how long? “It’s from Noddy.”

  “What’s that?” Tuft asked, shoving his horsetail over one ear as he scratched vigorously at his sweat-salty scalp.

  Inda didn’t hear him. He read Noddy’s short, succinct message, the relief at the prospect of reinforcement congealing to that sickening sense of being too late, of missing something.

  “How many did you bring?” he asked Tuft, whose eyes narrowed, all the humor gone.

  “Ten wings. All I could raise, after Dad gave in.” Tuft studied the floor.

  Evred said reassuringly, “Your father and his clan allies have already given me two nines. No one has forgotten his great response to my father’s call for men.”

  Tuft’s broad cheeks colored under the sun-brown, but his manner eased from the scout hound expecting the scold to one eager for the run.

  Evred said to Inda, “Tuft seems to have done his best to bring his father to son-murder in his campaign to be released to join us.”

  Tuft grinned. “Drunk every night. Let the colts out. Poured distilled rye into the watch’s water bucket. Every day, I did something new. My brother told Dad to either kill me or send me after Cherry-Stripe, and Dad said to go, but only with volunteers. I raised them in two days,” he said proudly, a thumb toward the window. “I kinda had my fellow spread the word, sort of, beforehand. And some are old, and some a bit on the young side, but after that ride north, they’re tough enough!”

  Inda said, “How soon can you mount up again?”

  Evred leaned forward. “Noddy sighted Venn?” He glanced toward the window, and the mountaintop, where no beacon burned.

  Inda tossed Noddy’s note to the table. It fluttered through the air, and landed on the map like a crumpled butterfly. “They’re on the way, as we guessed. Ndand-Randviar rode over the pass. The castle fell, Flash was killed at the beacon site.” Evred’s wince hurt Inda on his behalf. His own memories of Flash were good ones; how much worse would it be for those who knew him well?

  He turned to Tuft. “We meant Noddy and Hawkeye to be the advance scout, make sure we grabbed the top of the pass first. But they’re alone until Ola-Vayir gets here. Flash’s Randviar saw the Venn on the march. How fast can you get your men up to reinforce them?”

  “We’ll get there,” Tuft said grimly. “We’ve gotten real good at the fast ride. And that gives us just the kind of odds I like.”

  Evred touched hand to heart, Tuft thumped his fist to his chest. Another clump to Inda’s shoulder. “Good you’re back,” he said, and was gone in two steps, his strong voice roaring for his Runners.

  Inda said, “Sponge, I rode down to see the Venn myself. Looks like an advance force. Listen. The important thing is, I forgot my case. I should have taken it with me. I lost Noddy a whole day by not reading that note until now.”

  Evred made a vague, negating motion. “If he’d sent a Galloper, it would have taken two or three days. I hear what you say about your Venn dag, but Inda, a part of me is afraid that we’re supposed to rely on these things, find them so convenient we depend on them. And at the last moment, they cease to function. Like the lockets.”

  Inda felt words piling up behind his tongue, but he kept his jaw shut. It was only in the last day or so that Evred would even discuss these things. “I think I’ve failed Noddy,” he said, reverting back to sure ground.

 
; “Tuft just arrived. You didn’t even lose half a watch.”

  “Well, then, that’s all right.” Inda shoved the case into his pocket. “Here’s the thing, we’re done here. Barend and Rat are set. If they aren’t busy sabotaging that beach as soon as the sun goes down, and Barend knows plenty of pirate tricks for that, then, well—” He halted, not wanting to finish that thought. Reality was bad enough. “There’s nothing more to be done except to get to the top and put our bows to work until the last arrow. I’m going to write a note to Noddy right now. Let him known what’s happened.”

  “When should we go?” Evred asked.

  “Dawn watch.”

  “It will be cold.” Evred half lifted a hand, then dropped it. “Give the orders,” he said.

  Hawkeye handed Inda’s paper back to Noddy.

  The light was fading fast as it did in the mountains, the sun having disappeared beyond the western crags long ago. The horses had slowed on a steep switchback below a looming cliff. Water from the big storm sheeted down from the cliff, running across the road, and vanishing between rocks on the other side. Somewhere below the outcropping of rocks they could hear a gulley rushing, the sound thrown back by the dripping walls of rock.

