The Swordbearer Read online

  Gathrid shook his head. Same old thing. Over and over and over again. Learn from the mistakes of the past. That was stupid. Only fools lived in the past. His father had said so.

  "Pay attention, Gathrid. It's important that you two learn. Nudge Anyeck, please. She's sleeping with her eyes open. Heavens! What am I going to do? They're cretins, and I'm supposed to have them ready in time for . . . "

  A chill crept down Gathrid's spine. There was something grim about Plauen's muttering. "In time for what, Brother?" he demanded.

  "Nothing. Adulthood, I suppose. I'm sorry. You're exasperating me. I've never dealt with such stubborn students."

  Gathrid became mildly embarrassed. That surprised him. Plauen's tactics usually irritated him. Maybe it was the implication of deliberate ignorance colliding with his knowledge that he had been sabotaging the sessions.

  "We don't know what Aarant, Grellner and their contemporaries were really like," Plauen said, resuming his lesson. "The stories we have now were shaped by a thousand retellings, and it's in those retellings that they've acquired their significance for us today. The characters we associate with the Brothers' War have become archetypes. Grellner brought Temptation into the Paradise of Anderle. The Immortal Twins lost Innocence . . . . "

  Gathrid had heard the line of reasoning before. He knew it by heart. Yet Plauen kept returning, as if there were a point he and Anyeck kept missing.

  "The real ambiguities of the age surround Tureck Aarant and Theis Rogala. Was Aarant a hero? Not by the usual standards. Was Rogala his servant or master? Did Aarant's weapon, the Great Sword, control him instead of the reverse? Think about those questions. You'll be facing similar, though less symbolic, situations all your lives. We'll be examining them all next week."

  The session ended. Gathrid and Anyeck climbed to the parapet of the tower at Kacalief's southeast corner.

  "I don't see anything," Anyeck said. "Can you? Your eyes are better."

  Gathrid searched the east. "I don't see anything, either." His gaze followed the road that looped round the marsh and headed south toward Hartog and the Dolvin. Their father had long since disappeared. He turned slowly, scanning the marsh itself, the vineyards, the wild rolling hills to the north. They were the Savards, from which the March took its name. He and his brothers hunted there occasionally. He said, "The hills look dry. Be dangerous if there's a fire."

  "Everything is dry. We need rain. They say the marsh is drying up."

  They passed an hour speaking of nothing, afraid to talk about what was on their minds.

  Ventimiglia seemed to weigh on their brothers, too. Their efforts on the practice field were decidedly feeble.

  The Safire was gone a week. When he returned, he announced, "The King himself was there. Things may not be as bad as we feared. The Brotherhood knows about Grevening. The Fray Magister, the Emperor and Kimach, King of Bilgoraj, have called for a conference at Torun."

  Bilgoraj, one of the west's leading kingdoms, was Gudermuth's neighbor to the west. Its capital, Torun, was one of the great cities of the day, and Kimach Faulstich was sometimes called one of the great Kings.

  The Safire continued, "They're going to form an Alliance of all the western states and Brotherhood Orders. The King says the Alliance's protection will include Gudermuth, so we won't stand alone. Ahlert won't dare attack. Not unless he wants to fight the whole west at once."

  Gathrid had never heard his father make a longer speech. He hoped it was all true.

  "He sounds like he's whistling in the dark," Anyeck whispered.

  "What? Why?"

  "He doesn't believe in this Alliance. He's just trying to make us feel safer."

  The fighting in Grevening washed against the border next day. Gathrid woke to alarms. The Safire's men-at-arms had exchanged arrows with Ventimiglians who had strayed over the line. He rushed to the east wall.

  Smoke obscured the dawn, catching bloody fire from the rising sun. Below, just across the frontier, one of the Mindak's patrols was passing. He watched for a few minutes. His father came up, stood beside him. After a time, he said, "Gathrid, go have your breakfast, then start your lesson."

  "Yes, Sir." He had given up arguing.

  He tried to keep his mind on his studies. He could not. There was skirmishing going on across the border. The noise of the watchers on the walls kept distracting him. Anyeck had run out earlier.

  Plauen slammed his book back into its protective case. He snapped, "Very well. Go ahead. Go applaud the Mindak's barbarism."

  Gathrid gathered his study materials. His heart began to flutter.

  "Gathrid," Plauen called after him. "Don't fall into the trap that's caught Anyeck. Don't start thinking there's something romantic and wonderful about this. It's war. It's an ugly business."

  The youth could not conceal his disagreement.

  "I wasn't always a Brother, Gathrid. I saw a few battles in my time. I saw my comrades lying on muddy fields, their guts spilled, stinking of their own ordure, the terror of death filling their eyes . . . . "

  Gathrid shuddered and ran. He did not want to hear that part. He wanted romances and lays. Blood and pain were not real. The economics, politics and psychology of warfare just made the old stories dull.

  He wanted adventures grim with dread perils overcome, but with the clear certainty of a strong hero standing victorious in the end. Plauen kept trying to kill the shine. He insisted that it was all hogwash. He wanted you to believe that heroes didn't always win, that putting your money on evil was usually the better bet.

