Sevenfold Sword: Champion

by Jonathan Moeller

  “What did she say?” said Calliande.

  “Find me again,” said Tamlin. “The New God is coming.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, the turning sphere of fire throwing rotating shadows around them.

  “Like Rhodruthain said to me,” said Calliande, “before he brought me here.”

  “Those eight words are burned into my memory,” said Tamlin. “I always wondered what she meant. Was it a warning? Was it a…a hallucination and nothing more, the final words of a delirious woman as she died? Or was it a prophecy? A vision of things to come?”

  “I don’t know,” said Calliande. “She might have possessed a touch of the Sight. Perhaps it revealed something in her final moments, something that she wanted to tell you.”

  “In the scriptures,” said Tamlin, “God sometimes granted visions of the prophets of ancient Israel and the first followers of the Dominus Christus’s church. Perhaps he did the same for Tysia. For she was a gentle soul. It was why she was such a skilled healer. But she was fearless as well. I never did find out why Khurazalin murdered her. Spite, perhaps.”

  He lapsed into silence, brooding.

  “If I find Rhodruthain,” said Calliande, “before I force him to send my family home, I will make him tell us the secret of the New God.”

  “Will you?” said Tamlin, looking up at her.

  “If it is within my power, yes,” said Calliande.

  Tamlin let out a long sigh and rubbed his face. “I can imagine what you must think of me. I tell you of my murdered wife after I try to seduce you? Do you know, I thought I would never lie with another woman after Tysia was slain? But then I happened to save King Hektor’s life during a skirmish on the road after I escaped from Urd Maelwyn, and he took me into his service and I was made an Arcanius Knight. Then at the feast when he returned I danced with one of the women in his household’s service. It was easy to make her laugh, and then…”

  “One thing led to another,” said Calliande.

  “I fear so,” said Tamlin. “The weakness of the flesh. Like David and Bathsheba, or Judah and Tamar, or Paris and Helen of Troy…”

  “I must say,” said Calliande, “for a former gladiator, you have a thorough knowledge of ancient history.”

  “Well, I didn’t think I would become a gladiator and an Arcanius Knight,” said Tamlin. “When I was a child, I was certain I would become a monk…”

  Calliande could not stop herself from laughing.

  “What?” said Tamlin, a hurt look on his face. “I’m telling you the woes of my past, and you’re laughing?”

  “Sorry, sorry,” said Calliande. She took a deep breath, pulling herself together. “I do apologize. I suspect you’re about to tell me that something awful happened to you. But…you only met me today, and you’ve already tried to seduce me, you were just telling me about your romantic conquests…and you thought you were going to be a monk as a child? God calls some men to a life of prayer and celibacy, but I am entirely certain that you are not one of them.”

  Tamlin blinked and then laughed. “You may have a point. Well, as a child I lived with my mother as the Monastery of St. James. She was a former Sister of the Arcanii who had been King Justin’s concubine and then had fled soon after he claimed the Sword of Earth. She took shelter with the monks of St. James. Tysia and I grew up there…and then when I was nine years old King Justin arrived to claim his revenge. He slaughtered the monks and slew my mother, and Tysia and I and the rest of the survivors were sold to dvargir slavers. Eventually, we wound up together at Urd Maelwyn when the Confessor’s men bought us from the dvargir.”

  “I am sorry,” said Calliande. “That is indeed a harrowing tale.”

  “Thank you,” said Tamlin. Again, they lapsed into silence, and then he laughed quietly.

  “What is it?” said Calliande.

  “I have told you of my murdered wife and mother and my past sorrows,” said Tamlin. “I daresay this is one of my less successful attempts at bedding a woman.”

  “As much as it galls me to say this,” said Calliande, “I hope they all don’t end this badly.”

  He smiled. “As it happens, they do not.”

  “I think,” said Calliande, rising to her feet, “that you should get some rest. I will take the first watch.” Tamlin started to speak. “No, don’t argue. That healing took more out of you than you know.”

  Tamlin tried to disagree, but a massive yawn swallowed his words. “Perhaps you are right. Wake me if there is any trouble, or when it is my turn for watch.”

