by Dave Duncan
affair remain known to as few persons as
possible. I trust, Cousin, that you will not feel
slighted if we board you in the Guards' quarters
at Bondhill for the immediate future?"
As Raider was bowing and spouting gratitude,
Wasp rubbed his eyes again and took another
look. No change. The center of the Forge now was
not the anvil, it was Raider. The same red
hair, fair skin, freckles, the same faded
jerkin and patched hose, and yet that lanky young
man burned brighter than any of the hearths did,
brighter than they ever could. He was Wasp's ward,
the center of Wasp's world, of the entire universe.
He mattered more than life itself. Spirits! This was
what it was like to be a Blade.
But there was another anomaly present. One
man seemed to glow with darkness, a sinister aura of
menace. He had not worn this shadow cloak a
few minutes ago, but apparently those Blade
instincts for danger to a ward did exist after all.
Wasp had them too. Now he knew what
Janvier experienced, but he was seeing the exact
reverse. He, also, could scent danger to his
ward, and the threat raising his hackles was King
Ambrose.
An hour or so later the newest Blade was
riding toward Blackwater with a full stomach and a
heavy heart. Although the quarter moon had risen,
it kept burrowing into silver clouds. Starkmoor
looked even bleaker than it did by day, with the
rocky tors appearing and disappearing like gray
ghosts. Bogs, lakes, and stony ground all
seemed much the same.
The road was too rough to allow any speed, and
Raider soon began complaining about all the
jockeying going on. Instinctively, Wasp was
trying to stay between his ward and Janvier's sword,
whereas Janvier wanted to keep Raider between himself
and Wasp. He did not trust Wasp, which was
wise of him. In the end they settled on
Janvier out in front with Raider behind him and
Wasp in the rear, where he could watch.
Back at Ironhall Commander
Montpurse had seen them off and wished them good
chance, but Commander Montpurse was most assuredly
nobody's fool. If he was not on their heels
himself, he had some good men close, no matter
what the King had ordered. Everyone was an enemy,
every rock an ambush. Wasp had never thought this
way before. He did not like it much, but there was nothing
he could do about it now. His ward was in danger--he
didn't know how or why, but that didn't matter.
There were no ethics to being a Blade. One of the first
things they taught the sopranos in Ironhall was
that a Blade had no moral choices to make.
Most of the time he was a good and peaceable citizen,
because to be otherwise might endanger his ward, but in
the face of danger he was ruthless. Ruthless it must
be.
When the light was good, Raider would let
Janvier draw ahead while he fell back
to chat with Wasp. He told some of the story that
Ambrose had not wanted to hear--how his father had
abducted his mother from her wedding and how he was thus the
King's second cousin, once removed.
"There's a huge collection of historic
weapons hanging on the walls of Cynehof--
Bearskinboots' helmet and Smeawine's
battle-ax and so on. Point to any item and the
scops will sing you its story. Whether they know it or
not. In among all this junk is a shoddy,
cheap-looking rapier. That's the one Gerard of
Waygarth used to kill Waerferh`ed. That's what
started all this. My father pointed it out to me and
told me that if it wasn't for that rapier, I
wouldn't be. I said, "Wouldn't be what,
Dad?"' and he said, "Wouldn't be at all.""
Very funny. Nothing, dangling at Wasp's
belt, was another rapier--at least he'd never have
to handle another lousy saber again! But Nothing would
have to earn her keep, and he suspected that very few
swords had ever faced quite such a career as she
did. If this bizarre instinct of his was correct,
no other Blade in history had ever faced a
potentially mortal threat as soon as he had,
right at the moment of his binding. Almost none of the
Royal Guard ever had cause to use his sword
in ten or more years' service. An instinct was
only a sort of hunch. Could he kill a man
on a hunch?
"Why did you stay so long?" he asked.
"Once you decided Geste was never coming back
to Ironhall for you, why not just go?"
Raider shrugged. "Go to what? I had no
family left that I cared about. You and the others were
my friends. I had friends back in Baelmark, of
course--but I also had enemies, and no obvious
way of getting there. True, I was stealing the
world's finest training in swordsmanship from King
Ambrose, but we barbarians never worry much
about theft from foreigners. I had no cause to go
home until I was old enough to think of asserting my
rights."
"You can certainly do that now."
"Can I? I suppose with a good sword I can
handle any Bael in the world now, one on one.
But, Wasp my buddy, truly Baelmark is not
a snake pit where men kill each other all day
long. It has laws. Different, but not
necessarily less civilized. The tricks
Ironhall has taught me won't let me
march in and slaughter every man who stands between me and the
throne. And you are going to be a mountain of a
problem."
