by Dave Duncan
“What did you use for a drag?”
“I left it wrapped up in one of her ladyship’s dresses overnight.”
The trail descended rapidly, more like a slightly less steep strip of cliff than a road, and the footing was greasy as hot butter. Hogwood ignored the terrain, detouring safely around the boulders and chasms as if she trod in the exact prints of the warrior who had carried Celeste down this precipice by moonlight. Poor Celeste! Wolf wondered if she had been still screaming as she came this way.
In places on that death-defying scramble he made out individual prints preserved in mud or slush—marks of shoes, mostly, also bare feet, but no tracks of giant birds, or cats.
“Did you find out about the tide?”
“Yes,” Hogwood said vaguely, still staring down at the tracker. “It was at the full. Extraordinary.”
Wolf ground teeth in silence for a few moments before giving in and saying, “Why extraordinary?”
“The night of the full moon? The highest tide of the month? Baelish raiders would never beach boats then and risk being stranded for two weeks.”
“Two or three hundred strong men could move a few boats a long way down a beach.”
At that moment Hogwood slipped and almost fell. He caught her elbow to steady her.
“Don’t touch me!” She shook him off, keeping her eyes on the tracker.
He released both her and his temper. “You were ready enough to be manhandled last night.”
Here the way crossed a very steep gully. She began edging sideways down the slope. “And evermore I will be remembered as the girl who couldn’t even lay a Blade.”
He followed. “I’d have been happy to start your education, but I didn’t want you waking the entire castle shouting rape.”
She stopped abruptly at the bottom, standing in the stream itself so he almost walked into her. She was still bent over the conjurement. He thought she was losing the track, until he realized that her shoulders were shaking.
“What’s wrong?”
She gasped. “Please!” She was laughing! “Don’t say things like that. I have to concentrate.”
“Like what?”
“Like the idea of you raping me. Be quiet. This is important.” She started climbing out of the gully.
Wolf followed in furious silence. He was certain now that Grand Inquisitor had sent Hogwood along with the express purpose of compromising him somehow. The doctorate of conjury was a lie or a red herring. There was no other explanation for the negligee or last night’s blatant performance. Today’s derision was simply another tactic.
When the trail arrived at the beach, he said. “If you weren’t trying to stage a rape, what was the reason for that disgusting performance?”
For the first time she looked at him, dark eyes mocking. “Disgusting? Spirits, can’t you guess? I fancied a man and a Blade was the obvious choice. Women can enjoy bed sports, too, you know. Or haven’t you ever noticed?”
That was absurd. He had not been using Blade charm on her and nothing less would make a pretty girl lust after the ugliest man in Chivial.
“Decent women do not even think that way, let alone talk like that.”
“By the seven saving spirits! A Blade lecturing on morality? And how can he know what a woman thinks? Now be quiet, Wolf, or you will make me break the thread.”
He was just plain “Wolf” now, was he?
Short Cove was well named, just a scoop out of the cliffs, a hummocky, boulder-strewn meadow with a small stream draining away into a pebble beach. The tide was out, the air pungent with odors of seaweed, raucous with the screech of seabirds.
“Very tricky harbor,” he observed profoundly, staring out at some jagged rocks not far beyond the breaking waves. “And shingle, see? Won’t find any marks of boats on that.” He looked up at the cliff and a solitary turret of Quondam visible above it. “They did go straight up, as Grand Master said! They didn’t find the road in the moonlight, just made a beeline for the fortress, right up the face of the…”
He was talking to himself.
Hogwood had not turned toward the sea, but was still following her tracker’s guidance, stumbling across the coarse bent grass of the meadow. He went after her. He should have used his eyes to better effect, for the passage of so many men had left an obvious trail there, too. It terminated in a wider trampled area, as if the invaders had milled around for a while. The newcomers’ arrival had interrupted birds, which clamored up in a noisy blizzard, screaming protests as they circled overhead.
