Tales of King's Blades 02 - Lord of The Fire Lands

by Dave Duncan

who lasted the full five years emerged as the

  finest swordsmen in the world, companions in the

  Loyal and Ancient Order of the King's

  Blades, every one as sharp and polished and deadly as

  the cat's-eye sword he was then privileged

  to wear. The King accepted about half of them into the

  Royal Guard and assigned the rest to ministers,

  relatives, courtiers, or anyone else he

  chose. To serve was an honor, and Grand Master

  turned away many more boys than he accepted.

  It was only four years since Lord

  Bannerville, the Chivian

  ambassador to Fitain, had bound Sir Spender

  as his third Blade. When Fitain had erupted

  in civil war, Spender and his two brother

  Blades, Sir Burl and Sir Dragon, had

  managed to smuggle their ward out of the chaos, but the

  latter two had died in the process. That morning

  Spender had Returned their swords.

  Standing in the hall under that baleful canopy of

  five thousand swords, the survivor told the

  story to the assembled candidates, masters, and

  knights. He said very little about his own part; but his

  limp, his pallor, and the jumpiness in his voice

  backed up the eye-popping stories of his

  injuries that had been whispered around beforehand.

  Everyone knew that a Blade defending his ward was

  harder to kill than a field of dandelions. But

  death was not impossible, and many of the juniors were

  openly sobbing by the end of the tale.

  The hero ate lunch in private with Grand

  Master and some other teachers. He wanted to leave

  right after the meal, but Master of Protocol

  persuaded him to stay and instruct the seniors on

  politics. Prime invited him to do so in the

  tower. Thus most of the seniors were in the tower that

  afternoon, which was why the Brat did not find them.

  Ironhall had never been a castle, but its

  wild moorland setting had inspired some

  long-forgotten builder to festoon parts of it with

  turrets, loopholes, and fake battlements.

  The most obvious of these follies was the tower whose

  attic served as the seniors' private lair.

  Generations of future Blades had idled in its

  squalor without ever having a single thought of cleaning

  or tidying. The furniture was in ruins and heaps

  of discarded clothes and miscellaneous clutter

  moldered in the corners. But by tradition--and

  everything in Ironhall ran on tradition--no

  one ever set foot up there except the seniors

  themselves--not Blades, not Grand Master, not even the

  King. No one had ever explained why any of those

  men should want to, but the invitation to Sir Spender

  was supposedly a great honor. It also kept

  Master of Protocol out.

  Wasp was the first to arrive, trotting up the

  stairs carrying a respectable ladder-back chair

  for the guest, which he placed in front of the

  fireplace. He rearranged a few of the

  other chairs to face it and then nabbed his favorite

  for himself, leaning back in its moldering excretions

  of stuffing to watch the others arrive. Fox appeared

  and made a dive for the second-best chair;

  Herrick led in six or seven more; then there was a

  pause while Sir Spender came up one step

  at a time, escorted by Prime. More seniors

  clattered up behind them, chattering like starlings. They

  draped themselves on tables or rickety stools,

  propped themselves against the walls, or just sprawled

  on the boards.

  "Flames and death!" the guest declaimed.

  "This place is still the same disgusting midden it was

  when I left. Have those windows ever been cleaned?"

  "Certainly not!" said Mallory, who was

  Second. "You can't break tradition that way in

  Ironhall!"

  "Those look like the same ashes in the hearth."

  "They're traditional ashes," said

  Victor, who fancied himself as a humorist.

  "And the cobwebs are priceless."

  Spender limped over to the fireplace to hunt

  for his signature, for all the paneling and the

  steeply pitched roof and even parts of the floor were

  inscribed with the names of former candidates. Wasp

  was written near the door, very small within an

  overlarge initial; and he had found two other

  Wasp inscriptions, although Master of Archives

  had records of only one Blade by that name, an

  undistinguished member of the Royal Guard back

  in the days of Everard III. The other must have been

  even earlier and spectacularly mediocre. It

  would be the third Wasp who made the name

  memorable!

  Herrick was very dark, Victor unusually

  blond, and Raider--who would not be coming--had hair

  as red as a Bael's; but with that trivial

  exception of coloring the seniors were as alike as

  brothers: all lean and agile, moving with the wary

  grace of jungle predators, neither too small

  to be dangerous nor too large to be nimble.

  Five years of constant effort, superb

  instruction, and in most cases a dash or two of

  conjuration had produced these fledgling Blades,

  awaiting only their master's call. Even their

  features seemed alike, with no extreme bat

  ears or crooked teeth. Wasp wondered if he

  was just noticing all this anew because Spender so

  obviously belonged there, an older brother come

  home to visit. Few Blades cared

  to remember any other home. Wasp was an

  exception there, but then he was exceptional in other

  ways too painful to think about.

