by Daniel Ford
Allystaire awoke to some of the most intense pain he had ever felt. He was more than a little familiar with the ache that inevitably followed a battle, but this was like the ache of a dozen battles, a score, a hundred, all rolled into one and topped with a good dose of being hammered upon by a gravekmir with a grudge.
He let out a moaning sigh, struggling even to open his eyes. When he did, he saw, for a moment, nothing, then tiny pricks of twinkling light appeared, and he realized he was looking at the night sky. Beneath him was soft, cool grass, and something was folded underneath his head for a pillow.
“D’you always pass out at the end of a fight? Damned inconvenient.” Idgen Marte’s mocking voice from somewhere nearby. “This time, though, you aren’t even cut, so I can’t begin to guess why. Just a case of the fainting vapors?”
He tried to respond but, for a few moments, all he could summon was another moan. His muscles were stretched beyond all reason and sore beyond the telling, and he could not summon the will to speak, much less move, so he could only lie there and listen to Idgen Marte’s mocking laughter, which fortunately died quickly.
He heard the noise of movement, and then she walked into the field of his vision, a tall and irregular shadow that blocked the stars. “Are you wounded? You aren’t allowed to die on us now…”
With heroic force of will, Allystaire raised his hand and waved it dismissively before dropping it back to the grass. “No,” he croaked, “I am not.” Then, swallowing hard, he said, “Is there water? Food?” He was suddenly, painfully, famished.
“And wine,” Idgen Marte replied. Her shadow moved away; there came the sound of more movement, then a bottle was pressed to his lips and cool liquid began to burble down his throat. He coughed a bit, but swallowed most, then somehow found the strength to raise himself with an elbow into a half-sitting position. His torso and right arm protested the most.
Idgen Marte knelt next to him and helped him stay upright. In the darkness it was hard to be certain, but he imagined there was genuine concern upon her features. “We carried you out toward the altar. We thought—and, well, Mol told us—that’s where you’d need to be.”
Allystaire thought on this for a moment, then nodded. “Suppose so,” he murmured. He moved his head weakly atop his neck till he spotted the squat, square shadow that must’ve been the altar. “Help me up.”
Long, hard arms looped behind his back and under his shoulder, and Idgen Marte squatted to get her legs beneath her; suddenly he was drawn upward, even as he heard her gasp at the shock of his near-dead weight. Upright, he was able to take a bit of the burden on his own feet, and with hobbling steps and her support, he made it to the altar and fell forward upon it, hoping his weight would keep him there.
Mother, he thought, and in his head his voice was as weak as his arms; Mother, is this some punishment? Have I displeased you so quickly?
There was no answer. Allystaire thought over the battle, thought about ripping the shackles off his arms, about the lightness of his hammer and the way it cut the very air itself. He thought back to the way he had crushed Casamir’s chest until both sides of his armor met flatly together.
At that he felt a small rush of triumph, though mingled with fear. Once again, words came back to him, unbidden this time, and remembered instead of whispered. Terrible to behold.
“I think,” Allystaire said, as he pushed himself off the altar, then haltingly turned around so that he leaned, instead of lay, upon it, “that this is the price I pay. That my arms are not made to do…” He paused. “To do the things they did. This may be the price of Her Gift.”
“So every time ya fight, you’re goin’ to collapse? Price seems a bit high.”
Allystaire ran his hands along the stone beneath them, felt it warm against his skin. He stood like that for a long moment, silent, praying only so far as to open his mind to the Goddess. He said nothing; he asked for nothing. Whether it was the altar, the moment of prayer, or just his own will, he found the strength to push himself back to his feet, and the weary soreness that suffused his limbs receded by the smallest of degrees.
“Not every time I fight, no,” he said, standing at last on steady legs. “Until Casamir ordered his man to ride Gram down, I had no plan. I suppose I was going to go with them and attempt to talk sense into Garth and Skoval. But the instant he threatened the boy…” Allystaire shrugged, grunting as he still felt twinges of pain in his shoulders. “Then the Goddess gave me strength. She told me it would be terrible. That was Her word—terrible.”
