“An unmade knight!” Sir Dalt shook his head in disbelief.
“Raymond!” Sir Lothar spat the name like a curse. “King Ursus should have executed the slimy bastard rather than exile him.”
Sir Gravis said, “But how? Only a champion could best the king and Raymond was never a champion.”
The marshal scowled. “It was never a fair fight. Raymond’s hand dealt the blow, but the sword was cursed, bespelled with dark magic. You saw how the black blade shattered the blue. Only a cursed sword could do that.”
Sir Abrax and Sir Rannock seconded him. “The blue blade shrieked in pain whenever it struck the black. The king waged a mighty fight till the prince’s sword failed him. Mordbane shattered like it was made of crystal. Dark magic slew our king.”
More than one captain made the hand sign against evil. “Never trust the pentacle!”
“The gods curse them all!”
“Damn their black souls to the deepest hell!”
The marshal let them rail, waiting for their anger to simmer. When silence returned, it was Krismir, the youngest among them that asked the question. “So what do we do now?”
The marshal did not hesitate. “We fight, as the Octagon always does. Harry the enemy at every turn and give them no quarter. Hound them till they retreat to the north or die beneath our swords.”
“And claim vengeance for our king.” Sir Gravis’s voice was as cold as a winter storm.
“Just so.” The marshal’s words carried the weight of an oath.
Sir Lothar said, “So it’ll be a winter war.”
The marshal nodded. “The back end of winter for a backhanded war, like none we’ve ever fought.” He tried to keep the worry from his voice, “We’ll need supplies. And more men.”
Lothar replied, “Already done. I’ve sent riders to every castle and keep along the Spines. The old veterans can hold Castlegard but I’ve given orders to empty the others. No sense guarding the wall when the gate’s already breached. And if needs be, we’ll have Castlegard to fall back on.”
“True enough.” A grim thought, but the marshal could not fault the logic. “And what of the enemy?”
“They’ve set up camp at the Whore, securing the entrance to the pass, almost as if the bastards are waiting for something.”
Waiting for what? But the marshal left the question unsaid. Instead, he focused on the needs at hand. “We’ll set rings of pickets and scouts so we’ll have plenty of warning if the enemy comes hunting. And we need to find a way to keep the snow from betraying our every movement, or better yet, use the prints to our advantage.”
Lothar gave him a wolfish grin. “I’ve got an idea about that.”
The captains huddled around the crackling fire, discussing tactics and battle strategies. Most were accustomed to fighting behind stout walls. The marshal soon learned that old ways died hard. Working with Lothar, he prodded their thoughts towards fresh paths. Outnumbered and forced from their walls, they’d have to fight like brigands, striking where they were least expected and then disappearing into the forest. The biggest problem was the snow’s betrayal. When the final plans were laid and all the details discussed, one thing remained unspoken. To a man, the captains turned their stares toward the marshal, their gazes dropping to the masterless sword of a dead king. Lothar broached the unspoken question. “Will you wield it?”
A lethal silence settled around the fire. Now that the question was finally upon him, the marshal felt a strange sense of relief. “I’m not worthy.”
His words sparked an outrage, “Who’s more worthy than the marshal?”
“Surely the king named a successor!”
“One of us should take up the sword!”
Sir Rannock said, “The maroon needs a king…and all the Anvril sons are dead!”
The harsh truth doused their words like water to a flame. Sir Gravis, ever the king’s man, repeated the question baiting every tongue. “Did the king name a successor?”
The marshal took a deep breath, as if girding for a fight. “He spoke of his children.”
“But all the sons are dead!”
The marshal met their stares. “There is another.”
Puzzlement scrawled their faces. “What, a bastard prince?”
Lothar was the first to remember. “Not the Imp!”
“A daughter!”
“Only a scamp of a girl!”
The marshal parried their protests. “She’s the king’s one true heir.”
“But a daughter can’t lead.”
Sir Varlin gave a wolfish-grin. “But she can breed! Wed her to a captain and we’ll get a true heir for the Octagon.”
“Aye, she’ll need a strong sword in the night!”
Their talk angered the marshal, their faces transformed from sworn knights to wolves stalking a hen house. Surging to his feet, he thrust the king’s sword into the ground. “Enough!” The sapphire blade quivered upright, the crystal gleaming like a baleful eye. “There’ll be no talk of wedding or bedding. We’ve a battle to fight and a war to win.” He stared at them till shame colored their faces. “For now, I will lead the Octagon. And no man will wield the king’s sword till a true heir is acclaimed.” Dissension smoldered in some of their faces, yet none dared to protest, at least not openly. “Let the war prove the worth of the king’s successor.” That got them thinking. “Honor’s Edge will be sent to Castlegard to await the hand of the heir. In the meantime, we have a war to fight, a war to win.”
A murmur rippled through the men, talk of kingship and swords, but the ugliness had been averted.
The marshal raised his voice above the murmur. “You’ve all got your orders and there is much to be done. Weapons need to be honed and men selected for each sortie. We attack at twilight.”
“Twilight!” Sir Dalt’s voice rang with protest. “But the men have barely recovered from Raven Pass.”
