[Meetings 04] - The Oath and the Measure

by Michael Williams - (ebook by Undead)

  "And yet you have followed us for days now," Sturm said, staring angrily across the fire at this unexpected visitor.

  "Followed you? I think not!" Jack replied merrily. "I'm bound for your part of the world, I'll grant, to visit my mother. But our paths divide there, if you're asking me. Or even now, if you'd rather."

  "You mean to tell me you didn't come all this way to warn me?" Sturm asked. "That our meeting here on the plains in the middle of a downpour is just . . ."

  "Coincidence?" Jack asked with a curious half-grin, and he and Mara burst into laughter.

  Sturm blushed angrily.

  "So be it, then, Jack Derry," he pronounced, mustering his most Solamnic demeanor. "If what you say of Boniface and other matters are true, then we've no choice but to hole up here and wait for him. If he's planning to undo me, for whatever reason, he'll have to come here to find me."

  The gardener only smiled. "We can't have that, Master Sturm, if what I've heard bandied about the Tower has any truth to it. You've an appointed time, they tell me—something about the first day of spring. You might have noticed last night that the moons, great Solin and Luin, crossed in the sky."

  Sturm dared not look at Mara.

  "If you've aught of astronomy," Jack continued, "you'd know that 'tis a rarity, occurring only every five years or so, and this year it falls a week before the first night of spring."

  A week! Thank Paladine and all the gods of good that I've a week left! Sturm rose and turned from the fire.

  "Boniface could be a month in coming. A year," Jack Derry went on. "It would stand him well to wait, for you to miss your . . . assignation with the Green Man."

  "You're no gardener, are you?" Sturm's hand moved slowly toward his broken sword. "You're a trap, Jack Derry."

  "You're the doing of Lord Wilderness . . . or an apparition . . . or . . . or . . ."

  "How can you say that, Sturm Brightblade? Did you not see how well I kept the Tower gardens?"

  A dull pain laced through Sturm's shoulder—nothing as sharp as he had felt at his wounding, as he had felt in Castle di Caela or the copse on the plains, but a heavy, deadening soreness that spread to the tips of his fingers.

  He couldn't grasp the sword.

  "No . . . no, Master Sturm," Jack continued. "I'm as much a gardener as aught else, and little I care for this involved Solamnic schemery." His eyes darted to the pommel of Sturm's sword, then directly, disarmingly back to the lad's face.

  "Though you're a fine one and of a proud heritage, or so they tell me, I didn't travel these miles just to warn you or be in your august presence. Bound to the edge of the selfsame Southern Darkwoods, I am, to a little village called Dun Ringhill where my ancient mother awaits me with an ancient mother's excitement and yearning for her long-lost boy gone north to make something out of himself in the court of the Knights."

  "Dun Ringhill?" Sturm asked.

  "Still two days' ride from here," Jack said. "In your boots, it's a walk of four or five days, through plains and riverbeds down along the borders of Throt, where the goblins camp. And in Lemish, where the village is, you'll find no friend of the Knights, either."

  Jack rose from the fire and walked over to his squat little mare. He stroked her gently on the muzzle and muttered something to her, something lost in the downpour outside and the crackle of the nearby fire. The mare raised her head, snorted, and turned toward the mouth of the cave.

  "I expect, then, I shall be taking my leave of you," Jack offered, leading the mare toward the outside and the loud, rushing shower. He paused at the cave mouth, foot in the stirrup, preparing to mount and ride into the rain.

  Mara elbowed Sturm, who spoke up despite his pride and anger.

  "Jack Derry?"

  Jack stood at the cave entrance, still and expectant.

  "Jack . . . do you know any blacksmith in . . . Dun Ringhill, is it?"

  "Indeed I do, Master Sturm," the young gardener said, his face still turned. "My cousin Weyland, 'twould be. A fine smith he is, too."

  "Fine he must be," Sturm replied, his eyes on the heart of the flame, "for shoeing old Luin here is apprentice work, but reforging a sword . . ."

  Jack turned about and stared hard and levelly at the young man by the fire.

  "Weyland Derry can forge a sword to your liking, Master Sturm Brightblade," the gardener said quietly. "And your welcome in Dun Ringhill will be such as fits the Order. All according to the Measure, 'twill be, and such as you'll come to expect of my people."

  * * * * *

  Boniface huddled against the rain, watching the wavering light in the distant cave.

  There were too many around the boy. First the elf maiden and her spider—unpredictable at best, and therefore dangerous. Then the simpleminded gardener, if simpleminded he was, or if even a gardener, who had wandered to these parts for the gods knew what reason. To waylay Sturm Brightblade now would involve too many innocent lives. Too many blades. Too many chances for at least one to escape and tell others.

  Who would not understand.

  Once before, Lord Boniface Crownguard had dealt with witnesses. That time it had been an awkward Knight from Lemish, new to the Order and the Measure.

  He had not understood, either, and what had befallen then was entangled, messy, nearly disastrous.

  So there ought to be no witnesses, Boniface thought, and smiled. There would be other chances later. At the ford and in the village . . .

  He rose and mounted, riding east, the hoofbeats of his black stallion muffled in the driving rain.

  * * * * *

  They departed the next morning when the rain lifted. Sturm and Jack walked ahead, leading the horses. Mara rode atop Acorn, Jack's stocky chestnut, who also bore the weight of the elf's belongings easily if not cheerfully. Behind the party, scurrying along from high grass to rocks and back to the high grass, avoiding sun and open spaces, Cyren the spider kept pace unevenly.