  He reached the wall in time to witness the passing of a large company of eastern troops. Sunlight twinkled off their wildly varied armor. Their equipment rattled and clanked in a steady, grim beat.

  His gaze locked on the black figure at their head. "One of the Dead Captains," he murmured. His stomach did a flip.

  As if hearing him, the Toal halted, faced Kacalief. It stared at the fortress a long time, as if quietly amused by its audience. Its gaze swept across Gathrid. He felt as though an icicle had been driven into his brain. He shuddered. For a long moment he was frightened.

  "Aren't they gorgeous!" Anyeck bubbled. These easterners were richly and colorfully clad. Gathrid understood most brigades dressed more somberly.

  He turned to his sister, his upper lip rising in a half-sneer. Her greed blazed through her common sense. He wished she would outgrow having been spoiled. "They're dreadful," he said. "Look at the Dead Captain. Tell me he's glamorous."

  She gave him a nasty look.

  "He does fit the particulars of the husband you want."

  "Gathrid, don't take out your frustrations on me."

  "And you'll get a chance to meet one soon enough, I think."

  Their mother stepped between them. "They won't, Gathrid," she said. "The Alliance will stop them. Ahlert won't risk the united wrath of the western kingdoms and the Brotherhood."

  Then Plauen was behind them, smiling a distant smile. "Don't blind yourself, My Lady. Ventimiglia is a dragon with one head. It speaks with one voice. It strikes with one sword. It marches to one will. This Alliance will be a beast of a hundred heads, every one trying to drag the body in a different direction. The Mindak will sneer at it. He'll spit on it. And he'll trample it into the dust."

  Gathrid stared at the Brother in disbelief. Never had he heard the man speak with such despair. "Plauen!"

  "I'm sorry. I forget myself. The rage of frustration seethes within me. I'm afraid it's too late. The Mindak has the scent of fell artifacts of which only a few Magisters are aware. Had he been stopped farther east, he might never have learned that they had survived the Fall."

  The Safirina asked, "What are you talking about, Mikas?"

  The redness left the teacher's face. He seemed to fold into himself. "Nothing, My Lady. Unfounded speculations I shouldn't be discussing. Pay me no mind. I'm a long-winded fool."

  Gathrid stared. There was a look in Plauen's eyes, when the man glanced at him or Anyeck, which turned his hea
rt cold. And behind the look was a poorly controlled fear.

  It was a puzzle, the youth thought.

  Chapter Two

  Ultimatum

  The armies of Ventimiglia halted just east of the Grevening border. Their encampments covered the countryside. Gathrid tried counting tents. He would get into the thousands and lose track. He gave up.

  Refugees poured into Gudermuth. They carried tales so cruel nobody believed them. They featured Nieroda and the Toal in such monstrous roles that Kacalief's people rejected the accusations. Nobody could be that bloody and black.

  The easterners erected semi-permanent fortifications and barracks throughout autumn. Their numbers diminished. Spies reported that many of the Mindak's soldiers had returned to their families for the winter.

  It was a small thing, but a human touch which offset the alleged brutality of that somber army.

  Gathrid's father continued to hope weakly for the Alliance. His mother was convinced the Mindak would not defy it.

  The battles with his father became more heated. The youth thought the threat justified his being trained. His father refused with increasing vehemence.

  Anyeck, too, knew her disappointments. The Safire refused to let anyone run to safety. "We're responsible for this corner of the March," he insisted. "Neither I nor any of mine will shirk. We have our duty. We stand here. We set no cowardly examples, come peace or come war." And that was the final word.

  Gathrid could not help but admire his father's stubbornness. It was the stubbornness of the heroes he worshiped.

  Winter came with its snows. The Ventimiglians remained out there, their nearest works just a mile away. Their presence became ever more grating, more fraying to the nerves. Each day one of the black-clad Toal would ride to the border and sit, sometimes for hours, staring at the fortress. Plauen named it a clear declaration of intent.

  "Where are those armies the Alliance was going to raise?" the Safire growled. "Why aren't there any tents on our side of the border?" He sent messengers to the Dolvin. The Dolvin queried the King. The King could not answer the questions. He had heard nothing from Torun.

  The snows ceased. The white melted away, leaving the ground soggy and the marsh full. The first wildflowers appeared. The birds returned from warmer climes.

  The tension in Kacalief grew daily.

  One morning Anyeck came flying down from her place of worship on the wall. "One of them is coming!" she shrieked. She sounded half terrified, half delighted. "One of the black riders. He's over the border now."

  The Safire growled at his sergeants. Alarms sounded. Men-at-arms rushed to the walls. Someone shouted down, "He's alone, Sir. White flag."

  The Safire stopped his people before they started the fires to boil water and emptied the arsenals of their sparse store of arrows and shafts for the ballistae. "They want to parlay. I'll stall them all summer long."

  Gathrid scampered to the wall. He looked down at the rider. The rider looked up. Gathrid suddenly felt very cold, very small, very vulnerable. In that instant of eye contact he believed all the dark tales.