“No!” He drew his sword, yelling in fury as he ran forward to where they had been feeding. Beyond the trampled area, the invaders’ trail ended between two rocks. On the landward side the grass was crushed and flattened; on the other it stood proud, rippling in the cold salt wind. On either boulder…things not to be looked at.
“Not the Baroness?” Hogwood said. Her face was almost green, and he doubted his was any better.
“No. The pikemen.” They had found the missing Cam Obmouth and Rolf Twidale. The birds had found them first, though. One or two tried to return and he chased them away with more oaths.
“You keep these vermin off and I’ll go and fetch some horses,” he said. “Or would you rather go?”
“Please.” Hogwood was shrunken and huddled, every inch of her conveying horror and nausea. “I should…I ought to look around here first.”
She seemed more childlike than ever. If he opened his arms she would fall right into them. And hate herself ever after. She had too much pride. So had he, after the previous night’s display. He was tempted, though.
“What is there to see?” he said, deliberately harsh. “The raiders didn’t leave by boat. They almost certainly didn’t come by boat. They traveled by conjuration.” The mystery was becoming ever more bizarre. “You’re the expert, Hogwood. Did they come all the way from…from, er, wherever they came from…by enchantment or just from a ship offshore? And why take two prisoners and then butcher them in cold blood?”
“Some sort of ritual,” she muttered, looking everywhere except at the bodies. “No octogram that I can see, but travelers have reported conjury performed in other ways in other lands. There was a fire, see?—here, between the rocks.”
Wolf shooed birds again. “Go and tell Sir Alden. I’ll stand watch.”
She nodded gratefully and hurried away.
The victims’ clothes lay in the grass. They had been stripped naked and then stretched out faceup on the rocks. Whatever had been done to them after that had left the boulders drenched with blood, but he could make out no details because the birds had picked the corpses almost to bare bones. Then the invaders had disappeared. This was quite clear, for their trail entered the area and no trail departed. The bodies had been left for the gulls and the insects, and somehow that made him angrier than anything else.
He strode up and down for the next hour, warding off the shrieking gulls and waiting for the horses, and swore dark vows of vengeance on whatever monsters had perpetrated this horror, whoever they were, and wherever they came from.
7
There was something morbidly fascinating about any very large fire, and especially a funeral pyre on a cliff edge, with yellow flames streaming in the sea wind, the harsh lamentation of gulls. Wolf had spoken the eulogy, just a few words in the King’s name, thanking the men who had fallen in his service. He had let Sir Alden hurl the brand onto the pile to start them on their way. It seemed wrong to make Twidale and Obmouth share their funeral with their murderers, but there was no other practical solution, so he had made sure that the Chivians’ carefully wrapped remains were placed at the top, in the spirit of the old sagas, where slaves and captives were sacrificed on the balefires of warriors.
“Now it is safe to break the news to the families,” he said. “Who can guide me?”
“I’ll do that,” Alden growled. “I knew them, you didn’t.”
Wolf did not argue very hard. Later, when the pyre began to collapse, the old man r
ode away into the gathering dusk and the other spectators began wandering back to the castle, for the wind was chill.
Wolf remained, brooding. His mission was complete, as far as he could take it. Now he must return and deliver a very unwelcome report to the Council. He must advise the King that there was still no explanation for the abduction of Celeste and he was powerless to punish the guilty or even to defend his realm against any future attacks. No keep was secure now, no one safe against attack.
Hogwood spoke at his elbow. “You mourn.”
He turned with a sigh. “You think a mass murderer can’t be a hypocrite too? I just love funerals. I was standing here planning some more.”
She shook her head. “You are right to be bitter.”
“And you were right to be frightened of me. What exactly did Grand Master tell you last night?”
“We talked a long time. I don’t remember exactly.”
