Caris cast a sullen glare after Willard. With the aid of Idgit, she’d recovered her composure. With a farewell pat on Idgit’s neck, she stumped back to camp and picked up an axe in one hand. She didn’t meet Harric’s eyes as she followed the old knight, but Harric recognized hurt and disillusionment in her eyes.
Picking up the remaining axe, he followed Caris.
They caught up to Willard when he paused in a grove of slender ash some sixty paces into the trees. Willard had marked several trunks for lances, and pointed out the features he sought in the wood. “Best if it’s straight from the start, and you need to watch for broken limbs that might make a weak spot in the core. Ideally, we’d take them at the end of winter before the sap softens them up.” He frowned. “These green summer poles will be too heavy and soft by a long measure. That’ll have to do for now.”
Harric and Caris felled and stripped the trees Willard marked, and he demonstrated how to hollow the grip and leave a generous counterweight at the butt.
Caris would not meet Harric’s eye, but she worked diligently, if violently, with the axe.
They had nearly finished a second lance when the old knight stiffened. He laid a hand on Caris’s shoulder to still her. “Hush!” He strained, listening. Willard turned north toward Abellia’s tower and froze. Then he cursed. “Hounds,” he said. “They’ve found us.”
In the end, they remember who won, never how. Be sure you win, and let history take care of the rest. You’ll be surprised when you hear the ballads, how honorably you fought.
—Attributed to Sir Gregan Lamour, or to Sir Willard, during the Cleansing
20
Of Sense & Stratagems
Harric heard nothing but the rattle of the brook in the meadow and the distant sigh of a breeze in the fire-cones atop the ridge. But ballads were sung of Old Ones who heard as well as any rabbit.
“They have hounds?” Harric whispered. “Where are they coming from? Bannus’s pass?”
Willard was already striding through the saplings toward the meadow. “No.” He gestured to Abellia’s tower. “From the north, over the ridge. Bring the lance staves.”
After scooping up the lances, Harric and Caris hurried after Willard. They emerged into the meadow and crossed to Kogan’s weeping willow, where the priest lay flat on his back inside the curtain of branches, snoring like a bear. The fog had scudded up over the ridge, leaving only light wisps where the forest bordered the meadow, and in the fire-cones on the ridge above. Willard stormed up to the sleeping priest and kicked him soundly in the side. “Get up, you stinking clod! They must have caught your scent from the next valley over.”
The lilt of the dogs grew louder on the ridge, and a horn echoed through the fire-cones.
The priest’s eyes opened and he sat bolt upright. “Hounds!”
Willard was already adjusting the stirrups on Idgit’s saddle. He measured the pasture with his eyes, as if judging whether he could get to Molly before the dogs were on them.
“Wait! I’m not caught without these again,” Brolli said, as he retrieved the bulging bandolier of Kwendi hurling-globes from the packs. Altogether, the ten or so globes probably weighed as much as Willard’s armor, each solid iron or witch-silver and big as the fattest apple. “Now go!” he said, as he slung them over his shoulder. “Ride to the tower for your Molly! We hide till you return.”
“Too late,” Willard said. “Can’t you hear them? A company of heavy horse rides with those hounds. Wouldn’t make the middle switchback before they burst upon me. Girl! My lance! Moons, I’ve no shield. No matter—shorten the lances. Cut an arm and a half off the tips.”
“Both lances?” said Harric.
“Both! And be quick!”
“You’re going to fight?” said Caris, as she and Harric laid into the poles with the axes. “On Idgit?”
“Do I have a choice?” Willard growled. “Make the ends of the shafts flat. And hurry it. I want to be waiting for them in the open when they arrive.”
The priest grinned. “I always like a good fight in the morning time. If you can knock ’em down, Will, I can do the rest.”
“You’d better,” Willard said. “Knocking them down is about all I can manage.” He heaved himself up into Idgit’s saddle, and the good-natured pony sighed loudly.
Kogan seemed to notice Idgit for the first time, and his face crumpled in a frown. “Ye look like a couple-a fat lords a-pig-a-back, Will. If ye don’t knock ’em down, they’ll fall laughing.”