  Calliande nodded, and Tamlin lay down and went to sleep. He fell asleep almost at once. Apparently, he had acquired the soldier’s skill of sleeping anywhere. Or he had indeed been exhausted.

  She felt sorry for him. Tamlin was an odd mixture of bravery, skill, gallantry, and misery. His behavior might have been a mystery to him, but it was transparent to her. He had never gotten over his mother’s death or his wife’s death, and now he had become a warrior like the ones from the histories he had learned as a child.

  A gallant, dashing warrior...who tried to drown his sorrows in the arms of women.

  Calliande had seen similar reactions before. Ridmark had lost Aelia, and he had gone to find the secret of the Frostborn. Though it wasn't in his nature to drown his sorrows in casual lechery.

  She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her staff for a moment.

  Ridmark. Oh, Ridmark. Calliande had failed Joanna, but she could not fail Ridmark and Gareth and Joachim. She would do whatever was necessary to save them, but at least in Tamlin, she had a capable ally.

  Calliande turned her attention to the darkness around them, watching for enemies with the Sight and praying for God to watch over her family.

  ###

  Tamlin slept, and as he slept, he dreamed.

  It was a dream that he had endured before.

  He walked through the passages beneath the Ring of Blood in Urd Maelwyn, the vast gladiatorial arena that the Sovereign had constructed to amuse his soldiers and slaves. The Confessor had taken it over after his master’s death and continued the games.

  Tamlin had started his life at the Monastery of St. James, but he had grown to manhood here, in this dark and bloody place.

  He walked through the cells where the gladiators slept, where women were brought to victorious fighters. He passed through the workshops and armories where armor and weapons of every sort were stored and maintained, bronze swords and spears and axes and maces and tridents and shields. Tamlin walked through the large training rooms, the sandy floor gritting beneath his boots, and the memories of old, old pain shuddered through him. He had spent a long, long time in these training rooms, learning to fight, dueling the other gladiators, the dvargir gamemasters with their cruel whips ready to correct any mistakes in form and stance.

  But not all the memories were bad. As his skill in sword and spell had grown, he had taken joy in the exercise of his talents. Tamlin had been a weak and sickly boy, but the brutal training of the dvargir gamemasters had made him into a strong man, and there was pride in that.

  And he had met Tysia here again. She had been his best friend, the only other child at the monastery, an orphan his mother had rescued during her desperate flight from Justin Cyros. Tamlin had thought her killed after King Justin’s attack on the monastery, but he had met here again her. And in their time apart she had grown into a woman, a beautiful woman, and he had married her.

  Old pain flared through him, old but still sharp, and Tamlin’s sword hand curled into a fist.

  At least he had avenged her. At least he had made Khurazalin pay for what he had done. Though the pain always came back. Had Tamlin managed to seduce Calliande, the pain would have faded for a time, but it always came back.

  Perhaps it was just as well. He always felt guilty after one of his liaisons. He rebuked himself for trying to seduce a married woman. He ought to have known better.

  His thoughts swirling around each other, Tamlin climbed t
o the arena itself.

  The sand of the vast central oval rasped against his boots. The tiers of stone seats rose above him, thousands of them. Tamlin had killed humans and orcs and xiatami and others while the crowds cheered around him. The looming white towers of Urd Maelwyn rose against the sky, the angles strange and subtle and wrong to human eyes, including the great tower where the Sovereign had once reigned over his empire.

  The Dark Lady awaited Tamlin in the center of the oval, watching him.

  She always appeared to him in the same form, that of a young woman with black hair bound in a braid and hard black eyes, a carved wooden staff in her right hand. She wore clothes of wool and worn leather, and a strange cloak of tattered strips of brown and green cloth. Tamlin had always thought the Dark Lady was a huntress, that the cloak might help her move unseen through the forest.

  Though why a spirit that appeared in his dreams should need to hunt in the forest, Tamlin had no idea.

  He stopped and stared at her, unease flooding through him. She had appeared to him several times over the last eight years, always before or after something of dire importance happened.

  “You,” said Tamlin at last.

  “Yes, me,” said the Dark Lady. She always spoke Latin with a peculiar, almost archaic stateliness. “One notices that your powers of observation have not waned, Tamlin Thunderbolt.”