The marshal met his stare. “I’ll not let them dwell on defeat. They need a victory and the enemy needs to bleed for the king.” His voice hardened to steel. “You have your orders. See to them or I’ll appoint another captain in your stead.”
Their stares crossed like swords, but Sir Dalt was the first to concede. With a stiff salute, he stalked away. The others followed till only Lothar was left. His friend sidled close, joining him in the shadow of the great hand. “Do you think that was wise?”
“What? Challenging Dalt? The chain of command must be obeyed.” Weary to the bone, the marshal leaned on the king’s sword.
“No. You not claiming the sword, leaving them without a king.”
“We have no king.”
“But they won’t wait for a mere slip of a girl.”
“It’s not about the girl, it’s about the monks.”
“What?” Lothar shied away as if madness was a contagion, but the marshal pulled him back with a sharp look. “There’s much you don’t know. When I stood vigil on the king’s cairn, a frost owl flew out of the night to join me. When it landed, it changed into a monk.”
“A shifter!” Lothar hissed making the hand sign against evil.
“You’ve met him before. We both have. The same monk who brought warning to the king, the day we learned a demon possessed a prince.” A vision of glowing red eyes filled his mind, like looking into the very pits of hell. The marshal suppressed a shiver. “For the sake of the Light, the monk asked me not to name an heir.”
“So now we’re taking counsel from monks? And a shifter no less?”
“Yes, but the monks have been right before. They held the truth about the demon-prince. Their counsel bears considering.”
Lothar chewed the edge of his mustache. “So they expect us to wait for a mere girl?”
“They expect us to fight, to play our part in the battle to come.”
“Our part?”
“There’s more you should know.”
Lothar waited, his face braced for battle.
“After the death of the king, I took a good look at the black
blade that slew him. The pommel was shaped like an octagon with a pair of coiled dragons gracing the crossguard. Beneath the guard, the maker’s mark was clear, an octagon surrounding the initials OS.”.
“Orrin Surehammer,” Lothar’s face paled. “The lost blade!”
The marshal nodded. “Boric’s sword, the first blue steel blade, but instead of sapphire blue, the sword was dark as pitch, corrupted and cursed. With my own hands I pulled the sword from the king’s chest. Even through my gauntlets, I felt the cold dread of it. That sword radiates Darkness,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “and it called to me…with a promise of power.”
Lothar’s hand crept to his sword hilt. “What did you do?”
“I hurled it into the woods.” The marshal shrugged as if trying to dislodge a great weight. “Later, after we’d raised a cairn to the king, I went in search of it. I wrapped it in a blanket and charged Baldwin to throw it in Eye Lake. Perhaps the lake’s depths can chain the evil.” He hesitated to speak the rest, yet he needed to tell someone, “At night, the blade haunts my dreams…and taunts me with the promise of victory.”
Lothar made the hand sign against evil. “More sorcery. Better to send it to a watery grave.”
“True enough.” He gave Lothar a wary look. “But it tells us much about our foe. The Mordant pits our own legends against us,”
“A cursed sword sent to slay a king, makes you wonder what else we’re fighting.”
“Darkness, we’re fighting Darkness itself.” The marshal pulled the king’s sword from the cold, hard ground. “Heaven help us if we fail.”
7
Blaine
Blaine’s sword sliced the air with a vicious whisper. Haunted by nightmares of the winged fiend, he slashed left and then right, a whirl of steel, but his foe slipped away. Pivoting left, he loosed a head-high cleave. Kath ducked beneath his swing and lunged forward. Anger flashed across her face as she loosed a whirlwind of strikes. Blaine retreated, parrying her assault, steel clanging against steel. He’d never seen the girl fight with such venom. She lunged forward, the flat of her sword striking his chainmail with a resounding ring.
“What’s wrong with you?” She glared up at him. “You’re sparring like a wounded bear.”
“And you’re fighting like a demon possessed.” Blaine snarled and stepped back, breathing plumes of mist into the cold morning air. “Enough.” He rammed the training sword into the sheath as if it would quench his anger. Taking up his blue steel sword, he shrugged the harness across his shoulders and began to turn away.
Kath grabbed his arm. “What troubles you?
Anger spiked through him. He turned on her. “What troubles me?” Rage rode his voice, yet the girl did not flinch. Fists clenched, he glared at her, but he could not speak of the whores in his bed or the winged monster pecking at his window, shame and fear and lust all tied together in a terrible knot. Instead, his anger lashed in a different direction. “That voice in the bloody cavern.”
Kath nodded.
“It said that the Octagon is fallen. That the king is dead.”
Her face paled but she did not look away.
“The voice lied, right? That was just an evil lie?”
Her voice choked to a whisper. “No.”
“No!”
“Duncan said it happened.”
He reeled at the answer, unwilling to believe the Octagon was defeated. “And you believe it?”
Kath gave a grim nod. “I believe Duncan.” Her gaze slid away. “Other things he said have proved true.”
His rage exploded. “Then why do we sit here, doing nothing?”
“What would you have us do?”
“Take the horses and ride south! Find the Octagon and add our swords to the maroon!”