  Raider hurtled up the stairs three at a

  time and strode over to flop down on the floor under

  the south window, putting his back against the wall and

  stretching out his long legs. He caught Wasp's

  eye and grinned at his surprise. Wasp rose

  and went to sit beside him, putting friendship ahead of

  comfort and provoking a minor tussle as three men

  simultaneously tried to claim the chair he had

  abandoned.

  "Thought you were drilling beansprouts in sabers?"

  Raider's emerald-green eyes twinkled.

  "I wrapped Dominic's leg around his neck

  until he offered to help me out." He was lying,

  of course. Giving the juniors fencing practice

  was never the most popular of assignments; but only

  Raider would rather listen to a talk on politics,

  even with the Order's latest hero doing the talking.

  Dominic would have agreed to the exchange very

  readily.

  The door slammed, then Fitzroy came

  clumping up the stair to announce that this was everyone.

  Wasp looked around and counted two dozen seniors

  present. Traditionally there should be less than that

  in the whole class, but the King had assigned

  only one Blade in seven months. Poor

  Wolfbiter had been twenty-one by the time he was

  bound last week. Bullwhip was twenty. The rest

  were all eighteen or nineteen, unless some of them were

  lyin
g about their ages--as Wasp was.

  As Prime, Bullwhip made a little speech.

  He was chunky by Blade standards, a slasher not a

  stabber--meaning saber not rapier--sandy-colored, the

  sort of man who would charitably be described as

  "stolid." He was certainly no orator.

  Spender thanked him, took the chair Wasp had

  brought, and began to talk politics,

  specifically politics that led to civil war.

  Master of Protocol and his assistants had the

  unenviable task of preparing the candidates for

  life at court. That included teaching them dancing,

  deportment, elocution, etiquette, some

  history, and a lot of politics. By their senior

  year it was almost all politics--taxes,

  Parliament, foreign affairs, the machinations of the

  great houses. Frenetically active and athletic

  young men would much rather be fencing or out riding on the

  moors than listening to any of that stuff,

  with the possible exception of the racy court scandals.

  At least Spender was a novelty and hence more

  interesting than the usual fare. The King of

  Fitain had lost control of his barons and failed

  to rally the burghers. Even kings needed allies.

  And so on. Twenty-four young faces made

  earnest efforts to seem attentive.

  Only Raider would not be faking, Wasp

  decided. Glancing sideways he saw that his friend

  was indeed very intent, nodding to himself as he listened.

  He had the strange perversion of finding politics

  interesting. He was probably the only man in the

  room who cared a snail's eyebrow about what had

  happened in Fitain. Everyone else just wanted

  to hear about the fighting and how it felt to keep on

  fighting when you knew you ought to be dead after having

  your thigh crushed and a sword run through you.

  The sky was blue beyond the dirty panes.

  Back in Wasp's beansprout days he had

  watched Lord Bannerville bind Spender.

  Dragon and Burl must have been there, attending their

  ward, but he could not remember what they had looked

  like.

  No one had thought to open the windows and the room

  held too many people; it was stuffy. Attentions were

  wandering.

  At the far side of the room, Herrick stifled

  a yawn.

  Suddenly Wasp's jaw took on a fearful

  life of its own. He struggled desperately, but

  the yawn escaped. That one Sir Spender

  noticed.

  Sir Spender exploded. "Smug young

  bastards!" he snapped. He heaved himself to his

  feet. "You don't give a spit about this, do you,

  any of you?" His already pale face had turned

  white as marble. "You don't think it matters!

  Doesn't concern you, any of you, does it?" He

  glared around the room, eyes flashing with fury,

  left hand steadying his scabbard as if he were about

  to draw. "You insufferably stuck-up unbearable

  latrine cleaners, all of you!"

  Twenty-four seniors stared up at him in

  horror. Wasp wanted to die. How could he have

  done that? Yawning! What a crass,

  imbecilic, childish thing to do!

  But Spender's rage was not just against him--it was

  directed at all of them. "I know what you're

  thinking!" He grew even louder. "You all think

  that the King takes the best for the Guard and

  it's only the failures he assigns as

  private Blades. Don't you? Don't you?

  Just nod!" he said, dropping his voice to a

  menacing growl. "If that's what you think, you young

  slobs, just nod once and I'll give you a

  fencing lesson with real swords. I'm a

  private Blade and proud of it. Burl and

  Dragon were my brothers and they're dead! They

  didn't rank second to anyone!"

  Wasp stared appealingly at Prime and so did

  everyone else. Say something! A week ago

  Wolfbiter had been Prime and Wolfbiter would

  have known exactly what to say. But Wolfbiter

  had gone, and in Bullwhip's case the sword was

  mightier than the tongue. He had straightened up

  off the wall, where he had been leaning. His mouth

  opened but no sound emerged.