  When night fell, they would break out the lanterns and change mounts but keep going. Secrecy was no longer a possibility, if it ever had been. Each side knew the other was there, and approximately where. Speed was now the imperative. They galloped on the few declines and flat curves.

  Noddy Toraca gave a long, low whistle. “Looks like we’re the practice dummies.”

  Hawkeye’s heart had begun to drum. They knew what the news really meant: instead of being an advance force, it was far too likely they were it, unless Tuft Sindan-An’s ten wings could reach them in time. This was unlikely, unless they learned how to race. They were several days’ ride behind. The Venn might be a week ahead, but could be less.

  “But the Venn are marching,” Noddy said, his thoughts paralleling Hawkeye’s. “That gives us some time, because we haven’t halted. We have to get us more time.”

  “By?”

  “Looking like more than we are.”

  Hawkeye grimaced. He had never been good at ruses. His fighting style had always been to fly into direct attack.

  Looked like he’d be doing that, all right—against the entire Venn army.

  But the less that army knew, the better.

  Noddy said, “What the Venn have to see when we meet is a mighty force.”

  “Right.” Hawkeye glanced back at their six wings and all the remounts. “If they know we’re this few they’ll run right over us.”

  Noddy had slewed round in the saddle. “Yes. We want them to halt. Plan. Rest up, even. Meanwhile. Every arrow that is aimed at something other than us doesn’t hit us.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” Hawkeye said, cracking a laugh despite the drumbeat of his heart. Strange, how he hated getting ready for a fight, but when the time came, well—

  Noddy whistled between his teeth, thumb hooked into his sash as the other held the relaxed reins. Then he grunted. “How’s this? We’re the ones with all the extra horse gear. We’ll armor all the horses. Not just those forward. Get all the remounts behind, say, the first five lines of lancers. That’s half of us. Scatter the rest of our men through the rest, to shoot, yell, move around. The boys give us their fighting tunics, we stuff ’em with straw. We brought plenty of it. We’ll wear our grays over our chain mail. We put the extra helms on the straw riders, helms on the ones in back.”

  “You mean, you and me’re gonna lead ten or fifteen wings of straw men?” Hawkeye cracked another laugh.

  “Twenty wings of lancers,” Noddy corrected, blank as always in tone, expression. “More, if we’ve got enough clothes to stuff. They only have to look convincing in the front.”

  “We’ll be sure to insist we go into the songs as Captain Hay and Commander Grass. Hah!” The echo ricocheted back like a clap.

  “But first, I’m going to write me some letters,” Noddy said and to Hawkeye’s amazement, he fumbled in his pack, produced pen and paper, swung a leg up and crooked his knee over the horse’s shoulder to make a rough-and-ready desk, then got right to it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  IN the officers’ mess, Evred found Inda seated at the table, hands busy fletching an arrow. As soon as Evred dropped onto a seating mat, there was a movement in the shadows beyond the single lamp’s circle, and Taumad appeared, a tray balanced on each hand.

  “Everyone is at other tasks, and Nightingale is sleeping,” Tau said to Inda. “So I took dinner duty.” He swung the trays to the table with an elegant air.

  Inda gave him an abstracted glance. Why did Tau have a red mark on his cheek, or was that the lamplight? “Good. Listen, Tau, what about that battle-tunic? The red one? Is it done, or should I finish it up tonight?”

  “I finished it this afternoon.” Tau set bowls and spoons out for two. “Before we Runners had a meeting. Vedrid scarcely left me anything to do but some edging work.”

  “Two places? Aren’t you eating?” Inda asked, rummaging through the canvas bag on his lap for another feather.

  “Ate with the day watch,” Tau responded, unloading last the shallow cups and setting them down.