  Tamlin hated that name. When he had rescued King Hektor, the king had said Tamlin had fallen upon their foes like a thunderbolt, and the name had stuck.

  “Have you come to warn me?” said Tamlin. She had first appeared to him as a child, when the strain of the gladiatorial games had been too much, urging him to continue and find his revenge. After Tysia had been murdered and Tamlin had considered killing himself, the Dark Lady had appeared, convincing him to continue. And then when Sir Aegeus and Michael and the others had been brought to Urd Maelwyn as captives, she had appeared in his dreams once more, telling him to help them.

  That had led to his escape from Urd Maelwyn at last.

  “You met the Keeper of Andomhaim today,” said the Dark Lady. Her mouth twisted with amusement. “One notes that you tried to seduce her almost at once, and failed quite spectacularly.”

  “She’s a beautiful woman,” said Tamlin. He was not proud of his behavior, but he wasn’t going to defend himself to a spirit in his dreams.

  “You do seem to have an eye for them,” said the Dark Lady in a dry voice. “But lay aside your appetites and your sorrows, Tamlin Thunderbolt. Something of grave importance is happening, something that could destroy you and Owyllain and nations and empires of which you know nothing.”

  “What do you mean?” said Tamlin.

  “The New God is coming,” said the Dark Lady.

  Tamlin felt a chill.

  “What is the New God?” said Tamlin. “I don’t understand.”

  “Nor do I, not yet,” said the Dark Lady. “Nor does the Keeper. But you know why Rhodruthain brought her here.” She sighed. “Though the old madman rather made a botch of it. Competence is such a rare quality, is it not? But I digress. The New God is coming, and you stand at the center of the storm. If you want to understand the final words of your wife, if you want to know why you have suffered as you have, then you must protect the Keeper of Andomhaim and her husband. Keep them both alive, Tamlin Thunderbolt. That is the task I lay upon you.”

  “I shall,” said Tamlin. He was a Knight of the Order of the Arcanii. Protecting people was what he did. “But why?”

  “Why protect them?” said the Dark Lady. “Because without their help, the New God will destroy us all.”

  “No,” said Tamlin. “Why me? You’ve appeared to me since I was a child. I don’t understand why.”

  The Dark Lady had a hard expression, but for a moment he saw pity there.

  “Because you are Swordborn,” said the Dark Lady, “and the Seven are bound to the New God and stand at the center of its fate. Because the choices your mother made set you upon this path even before you were born. And you must be ready.”

  Tamlin’s eyes shot open.

  For a moment, he could not remember where he was. Then he saw the glow from Calliande’s sphere and remembered. She stood over him, frowning with concern. Her face looked lovely in the glow, and he thought about taking her hand and easing her down to…

  Stop that.

  “Are you all right?” said Calliande. “You were thrashing and shouting in your sleep.”

  “A nightmare, nothing more,” said Tamlin, forcing lightness into his tone.

  She looked dubious. Perhaps she saw through him. It was disturbing how she could do that after knowing him such a short time. Perhaps the legends of the powers of the Keeper of Andomhaim were true.

  “I fear many of my experiences,” said Tamlin, getting to his feet with a grunt, “lend themselves to bad dreams.”

  “I can understand that,” said Calliande.

  “Why don’t you get some rest, my lady?” said Tamlin. “It is my turn at watch, I believe, and we shall likely both need to be rested tomorrow.”

  “No doubt,” said Calliande. “Wake me if there is any danger. Good night, Sir Tamlin.”

  “Good night, Lady Calliande.”

  She lay down next to the sphere, curled up, and went to sleep almost at once. Perhaps she had been as tired as he had been. Or maybe she had been tired for a long time even before coming to Andomhaim. As lovely as she was, there were marks of recent strain upon her, and her eyes were haunted.

  No doubt she, too, had experiences that gave her bad dreams.

  Tamlin turned his attention to the darkness around them, watching for enemies.

  Chapter 11: Maledictus

  “Lord Ridmark.” It was Kalussa’s voice, soft and insistent. “The sun is starting to come up. You wished to be awakened.”

