“Where can we steal a horse?”
She gaped at him. “What?”
“A horse,” said Sarkis patiently. “They still make horses, don’t they? I haven’t been in the sword that long?”
“Yes, of course, but… We’re going to steal one?”
“I don’t propose to buy one in the middle of the night, my lady.”
“I’ve never stolen a horse before.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“You were very concerned with the honor of my kinswomen,” said Halla, “but you’re not concerned with being a horse-thief?”
He snorted. “Raiding cattle and kine is a fine and honorable tradition. If they cannot hold their beasts, they deserve to lose them.”
Halla might have had something to say to that, but a shout rang out from farther down the street.
“Wake the constables! Murder!”
“Your aunt has quite a set of lungs,” Sarkis observed.
“She always had,” said Halla wearily. “She’d yell for her tray in bed in the morning when she visited, and you could hear her clear out back with the chickens.”
He stepped to the mouth of the alley and looked both ways, then stepped back into shadow. “Too exposed. Which way do you suggest?”
“We need to get to the churchyard,” said Halla. “It’s near the edge of town. If we can get into the burial yard, we can cut through. There’s a lich-gate at the far end that leads out of the walls and into the fields.”
“Will it be open?”
Halla sighed. “Yes. They keep it open for dead bodies. My great-uncle is lying under it.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. It seemed like an age of the earth had passed since Silas had coughed out his last on the pillow. “I suppose I will not be attending his funeral, so I might as well pay my respects now.”
“Will someone be keeping the vigil for him?”
“They damn well better be! I paid the lay brothers to see that someone did!”
Sarkis’s lips twitched. “Well, we will deal with that as we must. Lead the way.”
Halla plunged into the alley, following a turn to the left. A stray cat looked up at her, annoyed, and scurried into the dark. She crossed an open street and darted down the side of the public house. Light gleamed through the closed shutters, and the sounds of revelry inside drowned out their footsteps.
She started to leave the far side of the alley, but Sarkis caught her shoulder and pulled her back into the shadows. Two men wearing the round helms of constables jogged past. Halla clamped her teeth shut on a gasp.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear them over the noise.”
“How many constables does your town field?”
“Eight. Two per hundred, you know, to keep the peace.”
“Is that how you do it here?”
“Certainly. How do you do it where you are?”
“Each lord has a holding. He keeps the peace.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“They string him up and get a new lord.”
“But what if—”
“Two constables there means six elsewhere, then,” he interrupted. “Hmm. Perhaps we’d best wait on the horse and focus on getting out from under them.”
Halla looked out into the street again. It looked clear, but she didn’t breathe easy until they had crossed the jagged band of moonlight into the shadows on the opposite side.
Another pair of constables passed them on the next road. “Still going toward the house,” whispered Halla.
“They’ve barely had time to get there,” he said in an undertone. “And somehow I doubt your aunt will give a clear and concise report about what transpired.”
Halla found that she had a strong urge to snicker and muffled it. She was afraid that if she started laughing she wouldn’t be able to stop.
They reached another alleyway. “This way,” whispered Halla. “We have to cross the corner of the market.”
Sarkis did not ask if there was another way. He simply nodded. “Very well. I see a wall. Toward there?”
“That’s the churchyard. Yes.”
He took her hand again, looked around, and then dashed across the open space.
In the shadow of the market stall, they paused. Shouts were beginning to come from the direction of Silas’s house. Halla could hear shutters banging. “Is it fire?” someone yelled.
“Fire?!” cried someone else in response.
“I don’t see smoke!”
“What’s on fire?”
They darted to the next shadow, beside the well. Sarkis dropped down and set his back against the stones. Halla crouched beside him, trying to catch her breath.
“I suppose you’d object to actually setting part of the town on fire?” Sarkis asked.
“I most certainly would!”
“Pity.”
Halla was beginning to question the servant of the sword’s definition of honorable behavior.
She heard running feet on the far side of the market and flattened herself even farther against the ground. When the footsteps had faded, she peered over the lip of the well. “I don’t see anyone.”
“Good.” He caught her hand again. Halla blinked, suddenly noticing the dark lines across his arm.
“You’re bleeding!” she whispered, when they reached the safety of the church’s walls.
“A fair bit, I imagine. Your aunt’s hireling got a blow in.”
Halla remembered the sound of steel and the hiss that followed. “When you caught me, wasn’t it?”
“I could hardly let you fall down the stairs.”
She winced. “Does it hurt?”
“Stab wounds usually do.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be.” She couldn’t see his face, but he sounded amused. “It will heal when you sheath the sword for a little time. I’ve had much worse.”
“Yes, but if you hadn’t caught me…”
“If your wretched cousin hadn’t dropped you to save his own skin, you wouldn’t have fallen. I’ve a mind to go back and cut his ears off, but it doesn’t seem like a good time. Can you get over the wall here if I give you a boost?”