“Just keep your beard hole shut when they come. I’ll do the talking.”
“You aim to talk to ’em?”
“Shut your noise so I can think!”
Harric finished his lance first and hoisted it to Willard, who gripped it easily with one huge hand and scanned the gentle bowl of the meadow. From its head at the base of the switchbacks, to its foot at the edge of the trees, the meadow sloped gently downhill about two hundred paces, each side bordered by rock escarpments. The road ran more or less straight down its middle, with Kogan’s willow in the center of all.
Willard nodded, as if he’d come to a decision. “Kogan and I will stay here at the willow to meet them. The rest retreat to the foot of the meadow and hide in the trees on either side of the road. Once our enemies descend the switchbacks, I’ll hail them. Code of Honor requires they halt and speak, at which time Kogan will keep his noise shut.” He glared at the priest, who flashed a crack-toothed grin. “There will be no heroics from you, girl,” said Willard. “Not without armor. Understand?”
Caris returned her mentor’s gaze with fierce intensity. She nodded, but Harric could see in her eyes the determination to fight.
Brolli’s brow furrowed. “Then what? Tell me what you plan.”
“I’ll stay here in the field and meet them,” Willard replied. “With luck, they won’t have lances and I can talk them off. If they have lances, they will want to try me. My advantage is this: I’ll don my helm so they can’t see any tint of the Blood. They’ll see the paunch of my armor and think I’m still mortal and vulnerable—all the more since I’m not on a proper horse.”
Willard’s mouth twitched into a smile that sent a shiver down Harric’s spine. The shadow of something cold and cruel passed behind the violet eyes. “Molly’s absence will make them overconfident and greedy for fame. Instead of mobbing me, they’ll want to try me honorably, one at a time, for a chance to say they unhorsed me. That’s worth more than a knighthood to some. And as long as I can bluff them that way, one at a time, I can thin their ranks before they realize their error.”
“All the same, Will…how you gonna fight?” Kogan asked it almost timidly, as if embarrassed by his own doubts. “I love a fight as much as anyone, you know that. But you got no shield and no point on your spear, and you’re riding a pony.”
“We could run,” Harric suggested.
“They’ve hounds, boy,” said Willard. “And believe it or not, Idgit’s war-trained. Yes, trained,” he repeated, at the priest’s incredulous look. “How else could I get her used to Molly?”
“But she won’t take the shock of two lances striking at once, Will,” Kogan said. “She’ll buckle down flat.”
For the first time in many days, Willard grinned. Great, square ragleaf-stained teeth in a stained mustachio. “Who said anything about the shock of two lances? Only one will strike home.”
Willard donned his helm and turned Idgit toward the pasture.
The priest blinked, then grinned. “Oh! That means he’s gonna cheat. Had me worried, Will. Thought you was going to prate about honor and such.”
Willard urged Idgit into a trot. “If things go bad, hook back through the trees to get to the tower. You’ll be safe there.”
The dogs grew loud on the ridge above. At any moment, Harric expected them to emerge from the fire-cone trunks below the tower. He hoped Mudruffle’s clay ears were clear enough to hear the hounds approaching, and that he had enough time to totter back to the tower and bar the door. Abelli
a would probably be too depressed to notice them, and too slow to descend the stairs in time to bar it herself.
“Hide in the trees, Brolli,” said Willard, “and don’t let them see you, no matter what happens. Remember, they’d like nothing more than to slay you in order to sabotage the Queen’s chance for a treaty with your people. They’ll all want a shot at you.”
The ambassador was already speeding away with his peculiar foot-and-knuckle lope, satchel of hurling-globes slung before him. Harric cast a worried glance at Caris as they sprinted, axes in hand, after Brolli. She pursed her brow in concentration as she studied the eaves of the forest ahead.
“No heroics, right?” he said between breaths.
She cast him a look of exasperation. “I’m not planning anything stupid, if that’s what you mean. But it’s going to take heroics to survive this.”
Harric grimaced. She was right.