  Ridmark blinked open his eyes.

  His dreams had been dark and tangled. In some of them, he had wandered through the eerie ruins of Urd Morlemoch, seeking for Calliande and Gareth and Joachim. He heard them crying out for him, but he could not find them, no matter how hard he searched. In other dreams, he had pulled Kalussa to him, her green eyes shining with desire, but when he kissed her, she became Calliande, weeping over Joanna’s body.

  That had been enough sleep for now.

  At least the waking world didn’t have dreams.

  Ridmark sat up with a grunt, trying not to wince. His shoulders and back ached. He was getting too damned old to sleep on the rocky ground. For that matter, he was too old to sleep on the rocky ground while wearing armor. Dark elven steel was lighter and stronger than normal steel, but it was still difficult to sleep comfortably in it.

  “Anything in the night?” said Ridmark. The sky was just starting to brighten in the east.

  “No,” said Kalussa. She waved a hand and dismissed the fire she had summoned. “Nothing. Perhaps all our enemies likewise realized the danger of blundering about in the dark.”

  Ridmark nodded and got to his feet, rolling his shoulders. “How long to Castra Chaeldon from here?”

  “If we set out at once,” said Kalussa, “we should arrive at noon. Perhaps a little earlier.”

  “Just a moment,” said Ridmark. Kalussa nodded, and Ridmark walked behind one of the boulders to relieve himself out of sight. His knees still felt stiff. He was indeed getting older. Though if he lived long enough, no doubt he would look back with envy at his current vigor.

  Granted, at the moment, living much longer did not seem a strong possibility.

  Once he had finished, Ridmark adjusted his pack, took a drink from one of his waterskins, and walked back to where they had camped. “Have you eaten yet?” Kalussa shook her head. “Let’s eat while we walk. The sooner we get to Castra Chaeldon, the better.”

  Kalussa took a piece of bread from her pack, and Ridmark led the way up another rocky hill. The sky brightened to the east as they walked, and he had to admit that watching the sun rise over the stark hills made for a lovely
sight. Ridmark had seen sunrises in many lands, but he had to admit this was one of the more beautiful ones. He wished Calliande was here to see it. Maybe she was watching it even now and wondering what had become of him. The boys would have been too young to appreciate the sight. Gareth would have woken up this early if ordered to do so, but Joachim would have pitched a fit…

  “I have a question,” said Kalussa.

  Ridmark had been curious to see if Kalussa could eat and talk and walk at the same time. Evidently, he had underestimated her. Though he welcomed the distraction from his worries.

  “Ask, then,” said Ridmark.

  “That brand on your face,” said Kalussa. “The broken sword. Where did you get it? That is a coward’s brand, but you are plainly no coward.”

  Once the question would have angered him, but a lot of years had passed. Ridmark supposed that time did not heal all griefs…but it did wear away a lot of the sharp edges.

  “When I was your age,” said Ridmark, “I was married for the first time.”

  Kalussa blinked. “You were married before Lady Calliande?”

  Ridmark nodded. “Aelia Licinius, the eldest daughter of Dux Gareth Licinius of the Northerland. Five years after we were married, an orcish madman named Mhalek thought he was one of the orcish blood guards reborn and led an army into Andomhaim. Mhalek murdered the leaders of our army at a parley, and I wound up in command. I defeated him, but he escaped and used a spell of blood sorcery to link his blood to that of Aelia.”

  “Oh,” said Kalussa, her eyes widening. “So, when you struck down Mhalek, the wound also transferred to your wife as well.”

  Ridmark frowned. “You’re familiar with the spell?”

  “I have heard of it,” said Kalussa. “The Maledicti often used such spells to punish slaves.”

  “Maledicti?” said Ridmark. It was a Latin word, and as far as he knew it referred to a curse of some kind.

  “The priests of the Sovereign,” said Kalussa. “Orcish warlocks that worshiped him as a god. They were devoted to him, and he taught them powerful necromancy. It is said the most powerful Maledicti were undead, and survived the Sovereign’s defeat and seek to avenge their master’s death.” She sighed. “Of course, the Seven Swords did that anyway.” She shook her head. “But why were you branded? It was not your fault.”