Halla looked up at the stone wall rising over her head. The stones were roughly laid, with plenty of handholds, but still… “I don’t know,” she admitted. “My tree climbing days are long behind me.”
Sarkis knelt down. “Climb up on my shoulders.”
Halla gulped.
She was not a particularly small woman, she knew. Heavy hips and heavy breasts and a frame to carry both. A good childbearing figure, her husband had said, for all the good it had done either of them.
Not, perhaps, the ideal figure for scaling church walls in the dark.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
“I am not kneeling in the dirt here for my health.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, though.”
“I could throw you over the wall instead.”
“Could you?”
“I am considering it very strongly.”
Ah…that was a joke, I think. Or something. All right. No use dithering. Roll up your sleeves…
She stepped up, first onto his knee and then onto his shoulder. He stayed as still as stone while she caught at the top of the wall.
“I’ve got it,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can pull myself up, though.”
“I’m going to stand,” he warned her, and rose slowly to his feet.
Halla clung to the top of the wall, feeling her fingernails catch and tear against the stone. Her stomach lurched. She wanted to squeak in terror but that seemed humiliating, so she didn’t.
Don’t embarrass yourself in front of the magic sword.
She heard more shouts in the streets. Terror fired her muscles and she scrabbled at the top of the wall, flinging herself up with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed. Her arms ached.
She lay flat on top, gasping. “Now what
? I can’t pull you up!”
“Now sheath the sword,” he said calmly.
“What?”
“Sheath the sword. Then unsheathe it and toss it down inside the wall.”
Halla blinked at him, then grinned. “That works?”
“Remarkably well.”
She sat up, straddling the wall—her habit was going to be rather the worse for wear afterward, but there was nothing to be done—and fumbled the sword out from behind her back. The cords came loose and she pushed the blade into the scabbard with a click.
Blue light swirled through the shadows and he vanished.
“Eh!” someone shouted. “What’s that over there?”
“Oh blast…” whispered Halla, shaking the scabbard loose again and dropping the sword down inside the churchyard.
Sarkis reappeared. Halla flattened herself back against the wall and swung her leg over.
I am the picture of grace.
“Lower yourself down,” he whispered.
“I’m afraid I’ll fall!”
“Then I’ll catch you.”
This might be true—the servant of the sword did seem very strong—but Halla couldn’t quite make her gut believe it.
“Someone up on the wall!” shouted a voice. “Constables!”
She cursed, swung herself over, and prayed that she didn’t fall onto a tombstone and bash her brains out.
Well, here goes—
Arms locked around the waist and Sarkis lowered her to the grass and handed her the sword.
“Out the lich-gate!” she whispered, slinging the scabbard back over her shoulder. “They’ll have to wake the priest to get the main church gate opened.”
They ran. It was an old churchyard and the graves were uneven, parts upthrust and others sinking. Halla skidded on a mossy stone slab and nearly went to her knees. Sarkis caught her, made three more steps, and then tripped over the hidden edge of a grave and sprawled across the grass himself.
Halla felt a sneaking satisfaction that it wasn’t just her.
“What god keeps this place?” said Sarkis, rising and slapping dirt from his knees.
“All of them,” said Halla. “I mean, it’s not a specific temple. Traveling priests come through and any of them who want to use it. And we’ve got the village priest, of course, for the marrying and burying. This one serves the Four-Faced God, but the last was out of the Temple of the White Rat.”
“Oh, the decadent south,” muttered Sarkis. “All these gods. Which way?”
Halla pointed. “Toward the—”
A loud clanging rang out over the village. Halla winced.
“And that would be the church bell?” asked Sarkis.
“They ring it for alarms.”
“That may make things difficult.”
“What, only now?” said Halla, and saw Sarkis’s teeth flash in the moonlight as he grinned.
The lich-gate loomed before them. A stone slab, shrouded in cloth and moonlight lay beneath the covered roof, and beyond, the iron gates stood ajar.
There was a body on the slab.
Great-uncle Silas. Forgive me, uncle, for not being able to be grateful for the gift you gave me.
“Huh? What’s going on?” A young man, heavy-eyed with sleep, rose from the bench beside the gate. “Why are they sounding the alarm?”
Sarkis went for his sword. Halla grabbed his sword hand and shoved it back down. He glanced at her, startled, and she gave him a sharp, hopefully meaningful look, then stepped forward. “Ladden? Is that you?”
“Mistress Halla?”
“There’s something happening in the village, Ladden. It’s not grave-robbers, is it?”
“Grave robbers?” Ladden looked around for the corpse, panicking. “No! He’s still—oh, thank the Four. No. He’s still here.”
“Thank heaven,” said Halla. “I don’t know what’s happening. I just heard the alarm and someone had said there were grave robbers about the other day, so I came straight here to make sure no one had designs on poor Silas.”
“Not while I’m here, ma’am,” said Ladden, standing up as straight as he could.
“They steal people’s parts and sell them. Although I’ve never been sure if they took the whole body or just the parts they’re going to sell…”
Ladden’s eyes went wide. Sarkis made a small noise of despair.