They rode on for a few minutes in the dark and the
wind, tackle jingling, horseshoes clinking on
stones.
Finally Wasp said glumly, "I was hoping
to be an answer."
"Don't misunderstand me--I'm sure you are a
terrific answer to the right sort of question and it's
wonderful to have you with me. I know we'll have great
times together. But suppose I become a thegn and
challenge the tanist. Can you stand aside and watch
me fight a duel?"
Wasp supposed. He bit back a scream.
"No! No! You mustn't!"
"See?" Raider said. "Thegn, ship lord,
tanist, earl, king--that's the road, and there are no
shortcuts. I don't see how I can ever try
to claim the throne with you around. I wonder if that's
why King Ambrose decided to deed me a
Blade?"
"May have been one of his reasons." Anyone
who thought he understood that royal fox was madder
than a hare in Thirdmoon.
Just as the road descended into a shallow
valley, the moon peered out to see how they were
doing. They were almost at the Narby turnoff, which was
as far eastward as candidates were allowed to ride.
Of course, they all went on to Blackwater or
Narby itself at least once, just on principle, but
having no money they rarely had much
&nbs
p; success at getting into mischief.
Mischief? Somehow Wasp must get rid of
Janvier. Soon. For once he could almost
regret he was so much a rapier man. If he'd
been an all-rounder like Wolfbiter or
Fitzroy, or a woodchopper like Bullwhip,
Nothing would have had an edge as well as a point.
She didn't. She was subtle and lightning-fast
but she just could not hamstring a horse. Not in the
dark, anyway.
"It's almost dawn." Raider yawned
sensuously. "I don't know how you two stay so
bright."
Janvier heard that and looked around. "Because
we're Blades."
Wasp peered at him suspiciously. "You
mean we need less sleep?"
"We don't need sleep at all. We can
sleep, if we are quite certain our ward is
safe, but you never will. In the Guard we spell
one another off. The King very rarely appoints a
solitary Blade, you know. Twenty-four hours
a day, twelve and a half moons a year--you will
probably never sleep again, Sir Wasp."
He did not sound very sympathetic.
"What about the outhouse?" Raider asked.
Janvier laughed coarsely. "If there's
room for two, he'll be in there with you, at least
for the first few weeks. Solitary Blades often
go mad."
They had reached the stream and the moonlight was
fading fast. Wasp went first. His horse made
it safely down to the water and splashed its great
hooves across to the other side with no trouble, but the
far bank was undercut. He scouted downstream a
few yards until he found a better slope, but
even there the crumbling soil made for tricky
footing. He reined in at the top and called out a
warning.
He fidgeted like a mother with a newborn babe
until Raider had followed him safely. Then
came Janvier. As his horse scrambled up the
bank it stumbled. He was a fine horseman and
recovered instantly, but instantly was not quite fast enough
when dealing with Wasp. All the Ironhall
instructors had agreed that his footwork was
inelegant and his technique erratic and often
foolhardy, but that no one--maybe not even the great
Durendal himself--could top him for speed. The
fraction of an instant when Janvier
presented his left side to Wasp with his elbow
raised out of the way was time enough. For the second time
that night Nothing plunged into a human heart,
only this time not as part of a ritual. This time for
real.
There were precedents. It was inevitable that in the
three and a half centuries of the Order wards had
sometimes come into conflict, so Blade had slain
Blade. Those parts of the Litany were known as the
Horror Stories and seldom repeated.
Raider had not seen the crime. He heard the
scream of Janvier's horse, and when it shook
itself free of the corpse, he rode after it to catch
it. Dawn was not far off; already there was a
horizon. By the time he came back, Wasp had
stopped throwing up, but he still felt ready to die.
Murderer! Traitor! Brother killer! Not
even an honest fight--just an assassin's underhand
stab.
He had straightened out the body and relieved it
of its sword and scabbard. After agonizing over the
fancy ring on Janvier's finger, he took that
too. The Royal Guard was not paid enough to buy
expensive trinkets but it might be worth a few
crowns, especially if it was a gift from a
woman.
"How bad is he hurt?" Raider demanded,
sliding from his saddle.
"He's dead."
"No!"
"I killed him."
Raider stood in stunned silence for a moment,
then said faintly, "What?"
"I killed him. Ever since we left
Ironhall I've been ... he knew it.
Didn't you see how he was staying away from me?
Here."
He held out the dead man's sword. His ward
backed away, bumping into the horses.