  Spender had not finished. "You all think you're

  going into the Guard, don't you? Nothing but the best!

  Well, I tell you being a private Blade

  is a thousand times harder than lounging around the

  palace with a hundred others. It's a full-time

  job. It's a lifetime job! None of this

  ten-years-and-then-dubbed-knight-and-retire

  nonsense. We serve till we die! Or our

  ward does."

  Bullwhip's freckled, meaty face remained

  locked in an agony of embarrassment.

  Mallory, who was Second, seemed equally

  frozen, unwilling to upstage his leader--good

  manners but not good sense when a hero started having

  hysterics.

  Wasp jabbed an elbow in Raider's ribs.

  "Say something!" he whispered.

  "Hmm? All right." Raider flowed to his

  feet, unfolding like a flail. He was third in

  line, after Mallory. He also stood almost a hand

  taller than any other man in the school, long and

  lean; with that copper-red hair and green-green

  eyes he was never inconspicuous. Everyone

  looked, including Spender.

  "With respect, sir, I certainly do not

  believe that. I doubt if anyone here does.

  Wolfbiter is the finest fencer Ironhall has

  produced since Sir Durendal and just a few

  days ago we all saw him being bound as a

  private Blade. He put all of us to shame

  with steel, yet the King assigned him to someone

  else, not the Guard."

  Twenty-three throats made earnest

  sounds of agreement.

  "In fact," Raider added, perhaps hoping

  to change the subject, "he assigned him to Sir

  Durendal and none of us can imagine why."

  Spender stared at him in silence for a moment. His

  color flamed swiftly from its corpselike

  white to brilliant red. Wasp relaxed.

  Everyone did. They had been taught that pallor

  was the danger sign. Blushing meant apology or

  bluff. The hero sank down on his chair again.

  "I'm sorry," he muttered. "Sorry,

  sorry, sorry!" He doubled over.

  Bullwhip waved hands at the stair, meaning

  everyone should leave. Raider made contradictory

  signs--stay where you are!--and everyone stayed.

  No one ever argued with Raider, not because he was

  dangerous but because he was always right.

  "Sir Spender," he said, "we are sorry

  to see you distressed, but you should know that we continue

  to admire you enormously and always will. We are

  proud to know you, and when we become Blades ourselves

  we shall be inspired by your example and what you and your

  two companions achieved. We think no less of

  you for being human."

  Nobody breathed.

  "The last entries in the Litany," Raider

  continued, "were made two years ago during the

  Nythia
n War. Sir Durendal saved the

  King's life outside Waterby. He defeated

  a team of four assassins single-handed and did not

  suffer a scratch. I mean no disrespect to him,

  Sir Spender, but he is so close to a legend

  that he hardly seems human. You inspire me.

  He makes me feel horribly inadequate.

  Your example means much more to me than his does,

  and that is because I know that you are flesh and blood, as

  I am." Nobody else could have taken over from

  Prime without giving offense, but Bullwhip was

  beaming gratefully.

  The Blade looked up and stared at Raider.

  Then he straightened and wiped his cheeks with a

  knuckle. "Thank you. That was quite a speech. It

  means a lot to me. I'm afraid I've

  forgotten which one ..."

  "Raider, sir."

  "Thank you, Raider." Suddenly Spender was

  in charge of the room again, sustained by the four or

  five years he had on all of them. "Sorry

  I lost my temper." He smiled ruefully,

  looking around. "Blame the King. He

  ordered me to come here and Return the swords. I

  shouldn't have let old weasel-tongue Protocol

  talk me into staying on. I haven't been away

  from my ward since the night I was bound. Commander

  Montpurse gave me his solemn oath that he

  would assign four men to keep watch over His

  Lordship day and night until I get back, but

  it isn't the same. And after what happened in

  Fitain, I'm extra sensitive. It's

  driving me crazy!" He smiled at their

  horrified expressions. "You didn't think being

  a Blade was easy, did you? You don't care

  about rebellion and civil war. Why should you? It

  isn't going to happen here in Chivial. And I

  need to be with my ward. So, if you'll excuse

  me now, I'll be on my way. The moon will

  see me back to Grandon." He was talking of an

  all-night ride and he looked exhausted already.

  When Bullwhip tried to speak, Spender

  stopped him. "You have other things to attend to. I

  promised not to warn you, but in return for the honor

  you have done me, I will. The King is on his way.

  He should be here very shortly."

  Raider spun around but not before Wasp was on his

  feet and looking out the window. Horsemen in blue

  livery were riding in the gate.

  "He is!" Wasp screamed. "He's here!

  The King is here!"

  His voice cracked on the high note. He

  turned around to face the glares of a dozen men who

  wanted to murder him on the spot.

  By tradition--and tradition was law in