“Inquisitors forget nothing. He told you something that completely changed your mind. Until then you were scared of me. Right after that little chat you tried to throw yourself into my bed. That’s been your mission all along, hasn’t it? The massacre was just a sideshow for you. Your real job was to seduce me, and the thought of sleeping with a murderous ogre had you seriously affrighted. Then—behold!—suddenly you were eager. My looks didn’t change. What did? What lies did Grand Master tell you?”
Hogwood’s unforgettable eyes were brimming over with innocence. Or tears brought on by the wind. “I know he wasn’t lying. He said you killed your best friend because he asked you to. Sir Hengist was horribly wounded and fated to go mad if he didn’t die first. His death was a mercy. After that you were bearing as much grief as any man could, so when other Blades had to die, you appointed yourself executioner. Whenever possible, you spared your brothers from having to share your guilt.”
Wolf clung tight to his temper, but he was furious that Durendal had dared to gossip about him to an outsider. “That’s nonsense. I just enjoy killing.”
“Not according to Grand Master. The real culprit, he says, was King Ambrose, who gave away so many Blades to the nobility in his old age.”
“No! The real culprit was that worthless incompetent Athelgar, who provoked the nobility into rebellion!”
“It was not his fault that they had Blades to defend them! He could not even arrest them for questioning.”
Wolf was very close to shouting at the stupid wench now. “He didn’t need to arrest them! He could have dealt with them the way he dealt with Celeste—put them under house arrest and use their own Blades as jailers. Then nobody would have had to die!” And nobody would have had to kill.
“But in the event,” Hogwood said, “those Blades did have to die and you took the guilt on yourself. You never stoop to making excuses, Grand Master said, so fools don’t see that. Most Blades just ignore you because they don’t even want to think about it, he said. But some knights at Ironhall know better. Sir Bowman, for example, a highly respected former deputy commander. He wasn’t shunning you.”
“He’s a friend.”
“You have no friends. Friendship hurts you so much you don’t dare to make any more friends.”
“We grownups don’t believe in fairy tales.”
“I am not a child! Didn’t your amazing Blade vision notice even that much?”
“You seriously expect me to believe that Roland’s homily gave you a sudden impulse for a tumble in bed with a killer?”
She nodded. Perhaps it was a trick of the wind and the sunset, but he could have sworn he was seeing an inquisitor blush. She must have a doctorate in blushing.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Then why pack a negligee? I think the Dark Chamber wanted a handy assassin on staff and you were assigned to trap me. What sneaky conjuration can you pull on a man in bed, Inquisitor?”
She said coldly, “No conjuration will work on a bound Blade, Sir Wolf, as you well know.”
Certainly no enchantment could warp his loyalty without killing him, so Wolf was not seeing the whole plot yet. “Your technique is not exactly subtle, is it? Did you fail seduction classes?”
“No, my instructors praised me highly.” Sarcasm slid off her like rain off a duck. “We were taught how to snare normal men by leading them on and then refusing them satisfaction, but that trick is useless with Blades. Subtlety will not work on them.”
He couldn’t resist asking, “What does?”
She sighed. “Anything. Just being female. You’re the first Blade in history to refuse a chance like that. The negligee was a mistake.”
Such brazen vulgarity disgusted him and emphasized how young she really was. “And all this to avenge the late, unlamented Inquisitor Schlutter?”
“No. The purpose was what you said, to enlist you into the Dark Chamber.”
He stared at her.
She stared right back. “Truly.”
He had suggested that without believing it. The trouble with snoops was that you never knew how many layers there were. Catch other people in a lie and then you’d probably dig out the truth, but with inquisitors you never knew what you were expected to disbelieve and what other lies lay behind the ones you could see, and what lies lay behind them in turn.
“You need an experienced assassin? You expect me to kill for love, not money? Or is there money involved as well? How much a head?”
“There is no point in negotiating.”
“But you admit you were assigned to snare me?”
She shrugged. “My mission was to hire you, but I have learned that Grand Inquisitor were mistaken in their assessment of you. You do not kill for pleasure, so you will not accept the offer I was authorized to make.”