  "This is a new one," Anyeck said. "I thought we'd seen them all."

  "This one is Nieroda. The Dark Champion. Their commander."

  "How do you know?"

  "Logic. The Toal don't talk. Nieroda looks pretty much like them, but isn't a Toal himself. Since this one means to parlay, it follows it must be Nieroda."

  Anyeck stuck out her tongue.

  Kacalief's massive oaken gate creaked open. The dark rider approached.

  Gathrid surveyed his home and felt more vulnerable. Kacalief was old and small and weak. It did not stand on much of a hill. It had no moat, just a stake-filled ditch round the foot of its wall. It had no drawbridge and no barbican. Its walls were solid, but not that tall. If one were breached there was nowhere to retreat but into a small central tower which served as his family's quarters. Everyone else lived in huts and sheds against the inner face of the wall.

  They probably laughed at the place, the planners out there.

  The dark rider passed under the wall, halted just inside. He did not look around. He seemed indifferent to the castle's defenses.

  The Safire strode into the court. He had donned his rusty old war gear. He did not look impressive, though the sword he bore was in keeping with his size. "Nevenka Nieroda?" he asked.

  The rider inclined its head slightly. "I speak for the Emperor of All Men. He commands you to put aside all manner of excuse and delay, and yield up the sword named Daubendiek, also called the Great Sword, and the Sword of Suchara."

  The Safire exchanged a look with Symen, then with Belthar. He was baffled.

  As were Gathrid and everyone else within hearing.

  "What's he talking about?" Anyeck asked. "What Great Sword?"

  "Maybe he means the one Tureck Aarant carried." There was a local legend about Aarant's dwarfish companion, Theis Rogala, having buried the mystic blade in the Savards, but not even peasant storytellers took it seriously.

  The Safire regained his equilibrium. "The Great Sword? That's a child's tale. The thing isn't here. It never was. I couldn't give it to you if I wanted. And I don't want. I wouldn't give your Emperor a bucket of water if he were burning."

  The rider inclined his head slightly. "As you wish. You'll regret that attitude." He departed.

  "Hey! Hold on." The Safire started to chase the horseman, remembered his dignity. He stopped, looked at his master-at-arms and sons. He wore an expression of bewilderment deeper than any Gathrid had ever seen.

  The youth caught a glimpse of Plauen. The Brother was farther along the wall, observing Nieroda's departure. His face was the gray of death.

  "What the hell?" the Safire finally roared. "Are they trying to confuse us to death? Plauen! Get down here. Transcribe a message to the Dolvin. Word for word, what Nieroda said. And tell him to get some people up here. They're going to take a crack at us."

  The Dolvin's contribution arrived four days later. A company of two hundred men. A laughable force, considering the countless thousands loafing beyond the border.

  And loafing was all the Ventimiglians were doing. They spent a while each day practicing marching to their battle signals, then just sat around. Their very indolence irritated Gathrid. It shouted their contempt of Kacalief's defenses.

  A month passed. The Dolvin sent carping messages. He wanted to know how long the Safire meant to tie up his men. Nothing was happening.

  Nieroda returned. He made the same demand in the same words and tone. Gathrid's father gave the same reply. And it was true. He could not surrender something not in his possession, something which probably did not exist at all.

  "The Emperor of All Men has bid me say this much more. In his mercy he gives you two days grace. You may yet save your people."

  "Tell him he can go to Hell."

  Gathrid was not fond of his father. He was at that age where the man could do no right, but he did find himself admiring the man's stand.

  Nieroda returned to Grevening. Gathrid watched the eastern armies shed their somnolence and become astonishingly agile and coordinated during a day-long exercise. Anyeck was impressed, Gathrid frightened, and everyone else intimidated. At that evening's council of war, Symen asked, "Will we meet them in the field?"

  "Don't be stupid," the Safire snapped. "With six horsemen? That's not enough to match the Toal."

  "There'd be seven if . . . " Gathrid said.

  "You shut up. No. If they come, we make them come over the wall. We make them pay for every square foot they take, and we hold till the Alliance relieves us."

  He had sent a message to the Dolvin saying the Mindak planned to attack two days hence. He did not, honestly, expect either a reply or help. Even the Safirina's faith in the Alliance was growing strained. It hadn't bothered making a token showing.

  Haghen, having been put up to it by Gathrid, at Anyeck's suggestion, asked, "Father, shouldn't we send the women and children to Katich? The capital can sta
nd a siege better than we can."

  The Safire's face became taut. The color drained away. The ugliness vanished too. He became just a tired, frightened man. "No. I meant what I said before." His voice was barely audible. "We have our duty. We won't shirk it. None of us."

  In that moment Gathrid both loved and hated him. He met Anyeck's eye and shrugged.

  Plauen tried to pursue the argument. The Safire cut him short. "We won't discuss it. We're here to talk about how to keep them from taking Kacalief. What can we do?"

  "Nothing," Plauen replied. "Unless you conjure up the Great Sword."

  "I don't find your attitude acceptable, Brother. Can you contribute something more than yak? I know a few small spells. What about you?"