His Own Good Sword (The Cymeriad #1)

by Amanda McCrina

  It was a dizzying blur after that. Tyren left the wall, drew his sword and went running down the steps into the yard, into the thick of it, and for a little while he could think of nothing but each moment in itself, each sword stroke to be dealt and each blow to be dodged. Distantly, through the din of incomprehensible voices and clattering steel all round him, he heard someone shouting for him, shouting his name. He turned, trying to pick out the shouter from the flowing tide of bodies, and found himself face-to-face with a Cesino, sword raised for the death blow—had only the time to stumble backward a little before Aino was there, swinging his own blade, a swift, fluid motion back and forth, so quick Tyren couldn’t really even see the steel, just a flash of red-tinged light. The rebel fell forward to his knees and then face-down onto the ground. Tyren looked up hurriedly and dumbly into Aino’s face, saw the tight grin there, the acknowledgment. Then Aino was gone again, back into the blur.

  Eventually the Cesini fell back, out through the ruined gate, some of them taking up shields from his own fallen men to cover their retreat. The dull roar in his ears quieted, slowly. He could make sense of the sounds trickling into his head: the moans of the wounded, Aino’s hoarsely shouted orders. He put the tip of his sword down into the ground and leaned on the pommel a moment to catch his breath, blinking sweat out of his eyes, wiping it from his face with one hand. Then he pushed himself up and looked round. He was standing in the middle of the yard, on the little gravel path running from the gate to the headquarters steps. There were wounded and dead all round him, his men and Mægo’s both. The gravel beneath his boots was sticky, black with blood. He pulled his sword from the ground and bent down stiffly to clean off the blade on the tunic of a dead Cesino. He sheathed it when he was done and straightened again and started picking his way across the yard to go back up onto the wall.

  The Cesini had retreated down the fort road to the common and were holding their ground there. From the gate-house he could see Mægo and Magryn moving among them, speaking to them, rousing them again. He couldn’t hear the words but he could hear how the mob responded to them: the same roaring shouts, the cheers. Their appetites had been whetted now. The earlier coldness, forgotten in the heat of the fighting, spread through him again, closed round his heart. You thought that would end it, fool? It’ll take more than a quick sally under the gate to end this thing now.

  Aino came up beside him.

  “I owe you for earlier,” Tyren said.

  Aino shook his head and smiled. “It was nothing, sir.”

  “What are our losses?”

  “Five dead. Seven wounded, sir, three of them badly.”

  He was silent a moment. “How many would you say are still fully fit for duty?”

  “Altogether, sir? Forty men. No more than that.”

  “We’ll have to get word to Rien.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Pick out a messenger. I want him prepared to ride soon as we’ve the cover of darkness.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He said, “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  Aino paused to look back at him. His face was blank. “Yes, sir,” he said. “Thank you, sir.”

  Tyren directed his attention back to the common when Aino had gone. There was new movement on the Rien road, horsemen and men on foot coming down to the common from the northern slope. Cesini from the hill country all round—Mægo had sent out the summons and they’d come to answer it. He watched the newcomers with a dryness in his mouth, a painful emptiness hollowed out deep inside him. He might have prevented this, might have ended it that day at Muryn’s. Except he didn’t fight like that, did he? As Verio would have fought—loosing the sword of Imperial justice against farm folk and wounded men. No matter it meant eleven of his own men dead in this place, and more tonight or tomorrow or the day after, until the last of them had gone down into the black earth—no, he didn’t fight like that.

  * * *

  More Cesini streamed onto the common all the rest of that day, while his own men worked to repair the gate: one man or two or three on foot, or sometimes larger groups of mounted men, most of them garbed only in their plain wool farmers’ tunics but some of them in scraps of ancient harness, carrying whatever weapons they’d managed to take up in a moment’s notice from their homes. By nightfall, when he gave the letter to his rider and sent him out to skirt round the village northward to the Rien road, the common was lit all over with cook-fires and the smoke and the smell of roasting meat were drifting over the gate-wall.