“But you’re here!” Halla finished hurriedly. “So they didn’t get him. That’s good. But something’s happening in town, obviously.”
Bless the lad’s thick skull. There’s more holes in that story than in a cheese. But he’s probably worried I’ll notice he was asleep and not guarding Silas.
“No, ma’am.”
“Good. Roderick and I will go out that way and make sure no one suspicious is lurking around. Oh, this is Roderick, my aunt’s guardsman.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Ladden, touching his forehead and stepping back to let them pass. Sarkis nodded to him as they hurried by.
“I am almost insulted,” whispered Sarkis, as they left the lich-gate behind. “I am nothing like that wretched hireling.”
“Yes, but it’ll muddy the waters nicely when they ask Ladden what happened.”
He took a moment to unclench his jaw, then finally said, “It was well done, Lady Halla.”
“Thanks.”
The lich road led across the open fields into the distance. There were ditches on either side, overgrown with tangles of blackberry and cattail.
“Are there no houses here?” asked Sarkis.
“Not on the lich road. You can farm it, but you don’t build along it. Good way to have the dead tapping on your door at night. Although what the dead want, I don’t know.”
The servant of the sword frowned, looking back over his shoulder. Pinpoints of light were appearing in the village as people brought out torches to light the darkness. “Not much cover, either.”
“Well, no, but if we can get over the hill, we’ll be up against another hill and there’s rocks on that hill. Are rocks cover?”
“Rocks are cover.”
“All right then.”
“Then let us hurry.”
They abandoned stealth for speed and ran down the lich road. Moonlight blazed on the stubble standing in the fields. The harvest was nearly over, the sheaves drying, making lumpy shapes in the fields on the right. Hills rose off to the left, not high but increasingly stony, unfit for anything but sheep.
After a few minutes, Halla had to slow, gasping for breath. She put her hands on her knees. “Sorry.”
Sarkis shrugged, watching behind them. “Do your people have dogs that track men?”
Halla nodded. “Slewhounds,” she panted. “But not in…Rutger’s Howe. They’d have to go to… Archon’s Glory to raise a pack. We’re just not…big enough…”
“No lord runs them to bring back slaves?”
Halla stared at him, round-eyed. “My people aren’t slavers!”
“Ah. Good to know.”
“Are yours?”
“Occasionally.”
“That’s dreadful!”
“It is. But my people also don’t force women to marry their cousins in order to steal their fortunes.”
Halla closed her mouth with a click.
After a moment, she straightened and began walking swiftly down the lich road, with Sarkis silent at her side.
Chapter 7
Sarkis was having a rather odd day.
It was not the worst day of his life by any measure, nor even the strangest. It was simply odd.
He had been an heirloom for years, passed down from generation to generation, the guard who did not tire, the sword that did not break. It was rather tiresome, being an heirloom, but you got used to it, and at least everyone knew what to expect.
Some wielders he knew well. Some he saw only briefly. Most of them he failed, in the end. There was only so much that a single warrior could do to stave off death.
And then there had been another d
ying: a blade through the chest, up and under, just notching the sternum. His last thought had been, Hung up on my ribs, you bastard, you’re not getting your sword back unless you cut it loose, and then he had gone into the long, dreaming torpor of death.
In truth, he’d half-expected it. His last wielder had been a boy barely out of the nursery, defending the family lands with no more than a handful of old men. Sarkis had known they were going to die when the enemy came for them. The best he could do was muster a defense that cost the enemy more than they expected.
He had done that, and done it well, but at last he had fallen. Then had come the snap of the wielder’s death, like a bone breaking, and then he had been alone inside the sword.
He felt the sting of his failures keenly, but this one, at least, he could not blame himself too harshly for. There had been no chance of victory, only courage.
Sarkis knew that a long time had passed after that. Decades, probably. Not the first time that the sword had gone for years without a wielder, but one of the longest.
Fortunately, he had only the vague sense of time passing. The world inside the sword was a place of silver shadows, of darkness and metallic dreams. He could not say if he slept, exactly, but he knew that he never stayed conscious for very long.
To spend eternity trapped in a blade, and to be awake the entire time, would have been a recipe for madness. The sorcerer-smith had explained it all very clearly that day so long ago, perched on the edge of the worktable. She had been a lanky woman with a blacksmith’s oversized arms, and a light in her eyes that would make a rabid dog howl and run for the hills.
She had not told them that they would have a sense of time passing, though. Perhaps she hadn’t known.
She’s been dead for centuries, so I can’t exactly ask.
Regardless, he had been content to wait in the blade, dreaming its bloody silver dreams, until someone drew him again.
What he hadn’t expected was to finally be drawn by a baffled woman wearing rather less clothing than she might be. Sarkis appreciated a woman’s body, particularly a well-endowed one, but he liked to at least know her name and whether she had any relations of a vindictive nature.
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