“Well it was freezin’ terrible for sure,” Idgen Marte agreed, and Allystaire imagined the grimace twisting the scar near the corner of her mouth. “Three men vomited trying to pull Casamir out of his armor. He had to be washed out with buckets of water. And you took the top of that other lout’s head clean off. Brain and bone all over the grass.” She shook her head. “When this village lives again, when traders come through, and peddlers and minstrels…have you any idea of the stories they’ll carry to the rest of the world? It’ll spread like a fire. The Holy Knight who strides the world like a giant, who strikes men down with his hammer the size of a tree, who crushes men with his bare hands.”
She stepped closer to him, and in the dim star and moonlight of the evening he could finally see her face, read the note of fear in it. “I thought you were going to kill that Skoval with your bare hands. Tear his jaw off and crush his skull with it.”
Allystaire chuckled uneasily, but shook his head. “No. The Goddess’s strength had left me by then. Gram was safe; the fight was over. Yet his protest, that he was only doing what was ordered…” He felt his hands curling into fists and closed his eyes, took deep breaths till he calmed.
“So how exactly do you know them? And what in the Cold d’you plan to do with them?”
“Casamir, I grew up with. We were squires in Oyrwyn together, under the Old Baron, Gerard Oyrwyn, and rivals from the moment he realized I was a better hand at everything than he. The lance, the horse, the mêlée—there was little he could do that I was not better at, and I was not always the best, either,” Allystaire said. “There was always something dark in him. Swung his practice blades at the youngest pages a little too hard. Serving women left his chambers bruised. He was always able to make himself useful enough, though, to be tolerated. He was brave, but it was a cunning bravery; good enough in a fight, but you never wanted to show him your back. And always an eye for his own pocket and his own name. I would have thought the Young Baron would have found use for him, and he did, for a while. But even he has limits, I suppose.”
“The pigs could have use for him if y’like,” Idgen Marte said wryly.
Allystaire let that pass, a brief flash of unease in his stomach at the thought quickly replaced by rumbles of hunger. “I thought you said you brought food?” He watched her walk a few steps away and bend to the ground, then continued. “Garth and Skoval, I trained. Good men. Loyal, brave; Garth was the kind you would trust with his own command. There was a time when we would have stood at each other’s backs against anything.” He sighed and dropped his hands to his sides. “That time was not as long ago as it feels. Just a few months, really,” he added quietly.
“Skoval, on the other hand, has the mind of a dim mongrel dog; if you had the charge of him, he wanted to make you happy. There was never an evil thought in his mind.” He paused. “Never a thought one way or another, yet a good and guileless man, in truth.”
Idgen Marte leant over, holding toward him a flat, mostly stale trencher filled with a cold joint, cheese, and cold pease pottage with a wooden spoon stuck into it. He seized the spoon and attacked the green, vinegary mush, making the bulk of it disappear in a few mouthfuls.
She let him eat for a few moments before asking, “And what do you mean to do with them?”
“Goddess help me, I have not the faintest idea. Well, the one whose name I do not know…the one who took Gram. Him, I am going to s
peak to in the morning.” He paused in his meal. “How is Gram? Was he hurt?”
“Not badly. A bruise and a scratch and I made sure the latter was clean. Don’t change the subject. What of the other two?”
“I do not know.” Allystaire shrugged, even as he began gnawing at the meat he held in fingers slick with chilly grease.
“We could ransom them,” Idgen Marte suggested. “Be a good way to lay in some weight.”
“The Young Baron would never pay,” Allystaire replied. “If he learned that we held them, he would just send more men. More than we could stop.” He kept at the meat, attacking the bone steadily, devouring the flesh with a hunger he had rarely known. It seemed hardly sufficient, once it was gone and the cheese besides. After considering it a moment, he held the trencher to his teeth and crunched down upon it, grinding the hard bits of bread between his teeth and letting his spit soften others. Soon, it too was gone.