  He half expected the next attack would come down soon as it was full dark, the way the attack on the storehouses had come, and he posted a double guard at the rear wall as well as on the gate in anticipation of that, requesting a report from each wall at every quarter hour. Their own evening meal was quick, cold, eaten where they stood. The men were tense, restless, fingering their weapons and saying little. The hours dragged on very slowly. He didn’t go to his quarters, didn’t allow himself that comfort. He sat in the gate-house with the men of the watch, his sword unsheathed beside him, his cape wrapped tight about him against the night chill. His thoughts were heavy, dark. Doubt had been gnawing away at him all evening now. Too many of them, too many Cesini. And Mægo was right. He was counting too much on the technical advantage of armor, of weapons, counting too much on all those fool Choiro drills. This was Cesino land, Cesino ground. For them this was something intimate, something vital, almost holy. It meant nothing to him. A name on a map. Foolish to think his better armor and weapons would be enough to counter their zeal, their fervor.

  Aino was standing before him and saluting. “Everything’s quiet on the rear wall, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Tyren said.

  Aino saluted again and turned on one heel to go, but Tyren said, “Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Sit a moment, Lieutenant.”

  Aino sat down obediently beside him, settling his back against the wall, crossing his legs under him.

  “Yes, sir?” he said again.

  Tyren spoke in a quiet voice, a dead voice, so the words wouldn’t carry to the guardsmen. “He swore to me he’d grant us safe passage to Rien if I surrendered the fort to him.”

  “Sarre did, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  Aino said, “I take it you refused him, sir.”

  Tyren leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He jerked his chin up, sharply.

  “I—wouldn’t consider it, earlier. But now—now I wonder if that was foolishness on my part. Maybe I should have accepted it. For the sake of the men, Aino, maybe I should have accepted it. He outnumbers us, has us cut off. Four days until Rien can be here, and his numbers will grow all that time.”

  Aino was silent so long Tyren opened his eyes again to look at him.

  “You think I should have accepted it,” he said.

  “I think that’s the best Sarre might have hoped for, sir,” said Aino.

  “Then you think he’d have broken his word.”

  “Easy enough to fall on us once we were out on the open road, sir.”

  “Maybe that was his intention. Maybe. I don’t know. I can guess. But if I guess wrongly, Aino—if I guess wrongly it’ll be blood spilled for nothing.”

  Aino shook his head. “I don’t think you’ll need to regret your decision, sir. His numbers are greater, maybe. But he’s their leader, their lifeblood. Without him they’re nothing. They’ll break if he’s taken down—at least for a little while, time enough for us to gather our strength and prepare a real offensive, now they’ve declared themselves openly. And if we can’t take him down—we can last four days as we are, sir. If they stir too much Carent will get wind of it. We’ll last, sir.”

  Tyren said nothing for a while.

  “You’re from this mountain country, Aino?” he said, at length, to let some distraction ease his thoughts.

  He saw Aino smile in the torch-light.

  “No, sir. I was born in Rien.”

  “
Tell me about your family.”

  “Dead, sir. When I was young. There was sickness in the city.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Aino’s voice was steady. “I was too young to know them, sir. It’s no matter.”

  “You’d kin to take you in?”

  “My mother’s kin, for a while. They never thought much of me. Too many mouths of their own to feed.”

  “So that’s why you joined up.”

  “Yes, sir. It seemed better than scraping up some living in the streets, sir. I was glad enough to leave Rien at the time.”

  Tyren said, sourly, “To leave Rien so you might come and die in Souvin, Aino?”

  Aino smiled again. “The governor’s son left Vessy to come to Souvin, sir, so I was told.”

  “I had my reasons for it. Or I thought I’d reason for it.”

  “Maybe I had my own reasons, sir,” said Aino.

  * * *

  Mægo didn’t make another move that night. Instead, in the morning, he’d ridden back with Magryn to the near end of the common, was looking up to the gate-wall and waiting.

  Tyren rode out again on the fort road to meet them.

  “You’ve changed your mind about the need for words?” he said coldly as he reined Risun up.