“I love the smell of fresh blood.”
“No,” she said sadly. “You are not a violent man at all. The only time I have seen you lose your temper was with the seagulls. You were right when you said I feared your reputation, but now I have come to know you, I am truly sorry for you, a gentle man trapped in a vile job.”
“I don’t want your pity!”
“Was that what you were demonstrating last night?”
Wolf reminded himself that no man could ever win an argument with an inquisitor. Or a woman. “I am still curious to hear your offer. It will have to wait until after I’m released, though. Commander Vicious will not look kindly on me if I keep asking for weekend passes to go and stiffen someone.” Not that Athelgar would ever release him.
“That was to be part of the offer,” Hogwood said. “Release.”
He stood very still while his mind flailed like a flag in the sea wind. Yes, he had heard her correctly. The wind was stronger and colder, making him shiver desperately. Release? Freedom?
“Even the Dark Chamber cannot offer that.”
“Yes, it can.” Was that triumph glinting now or just mischief?
“Athelgar would never agree.”
“He can be persuaded.”
“To use conjuration on the King is treason. Even to tamper with my binding is.”
“There is another way.”
“Wolf!” a voice cried. “Wolfie!”
Two people were riding in from the moor.
He forgot Hogwood. He yelled, “Lynx, you crazy man!” and went bounding over the gorse to meet him. “Did Master of Rituals say you could get out of bed?”
His brother peered down at him, trying to force his usual amiable grin from a face so pale that it shone like ivory in the gloom, a rictus of pain and exhaustion. “Of course not. Haven’t made up the rest of my blood yet, is all.”
Lynx began to dismount, lost his balance, and cried out in alarm. The mare was already spooked by the fire. Wolf tried to catch him, but Lynx fell like a mountain and flattened him into the heather, while his mount went bucking and kicking off across the moor. It was a humiliating accident to happen to a pair of Blades.
Lynx found Wolf’s top end and demanded, “You all right, Wolfie?” Then he collapsed on top of him again, howls of laughter alte
rnating with gasps of pain as his scars pulled. Wolf was so happy to see him better that he began laughing too, still pinned under him.
The other arrival was an angular figure in a practical tweed riding costume, staring bleakly down at them. “Sir Wolf, I presume?” she inquired icily.
Lynx caught his breath with an effort. “Sister Daybreak,” he gasped. “Got no sense of humor.” He went back to laughing.
8
No, Sister Daybreak could never have laughed at anything in her life. Receiving Grand Master’s appeal in the absence of Mother Fire Rose, who had been in Grandon all winter, she had traveled from Lomouth to Ironhall the previous day and been very unamused to discover everyone sworn to secrecy and unable to tell her anything.
The following morning Wolf’s crazy brother had insisted on riding over to Quondam to retrieve Ratter and had offered to escort her to Lord Roland. Master of Rituals had sworn he would never arrive at Quondam alive, and had been proven unpleasantly close to right. Lynx didn’t care. He had his sword back, having met Tam and Grand Master on the way, and he never stopped grinning and joking while they loaded him on a litter and carried him into Quondam.
Sister Daybreak resembled an angular tree trunk washed up on the shore, bleached, scoured, and stripped of its bark. Her voice was a raven’s croak, her face bleaker than Starkmoor, slashed into deep lines of disapproval. She especially disapproved of grotesques holding high office and read Wolf’s warrant through twice before accepting that His Majesty could have made such an error.
Later, after she had dusted herself off and changed into her White Sister robes—white steeple hat and all—she was able to disapprove of a cramped baronial bedroom as the site of an important meeting. Hogwood was there, of course, applying her fishy stare, and Lynx sprawled back against pillows on the bed, working his way through half a roast goose and three flagons of beer.
Daybreak sipped water and declined further refreshment. “I am starved for information, though. Even Grand Master told me almost nothing. There was a raid, I understand. Men were killed?”