"Take it!" Wasp yelled. "That's your
ticket back to Baelmark. And hurry, because
I'm mortally certain that Montpurse has sent
men after us, just to see if you do go to Bondhill."
"The King said--"
"Never mind what the King said! Montpurse
trusts you no more than Janvier did. The King
may have set this up with him anyway,
don't you see? Or without him, more likely, because
Montpurse wouldn't throw away a man." He
was shouting now. "So I may have fallen into a trap
and put you in worse danger than before. The King
is a sly, scheming rodent--and when he insisted
on sending you off with only one guide, he may have
hoped that this would happen, because now he can call you
an accomplice to murder. Come to think of it, in
law a ward is responsible for his Blade's
actions, so you're the culprit. Didn't you hear
him explaining how he wanted to keep you a
secret? Since when did Ambrose ever
explain his orders? He could guess
Montpurse would disregard--"
"Wasp! Wasp, stop! This is craziness!"
"So I'm crazy! It happens to solitary
Blades, remember?"
"Not in two hours it doesn't," Raider
protested. "Ambrose dealt with us more than
fairly, considering what we did to his pride.
He gave you a second chance, gave me a
Blade, hospitality in a palace. ... He
doesn't deed Blades to his enemies or--"
"Ambrose was lying!" Wasp screamed. "He
wasn't deeding a Blade when he gave me to you,
he was putting out the trash. He knows a lot more
than he said he did. The moment you refused to be
bound, he guessed who you were, remember? He
hailed you by name--Radgar. He called you the
missing atheling. But there was no missing atheling! You
burned to death with your parents five years ago.
Then he said he'd sent no Blades
to Baelmark with Candlefen--doesn't that make you
suspicious? He'll deed three Blades
to Bannerville when he goes to Fitain, but an
ambassador to wild, savage Baelmark
doesn't get any?" His voice cracked.
"Take this accursed sword and let's go before
Montpurse gets here."
Still Raider ignored the sword. "He was suing
for peace. It would have been a provocation to send
Blades."
"Yes it would, because your father had killed five
Blades, right? It's all there in the Litany,
the Massacre at Candlefen Park. But bound
Blades would be all right. They wouldn't
jeopardize their ward by causing trouble, so
Ambrose could have given the ambassador
Blades. If he didn't, it was probably
because he'd promised your father he wouldn't,
a condition of the negotiations. But a knight in the
Order, one with no ward to worry about--he's
free to think of revenge. He's far more
dangerous!
You must have thought of this!"
"Yes! Of course I've thought of it. I've
thought of it every day for more than five years. My father
was surprised when I told him there was a Blade
around. But Geste could not have slipped past the house
thegns on the door. The killer had to be someone
known and trusted--and if I hadn't been
fireproofed, no one would ever know there had been a
killer, remember? To the rest of the world it's still just
an accident." He shrugged. "You really think
Ambrose was playing a double game with me tonight?"
"I'm certain of it." Why were they standing here
chattering when the Guard was on its way?
"Take this accursed sword and let's go!"
Raider accepted it reluctantly, as if it
might jump at him. "This ought to hang in the
hall, Wasp."
Wasp exploded in fury, screaming as loud as
he could. "Burn the hall! Mount up!
Raider, Radgar--whatever you want to be
called, you bastard Bael, you're my ward now and
I'll give my life for you if I have to.
Mount! Mount now, burn you! I give you my
life as long as I live and I'll follow
wherever you go and be your watchdog and never sleep, but
when it's a matter of security, then I'm
master, understand? I don't care if you're rightful
king of Baelmark or the Emperor of
Skyrria's grandmother, you'll do as you're told
until then, and right now we have to get out of here."
He had made a fool of himself. For a painful
moment Raider just stared at him, then he put the
baldric on and adjusted the angle at which the
sword hung at his side. "Sorry. I
haven't quite adjusted to being a ward yet. You've
changed."
"I'll change a lot more if they cut my
head off. Mount."
"Shouldn't we hide the body? Drop it in a
bog? They may see it there when daylight comes."
"I want them to find it! Let's go."
"Wasp! You want them to find it? They'll be
after us like--"
Raider was never stupid. Why couldn't he
see? "No! No! No! If they miss it,
they'll just keep going to Blackwater and
Bondhill. But if they do find it,
they'll know we're certainly not going
to Bondhill, but they won't know what road
we've taken--Blackwater or Narby or
doubling back. It'll depend how many men
Montpurse sent. They'll have to get word back
to him, and they can't cover all the roads unless
there's at least six of them--but leaving the body where
it's sure to be found would normally make them