  “I’ve come to repeat my offer,” said Mægo.

  “I remember it well enough.”

  “Listen to me, Risto. There’s no need for this, you know that. End it now and save the lives of your men.”

  “We pushed you back yesterday. We can do it again.”

  “Maybe,” said Mægo. “Maybe, for a little while.”

  “In four days you’ll be dealing with Rien, not just with me.”

  “You think Rien’s coming save you?”

  Tyren lifted his chin. “They’ll have word of your night raid by now, word of this attack by tomorrow. You don’t have enough time, Sarre.”

  Mægo was still as a statue a moment. Then, unhurriedly, he dropped his left shoulder and reached to open the flap of his saddlebag, not taking his eyes from Tyren’s. He took out a bundle of papyrus sheets and held them up so Tyren could see the broken seals. Then he let them fall to the ground.

  “Don’t be a fool, Risto,” he said. “I told you I held the road.”

  The silence that followed seemed to stretch to the furthest ends of the earth. Tyren looked down at the papyrus scattered in the mud and said nothing, tried to show nothing in his face, to hide the sudden dry-mouthed fear. Tried to think calmly, coherently. But the earlier doubt sprang up again inside him, with renewed vigor. So Rien wouldn’t come, or they’d come too late. Surely Mægo was right, then, and Aino wrong: foolishness to take this further. No reason save duty to take this further now.

  But what was there save duty, after all? He’d thrown it away once already, hoping for peace. What had that accomplished? Nothing except that Verio was dead and Mægo alive. They’d found him out, Mægo and the priest. They knew he’d hand over the fort. They knew he’d lead his men to slaughter on the Rien road. He’d do anything they asked, willingly, without question, so long as he thought there was the least chance of peace in the end. They knew it and he knew it. Because he was weak, just as Verio thought—because he was too much a coward to do what must be done, because he was the only one blind enough, stupid enough to believe there might actually be peace in this place.

  He looked back up to Mægo and shook his head. “My only foolishness is that I didn’t end your life when I first had the chance, Sarre. I won’t surrender the fort.”

  “Then you’re the one throwing lives away,” said Mægo.

  He ignored that. He turned Risun to ride back down the fort road. He dismounted inside the gate and went up onto the wall to watch the Cesini form their ragged ranks down on the common. There was hot, bitter anger inside him all at once, rising in his throat as he watched Mægo ride back and forth in front of the mob, brandishing his sword: anger at Mægo, at Muryn, at all the Cesini, all their stupid bravery; anger at Verio, at Luchian Marro, at the Berioni, at the fools in Choiro who knew nothing about this place, about this war. And anger at himself, more than anything else—his own stupid Vareno pride in thinking he could handle this command in the first place.

  The Cesini came forward as they’d done yesterday, moving as one across the common and down the fort road, shouting for Sarre, for Magryn. His archers nocked their arrows and drew back, waiting for his order. His jaw was clenched tight, his throat thick, and for some reason his tongue wouldn’t form the word for a long moment. He got it out, finally, in a harsh, rough voice—“Loose!”—and he watched men and horses drop away from the oncoming mob, here and there across the road. The rest surged forward to the gate unabated. There were more of them than there’d been yesterday; his archers could still find their marks even with the Cesini pressing tightly under the gate-house and along the base of the wall. But the Cesini were better prepared this day. They’d brought grappling irons, and the hooks came up so quickly and whelmingly that not all of them could be cut away or thrown back down. In a little while there was fighting on the wall.

  He didn’t know how long he was there on the wall. He was fending off blows from a Cesino who wore a corslet of red burnished leather and carried an old Cesino long sword. He found himself being backed slowly towards the steps and he lost focus a moment, sensing the drop behind him. The tip of the Cesino’s blade nicked him just above the left knee as he came upon the ledge—tore crosswise through the flesh, burst free again. He reeled wildly, feeling the nothingness at his back, and the Cesino prepared the killing blow, brought the blade towards him in a wide arc. He regained his balance and ducked, heard the blade whistle through empty air above the crest of his helmet. He hauled himself up again and reached with his left hand to pull the Cesino forward by his sword-belt. The Cesino fell past him down the steps, sprawling, trying to break his fall with his arms. He reached the bottom and lay still.