Idgen Marte laughed a little at his sudden display of gluttony, having been quiet while she watched in mild astonishment. “Send them on their way, then, with a warning to leave Thornhurst well enough alone.”
“Be kinder if we just slit their throats, I suspect. Gilrayan Oyrwyn insists on his own way, no matter the consequences.” Allystaire waved away any further questions, cracked a yawn, and said, “No more talk tonight. Let us deal with them in the morning.”
“The bodies will be ripe in the morning,” Idgen Marte argued. “We didn’t dress ‘em. Nobody had the stomach.”
Allystaire handed her the spoon and cracked a cavernous yawn. “Morning.”
“Fine, fine,” she relented, slipping the spoon into a pocket. “Where are you sleeping tonight, what with no fugitives to guard?”
Allystaire grunted lightly. “Remind me to check on Norbert in the morning.” Then, gesturing to the field the altar sat in, he said, “I doubt I can make it too far away from here.” He paused. “Feels right, anyway.” He yawned yet again. “Feels soon, too.”
“Think it’ll be safe, out here alone?”
Allystaire tapped a hand against the altar he still leaned against. “Not alone.” She had turned to leave when he cleared his throat. “You did a good thing today, Idgen Marte.”
“I do good things every day, Allystaire.”
“You stood between a man in armor and a frightened boy who could work all the years of his life and never afford to hire someone of your skill. Two months ago, would you have imagined yourself doing that?”
“That knight was as dangerous to me as a mouse is to a hunting pard,” she snorted.
“And yet you could not have known that when you stood against him. Goodnight.”
“I had his measure,” she muttered. Idgen Marte strolled away, her figure slowly blending in with the shadows cast by the moon, before disappearing into the night.
Allystaire found a cool spot on the grass and collapsed. He slept, but no more deeply than he had before his life had begun anew just a few short weeks before.
CHAPTER 20
The Shadow Ordained
When Allystaire awoke, summer sunlight was already hammering the ground relentlessly, covering everything in an almost palpable haze. He was soaked in sweat, and his body still bore the heavy ache of the night before. The pain was more tolerable, if only just. Blinking as he pushed himself up, he felt an irritation on his right wrist and reached to scratch it, grimacing as his fingers met the rough iron of the manacle still dangling from his wrist.
He laughed. “How in Cold am I getting that off?” He shook his head in answer to his own question, then stood, gathering his hammer, and began to shuffle back along the road toward the village. Before he reached it he could smell the cookfires and hear the rustle of the camping folk coming to life. When he reached the edge of the spread of blankets, bedrolls, and lean-tos they’d slept among, the morning was suddenly silenced but for the lazy calling of birds, which sounded just as tired of the heat as anyone.
The silence abounded because the entire village, as one, had turned to stop and stare at Allystaire. He sighed, his head and shoulders slumping. Do we have to do this again?
With a deep breath, he lifted his head and walked on amongst them as if none stared. He held up his right hand, the fetter dangling from the end of its thick-linked iron chain. “Before lunch, someone get an anvil and a fire. I want this off. First, though, I need breakfast.” He thought a moment, as everyone stood still and remained silent. “And perhaps prayer afterward, if anyone wishes to join me.” They stood like rabbits that thought they’d spotted a hunter. He sighed, wondering, Am I always going to have to order them? He waved his hands impatiently. “To it, folk. You have lives to lead. A town to finish rebuilding. On with it.”
They scurried away in a sudden burst of motion and energy, but for the most part they stayed silent. Allystaire sighed and watched them scatter.
“Too used to taking orders, ya know. They’ll never be able t’look at you as aught but their lord.”
“Am I bound to have you answer every unvoiced thought I have from now until my death?” Allystaire turned to find Idgen Marte standing a few feet behind him.
“If you’re lucky enough, I suppose.”