How the moons did Willard let this happen? By walking to the meadow without Molly, he’d exposed his rear, exposed them all, when he knew an enemy might be near. Supposedly a great tactician, Willard had put them in a terrible situation.
As they neared the trees at the foot of the meadow, dewy grass soaking their breeches to the knees, Harric wondered if the Blood had affected Willard’s judgment. Did immortality make him arrogant and overconfident? Maybe this was a side effect of the Blood. Or was there a reason he hadn’t ridden Molly so soon after drinking from her veins? Maybe she was unmanageable so soon after a cut. Or maybe he was unmanageable when he rode her so soon after a cut, and he’d simply miscalculated the risk of enemies traveling through fog.
Harric caught a grim glance from Brolli as the Kwendi’s pace slowed and he fell back to lope beside him. Brolli’s sack of hurling-globes had gone dark with moisture from the grass.
One thing was certain: if they survived this blunder, they’d not make this mistake again.
By the time they finally plunged into the trees, Harric’s legs had become sandbags, and his lungs burned like he’d run through resin fires.
“There!” Brolli pointed to a boulder the size of a carriage on the left side of the road, only sixty paces from the edge of the meadow. “Make cover there! I go up!”
As Harric and Caris veered left to hide behind the boulder, Brolli veered right and flew up a huge grandfather spoke-limb on the opposite side of the road. The ancient tree rose some seventy feet above the smaller ash and hazel, its thick limbs overspreading the road and shading out taller trees. Brolli ascended the tree with the grace of a squirrel and as quickly as he had moved across the ground.
When he appeared above, he crouched upon a stout limb directly above the road, his long-fingered feet gripping the limb. He used one hand to steady himself on a limb above, while in the other he cradled an iron shot the size of a melon. “Hide there,” he called. “And as soon as you can, run back to the tower.”
“We aren’t leaving,” Caris said. “You need us.”
“No heroics!” said Brolli. “Remember what Willard says.”
“I remember,” said Caris. “But he didn’t say no helping.”
Brolli glared at Harric for support, but Harric shrugged. “She may have a point. We have a drunk priest, a broken immortal, and a lonely Kwendi. Why not a pair of unarmored apprentices?”
Brolli made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “Then stay hidden as long as possible. Surprise is your best weapon. Trees are your armor.”
When I die, one hundred balladeers will starve, and so I’ll be revenged on their breed.
—Sir Willard, upon learning the balladeer Vitus Troth had compiled 100 Sir Willard ballads in a folio “cycle.”
21
On Bad Endings
Willard waited upon Idgit in the middle of the road in the middle of the meadow beside the weeping willow. Hounds bayed in the fire-cone grove above, eager tenors ringing from the trees. Hoofbeats thrummed and echoed like an approaching storm from the north. No fewer than eight horsemen, by the sound of it.
A dull dread pressed on Willard’s chest. If Sir Bannus were among them, this was the end. He did not fear death the way he once had when he’d first stopped taking the Blood. But it hurt to know that Anna would learn from someone else that he’d broken his oath to grow old with her and die.
If Bannus appeared at the top of the switchbacks, Willard’s plan was simple: he would turn Idgit around and ride to tell Brolli and the others to hide while he drew Bannus and his knights away down the road. As soon as they passed, they must flee to the safety of the tower. Of course, after that, Gygon would catch Idgit easily, and Willard was no match for Bannus after only three draughts of the Blood. So Willard would end it before Bannus could stop him. A quick cut, a short bleed, and the Sir Willard cycle would finally end. He’d imagined it a thousand times. There was no other way.
How Bannus would rage when he realized his nemesis had cheated him of his long-imagined dream of a living trophy for his hall. Of a limbless Willard kept eternally alive with the Blood. How he would howl of the craven, cheating Abominator.
We must sing our own ends, dear Bannus. I owe you nothing.
Nor would he allow Molly or Holly to fall into Bannus’s hands. He would instruct Kogan to take Belle in hand and behead the Phyros in their stalls. If necessary, Kogan and Caris could chain them first, or—
“Sounds like a whole pack of ’em, Will.” Kogan emerged through the curtain of weeping willow branches beside him. “Oughta be a ballad writ for this one, so we have to let one live to tell the tale.”