  There were Cesini coming up the steps now and Tyren realized they must have succeeded once more in forcing the gate. For a while he stood at the top of the steps to face them, pushing them back down as he killed them. Below him, down in the yard, Aino and his men were fighting furiously, struggling to keep the Cesini pinned under the gate-house. He went down the steps to make his way across to them. At the bottom he found himself face-to-face with a young Cesino. He recognized Magryn. The boy was white-faced as he’d been yesterday, handling his blade sluggishly, slackly. Tyren swept it away without effort and stood there with the boy open, defenseless before him. He hesitated, only a moment, but in that moment Mægo was there.

  Mægo shouted something to Magryn and the boy ducked quickly away. Tyren didn’t pay him any more heed. He kept his eyes on Mægo. He couldn’t yet feel any real pain in the knee but in that little stretch of stillness he could feel the hot wetness of the blood spreading over his trouser leg and it felt odd against his skin. He moved his feet a little so he faced Mægo fully. The paving-stones under the gate were slick with blood and he slid as he moved, barely recovering himself before Mægo reached him. He turned aside Mægo’s first stroke only shakily. The second stroke he was better prepared for. He caught it with his own blade and pushed Mægo back, brought the blade quickly round again, slashed at Mægo’s unprotected chest. Mægo met the blow, turned it away, lifted a foot to kick his knee. He couldn’t dodge it. The kick sent pain searing through him, up and down the leg, so agonizing that for a moment he couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. He staggered backward and fell against the steps, spreading out his arms frantically to catch himself, nearly losing his grip on his sword. He swung the blade wildly, instinctively. Mægo sprang back too late; the steel slid under his ribs, lodged there below his breastbone. Tyren twisted the blade and jerked it free. Mægo went down soundlessly to his knees, struggling to keep his sword steady in his right hand, to hold himself up with his left. He seemed confused at his inability to push himself back up onto his feet. Tyren rolled over, got up. The knee was still throbbing pain
fully. He put out a hand to the wall to steady himself. When he had his balance again he lifted his blade and brought it down on the wrist of Mægo’s sword hand. Then he pushed Mægo down onto his back on the paving-stones.

  The fighting was still raging all round him, round the gate, but the roar quieted now in his ears. He was aware of nothing except the sword, heavy in his hand, and Mægo lying there on the paving-stones before him. Mægo was clenching the stump of his right arm tightly in his left hand and blood was running out between his fingers, trickling from the corners of his mouth. He spit it out, swallowed. He looked up to Tyren, leaning back his head against the paving-stones as though suddenly weary. He said nothing. Tyren looked back at him. There was a painful tightness in his chest, in his throat. For a long moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t bring himself to finish it. He stood frozen, dumb, the blood pounding loudly in his ears, his mouth dry. Then he clenched his teeth and raised the blade two-handed and drove the tip into Mægo’s heart.

  XII

  It didn’t end in that moment, of course.

  Almost immediately he was caught up into the rush again, jostled away from the steps, and he had to clear the numbness from his mind, force himself to think, to react. But that was the breaking point, the beginning of the end. Aino had held his line steady all this time, had kept the Cesini pinned tightly against the gate-wall despite their greater numbers. Now his men were starting to overpower them, turn them slowly back. For a while there was hot, desperate fighting directly under the gate-house, and then the Cesini were being pushed out onto the fort road again, and someone—his own man or a rebel, Tyren didn’t know—was shouting Mægo’s death above the battle roar.

  After that it ended quickly. Mægo was dead, the yard wouldn’t be taken. There was no sign of Ryn Magryn. Tyren hadn’t seen him since Mægo had ordered him away from the gate-house steps. A few Cesini continued to fight, selling their lives dearly and pointlessly before the gate, but most of them broke and ran, scattering all over the northern hillside and up into the black-pine forest above the valley.