Allystaire snorted and went in search of food, finding small dried fish and hard rolls in sacks in the wagon. He ate quickly, hardly tasting. Idgen Marte lingered nearby. “I need Renard and the three prisoners.” He thought a moment and added, “And rope.”
“Gonna hang ‘em?”
“Might like to make them think so. First I want to talk to them alone. Without spectacle.” Allystaire gestured to the dirt track leading west. “Out where we confronted them yesterday.”
“I said they’ll look at you as their lord, not me.”
“I do not know where you put them. And I need a moment alone.” He pointed a finger in the direction of the sun, though it was obscured in the haze. He turned his head slightly to the side, and added, “Please.”
She nodded and turned away, began eating up the ground with the usual long strides of her legs. He turned off the track and wandered into the trees that lined it, until he came to the site of yesterday’s battle. Sod was torn, earth was disturbed, dark stains still marred the track, and the body of the horse Idgen Marte had brought down with her bow still lay in the grass. A fox darted away as he approached, its muzzle darkened.
“Wish she had not had to kill the horse,” he murmured to no one. “Still, probably the best she could do at the moment.” He wandered away from the large, pungent remains, tamping down the anger that it had been foolishly left out in the grass.
Allystaire turned his mind from this and looked more or less in the direction of the sun. “Mother,” he began aloud, then foundered. He cleared his throat and started fresh.
“Mother. I would know that it is Your justice that is done this morning. If I am inclined to mercy, let it not be merely because these men were once my friends. Let it be because they deserve it. If I am inclined to wrath, let it again be because they deserve it.”
It wasn’t long before he was joined by Renard, who ushered Garth, Skoval, and the unknown knight who had held a knife at a boy’s ribs. The last walked with a splint tied around the leg Idgen Marte had cut out from under him. He was of medium height, standing a bit shorter than Allystaire but with a similar kind of bulk that came from years of bearing arms and armor. He had coal-black hair, a rough black beard, ruddy cheeks, and a bulbous nose. Idgen Marte walked alongside him, supporting him with one hand wrapped tightly around his arm.
“All three of you may sit.” Allystaire held out his hand and Idgen Marte tossed him a coil of rope, which he unwound and began to knot. Garth and Skoval remained standing, but the third man collapsed to the ground with a grunt and a sigh.
“The two of you,” Allystaire said, pointing with the rope toward Skoval and Garth, “know me.” He paused, staring at them for a moment, narro
wing his dark blue eyes at them. “Perhaps it is better to say that you knew me.” His hands continued to work the rope, and he saw their eyes growing wide. “Who in the Cold are you?”
“Miles,” the man answered, his voice cracking. “Sir Miles of Coldbourne Moor.”
Allystaire laughed, a short, harsh sound. “Did not take the bastard long, did it?”
“You didn’t leave him much choice,” Garth spat back at him, his pale cheeks flushing with anger. “I’d never known you to be a coward, Ally. Not till a month ago.”
“What was my choice, Garth? I left because it was me or him, and I could not betray the Old Baron by killing his son, bastard or no. I promised the old man I would serve his son as I did him. I tried. I failed. I broke that oath. I could not betray the father by killing the son.”
“You left your own sister behind,” Garth shot back, his face even redder now. “To be disinherited.”
“I asked Audreyn to come with me. She refused. She stayed for you. Whatever else the Young Baron is, I thought there was enough of his father in him to keep him from seeking revenge on her.”
Garth drew in a deep breath. Behind the sitting knights, Allystaire saw Idgen Marte turn to Renard and mouth the word, Sister? She turned back to watch Allystaire with narrowed eyes.
“Why did you not come to me? You could’ve hidden with my folk, waited for it to blow away.” Garth sighed, some of his anger melting away. “You had friends at Wind’s Jaw, and Coldbourne, and Highgate.” He looked down at the grass under him, then back up at Allystaire, his eyes carrying in them a fresh hurt. “Had you called, Ally, we would’ve come. Had you asked, we would’ve moved against him. We would’ve made you baron. Still would.”