“In the dead of winter? Across the steppes? How far do you think we’d get?” She glared at him. “And what of Danya and Zith? They’ll not survive the ride…and I’ll not leave them.”
“So you’ll sit here and rot?”
Her head snapped back as if slapped.
Anger snarled his voice. “I want the Mordant’s head.”
“No.” Kath’s face turned ghost-pale. “He must die by the crystal dagger or it will be no true death.”
He glared at her. “The king gave me a hero’s sword. I mean to use it.”
“No.” She gripped his sword arm. “It’s not about heroes. We must put an end to the Mordant. His evil has grown too great.”
“Or maybe you want the glory for yourself.” Blaine pulled away. Beneath his feet, the rune-carved courtyard quaked.
“Do you feel that?” Kath glared at him. “Evil is real. We fought evil in the cavern and won a victory for the Light.”
“Did we win? It does not feel like a victory!”
She looked away. “I know.”
Beneath his boots, the tremor slowed to a stop. Blaine turned away, watching the line of captured soldiers pass rocks into the gullet of the bloody cavern, sealing the demon in the depths. “The Citadel is ours, but the Mordant’s long gone, marched south with his vast legions. For all we know, he could be ravaging the southern kingdoms while we sit here, idly waiting.” He glared at her. “Instead of a victory, this feels like a trap.”
“We’re not idle.”
“Aren’t we?” He choked on a bitter laugh. “Zith wanders the halls searching for scrolls and magical trinkets while the rest of us sit around, sharpening our swords. I call that idle.”
“We’ll find a way south.” Her gaze slipped away. “The gods will help.”
“Really?” Sarcasm leavened with bitterness rose like bile in his throat. “And what of the Octagon? Did the gods help the maroon?”
“Will two more swords make a difference?”
“I’d like to think so.”
She gave him a crooked smile. “I’d like to think so too, but we’re charged to slay the Mordant.”
“And how will we do that from here?”
“We’ll find advantages…and we’ll find a way south.”
He heard despair in her voice, despair laden with frustration, yet he could not quell his own anger. “The bloody monks said we need to slay the Mordant ere the red comet set.” He jabbed a finger toward the west, toward the red comet hovering above the dark waters. “The bloody comet is getting low in the sky.”
“I know.”
Her voice sounded so small it galled him. He wanted to help her, he wanted to shake some sense into her and ride south, he wanted to find the Mordant and slay him with his blue steel sword, but he could do none of it. Instead, he reached for his maroon cloak and swirled it around his shoulders. “My sword is yours.” Blaine stalked away, anger in his stride, wondering how victory could taste so empty.
8
Katherine
A wolf’s howl shivered through the marble corridors, piercing her gloom. Kath smiled to hear such a glorious wildness set loose in the Mordant’s palace. She imagined how it would enrage the former ruler to find wolf droppings in his gilded hallways. Her smile broke into a feral grin, a petty revenge. Kath followed the mountain wolf’s howls, Bear and Boar padding silent as shadows at her back.
A pair of wolf-faced warriors stood guard at the doorway, nodding at her approach. “Svala.”
“How is she today?”
Balthus, the taller of the two answered, “The same, Svala. She will wake when the gods will it.”
Always the same answer, always said with the same complete confidence. “Let’s hope the gods will it to be soon.” Balthus nodded and Kath passed through the doorway. They’d claimed a corner chamber, the outer doors flung wide, opening onto a crenellated turret, but instead of frigid cold it was cozy as a wolf’s den. Rich wool tapestries draped the turret like tents, thick wool carpets strewn across the floor. Ruby reds, sapphire blues, and bright golds, the vibrant colors hung at every angle, an odd jumble of embroidered faces peering from the ceiling like a complex painting. The effect was dazzling.
Bryx yipped a greeting. Th
e mountain wolf lay sprawled beside a pallet heaped with furs. Danya slept beneath the furs, her long brown hair combed out, her face pale but serene, as if she dreamt a good dream. Kath stared at her friend, willing her to wake.
“Come and sit, Svala.” Neven shifted amongst the pillows without releasing Danya’s hand.
Kath sat cross-legged beside the wolf-faced warrior. “How is she?”
“The same, always drinking the broth drizzled on her lips, but otherwise she does not stir.” He bent his head, brushing a kiss across Danya’s hand, the open affection so effortless it sent a pang through Kath’s heart.
“What is it, Svala?”
Kath closed her face, lest it betray her, unable to speak of Duncan and their marriage in the shield forest…and how much she yearned for his touch. “It is good that she has you to care for her.”
The wolf-faced warrior flashed a warm smile. “She’s captured my heart. We will wed when the war is finished, and she will take the full tattoos of our den.”
“Danya’s found her true place among you. She never really belonged in the south.”
Bryx chuffed as if in agreement, licking Danya’s face.
“And you, Svala?”
“What?” His words caught her off guard.
“Where do you belong?”
The question opened a chasm in her heart. Duncan was gone, her father dead, the knights of the Octagon defeated…she reeled at so much loss. “I…don’t know.”
Behind her, Bear’s deep voice rumbled, “The Svala belongs with us.”
The Knight Marshal (The Silk & Steel Saga) Page 6