  He served smoothly and quietly, the way Evred’s mother’s Adrani servants had. Evred had never particularly liked Adrani custom, but having grown up with it, he had discovered that he didn’t care for food to be thumped down onto the table the way most Marlovan Runners did it. This night he found Tau’s skilled efficiency oddly soothing, though ordinarily Tau’s presence was distracting, sometimes disturbing. Even in his blue coat, with his hair queued back exactly like the other Runners, he seemed to be playing at being a Runner. Nothing could hide the way he spoke and moved so at variance with the others. Though it seemed disgustingly fanciful, and Evred would never have said the words aloud, Taumad’s presence among the other Runners was like a golden Nelkereth charger among the sturdy workhorses of the north.

  Evred had known better than to watch him fighting with Inda.

  Inda finished the arrow, added it to the pile on the table, then stared sightlessly at the food.

  “We don’t have enough arrows?” Evred asked him.

  Inda grunted, blinked. “Yes. No. I don’t know. It gives me something to do with my hands, d’you see? Though I thought after we eat, I’d write letters.” He said it somewhat shamefacedly, as though he’d committed an error in referring even obliquely to the possibility of his own death.

  Evred sustained the usual grip of fear at the idea of Inda’s death, but he’d gotten used to that by now. “It’s a good idea,” he said. “However, do you—” He wished they were alone, but knew the wish unworthy. Taumad had proved his trust: not just by saving Evred’s life, but by the fact that no one seemed to have heard about it afterward. Not even Inda, who was worse at dissembling than the academy boys they once were. So he squared to the question. “This matter of the restored magic on the lockets. Do you know what Dag Signi is doing right now?”

  Inda had begun eating in his absent way. He dropped his biscuit onto the plate and thumped his elbow on the table so he could regard Evred with that direct, searching gaze Evred had to brace inwardly to meet.

  “Why don’t you trust her?” Inda asked. “Is it magic, or is it her being a Venn?”

  Tau poured out the light ale that was scarcely more potent than the root brew Inda had drunk as a boy. Inda seldom drank more than half a glass of wine, but many of the Runners had not noticed. Evred had become aware of that himself only toward the end of their cross-country ride. Inda never said anything at all about food or drink. He just ate and drank what was put in front of him, or went without if he didn’t like it.

  Inda scarcely waited until Tau had finished pouring. Evred noticed Tau’s long, beautiful hands were marked with red, and one bore a thin, puckered red line across the back.

  From hands to face. Tau’s profile was absorbed, as t
hough his thoughts were at a far remove, though Evred suspected that was part of his role-playing.

  The distraction had become a silence. Evred forced himself back to the irritating question that Inda had a right to ask.

  Still, he waited until Tau picked up the empty bowl of cabbage slurry and bore it away. Then Evred said, “It’s both.” And, unwillingly forced the words out, “At night. Alone. It’s so easy to see the worst. Over and over.” In a low rush, “The older I get the better I understand my uncle. Not condone, but comprehend. You cannot be taken by surprise, you must imagine every contingency, and conspiracy is so very easy to envision. And then to believe. Because it does happen.”

  Under Inda’s unwavering regard he busied himself with a biscuit he didn’t want to eat. His stomach had closed.

  “You’re not like your uncle,” Inda said after a pause. And when Evred half raised a hand, as if pushing the words away, Inda dropped that subject. “Signi won’t do anything against us. Against her own people either. Against that damned Erkric, maybe.” He waited, and when Evred didn’t answer, Inda did not consider why. He grabbed up his spoon and shoveled slurry in as though he’d just discovered he was hungry.

  “You too?”

  Runner-in-training Goatkick Noth sat back in the saddle, surprised to discover two of his mates at the cook wagon, which creaked and rolled along.

  “Here. You as well? What’s going on up front?” asked the runner driving the cook wagon.

  “It’s Toraca,” one of the boys snarled so ferociously his voice broke into a squeak. “He’s gone mad.”

  “Probably gone rabbit,” Goatkick sneered.

  “Yeee-aaaa-hhhh,” the third drew the word out. “Rabbit. So now he has to write Armband letters to everybody and his uncle, and we don’t wait for the battle to end, we have to take them now.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Here came the fourth. He threw his arms out wide, one hand clutching a rolled paper. “He has to write to his old mother now?”