“Then I shall surely slay them all.”
“Har! Them’s that’s famous never appreciate it.” The priest’s big bare feet swatted the earth as he strode to Geraldine and grabbed a long-handled stake mallet from his gear. “Get up, girl!” he said, grabbing her nose ring and tugging her to her feet. “Run ye to the forest! Git! You don’t want no part of this.”
Geraldine snorted and lumbered only a few steps away, but Kogan swatted her backside until she heaved herself into a trot, rags of wool flapping like the fringe of a shaggy cloak. She kept up the trot until she reached the foot of the meadow, where she halted and looked back through wooly bangs. Apparently satisfied that he wouldn’t aggravate her further, she lay down heavily to watch and chew her cud.
Kogan ducked back through the fringe of willow branches.
“Where are you going, Kogan?” said Willard.
“Taking a safe lookout. Can’t stick an arrow in what you can’t see.”
“That is well.”
Willard moved Idgit forward until he found a view of the priest through a gap of willow branches. “If I should fail, Kogan, you must win your way to Molly. She must not fall into Bannus’s hands. Do you understand?”
Kogan had been climbing into a low crotch in the trunk of the tree. Now he froze, standing in the crook between branches. He gave Willard a crack-toothed grin and made a chopping motion at his neck. “I can do that.” Then he sat in the crook and swung his bare feet below it like a child on a bench. He was whistling “Heave-Ho Father” through his teeth.
Willard frowned. He would need the priest’s strong arms if the knights couldn’t be talked off, but Kogan was thick-headed and unpredictable, possibly as much trouble as he was help. “Kogan,” Willard said, putting a weight of seriousness in his tone. “Stay silent, and stay put till I call.”
“So you can hog the glory?” Kogan laughed. “I expect to hear my name in the title of this ballad.”
“This is grave,” said Willard. “Molly’s not here to help us. When it comes to the fight, there’ll be plenty to share, but I aim to soften their ranks first, and for that, you must do as I say.”
He could see the priest craning his neck for a view of the ridge through the curtain of willow stems. “Too bad it ain’t nighttime, eh, Will? If it was night, you’d have your night-hex a-workin’.”
Willard snorted. “Be glad it isn’t. Odds are just as good that it would strike you or me before it struck them
.”
Three hounds burst from the trees at the head of the ridge and halted at the crest, looking down over the gardens and switchbacks to the meadow. Upon seeing Willard, they plunged down the ridge, ignoring the switchbacks. A knight in flame-orange armor emerged on a chesty destrier from the fog and shadows of the fire-cones and reined in to gaze after the hounds. In one hand he steadied a long, orange-painted lance, which he rested in its stirrup cup; his shield bore no crest or markings.
The knight raised a horn to his lips and sounded a series of piercing high notes, then spurred his destrier down the switchbacks toward them. Knight after knight emerged from the fire-cones and followed, all in full armor with unmarked shields and bearing lances with a single green pennant.
Had it been Sir Bannus’s company, the pennants would be black.
Willard let out a long breath and smiled. No Bannus. He’d live another day, and maybe long enough to tell Anna himself of his oath. “Things are looking up,” he muttered.
Idgit’s ears swiveled back toward Willard, and she turned her head to look at him with a big, questioning eye.
“Trust me,” he said, with a reassuring pat. “Compared to Bannus, nine fresh knights with full armor and lances is a party.”
To his surprise, she snorted and pawed the grass as if restless to get things started. Willard smiled. It must have been Caris’s influence. He resisted the urge to crane about and look for her at the foot of the meadow, but wondered if she could even apply her horse-touched influence at such a distance. More likely, she’d fortified the mare’s fighting spirit before she left for the forest. Gods leave her, what a mighty force she and her horse-touched gifts could make of a mounted company. But no gift came without price, and with hers came that damned horse-touched oddness. And a knight of the court needed more than skill with horse and blade. His own life and banished-black armor proved that.
The Jack of Ruin Page 17