  At Jack's advice, Sturm traveled no longer toward the famous ford near the Vingaard Keep. If there were, as he was coming to suspect, good truth in Jack's warning about the snares of Lord Boniface, then all major fords would be perilous.

  Instead, the party turned due east, straight toward a narrow passage of the river where Jack claimed that the swimming was as safe as the fording. High above them, the kingfishers darted and dove, and had he been looking for omens, Sturm could have taken great courage from the ancient Solamnic symbols on the wing.

  He trudged gloomily beside the young gardener. It wasn't enough, it seemed, that he was doomed to certain failure against one as resourceful and skilled as Vertumnus, for now the best swordsman in Solamnia was also laying for him if, by some miracle, he survived his brush with the Green Man.

  That is, if he could believe Jack Derry. It seemed preposterous—like something out of an ancient story of blood and dark oath and revenge. Boniface was his father's friend. Angriff had saved him from Lord Grim, had grown up beside him. They had fought together, had studied and suffered and blossomed in wisdom . . . and . . .

  Finally there was the Oath and Measure.

  It could not be true. Boniface could not be a traitor.

  Sturm brushed his gloved hand softly over Luin's neck. Slowly, gradually, sensation returned to his fingers, and he turned his mind to other things—to the dwindling days and the long road ahead of him.

  * * * * *

  The new path took the party through rich pastureland north of the ancient stronghold of Solanthus. In some spots, the ground was greening, expectant, and the first migratory birds had returned from their winter stay in the sunny north. Amid the signs of spring, Sturm could look to the south across the level miles and see the fabled fortress, gray and hazed at the farthest reaches of sight. It was fertile in history and lore, the very kind of place he dreamed of visiting. Yet he dared draw no nearer after what Jack Derry had told him. Boniface could be anywhere on the plains, and assuredly his allies could be found in all places.

  Sturm sighed and tugged at Luin'
s rein.

  "Why so gloomy, Master Sturm?" Jack inquired, steering Acorn gracefully around pooling waters that might well mark dangerous ground. "Rejoice that we have left the rains behind!"

  "It rushes toward spring, Jack Derry," Sturm replied. "Too swiftly, I fear, for my liking. A week only remains until I have to show myself in the Darkwoods, ready for a reckoning with Lord Wilderness himself."

  "Look about you, Master Sturm," Jack observed quietly. "Where is Vertumnus, and where is the hook and line with which he draws you east?"

  "You don't understand," Sturm protested. "First there's the wound. I know they laugh about that at the Tower. They say I imagined my wounding, but it is there, by Paladine! But more importantly, it's the honor of the challenge. I cannot do otherwise. You don't know, Jack. There is no Measure for gardeners."

  Jack smiled curiously and rubbed his chin.

  "No Measure but the sun and the moons and the seasons," he replied. "I'm grateful for those."

  "And I for the Measure," Sturm said, much too quickly. "And . . . and of course for this lovely day." He looked around, trying to wear a mask of cheeriness. "A mild tag end of winter it is, Jack. No frost, and the birds returning. Mild as the spring of 'thirty-five, I'll wager."

  When the farmers talked of mild springs, they talked of the year 335. Sturm remembered it well, though he was but ten: the thaws of winter and the flowers starting to bloom in the gardens of Castle Brightblade.

  "Mild it is, sir, though I don't know about no three thirty-five," Jack said and pointed to the east. "Best that we stop in these parts for the night," he suggested. "We're safer this close to the stronghold, what with the bandits and raiders about."

  Jack looked at Sturm solemnly.

  "I'd rather Master Brightblade wasn't surprised," he warned, "when he finds out how the folk in the countryside take to his Oath and his Measure."

  * * * * *

  The evening was quiet, an enormous relief to Mara, but especially to Sturm. For the first night in almost a week, the lad slept the healthy sleep of a young man, secure in the knowledge that Jack Derry watched over the encampment.

  There was something about the gardener that called for a sort of wild reliance. Sturm had felt it in the long day's journey as Jack read the shifts in the wind as a swordsman reads the feints and thrusts of his opponent. Jack was a reliable, even an inspired woodsman, but so, no doubt, was the dangerous man Sturm rode forth to challenge.

  Sturm watched Jack tend the low fire, watched the muffled red light cast shadows on his hands and face. In that light, the gardener looked unsettlingly familiar, as if they had known one another through a lifetime.

  * * * * *

  "Look close enough, Master Sturm and Lady Mara, and you'll see the southernmost fork of the Vingaard," Jack said.

  Sturm stood on tiptoe, bracing himself against Luin and squinting east to where the air seemed to waver at the farthest reach of sight. Mara, seated atop Acorn and looking eastward with the sharp eyes of an elf, nodded at once when Jack pointed out the landmark.

  "A child's river it is at this juncture," the gardener continued, with a mischievous grin. "Your spider could send across a hundred letters in his green boats."

  Mara was coldly silent behind them. Sturm hid a smile. Surely she regretted the telling and retelling of her story, especially to ears as sharp and satiric as the gardener's.

  "As I told you both when we decided on this path, swimming's as good as fording in these parts. The river is slow here, and the ground is level both sides of it. An hour or so will have us into Lemish, and it's only another day to Dun Ringhill, if the weather fancies us and the bandits don't."

  He looked disapprovingly at Sturm.

  "I expect, Master Sturm Brightblade," Jack said, brushing his brown hair from his forehead, "it would be wiser if you took off some of that armor. Swimming a river, even a slow one, works better without forty pounds of mail."

  Blushing at his own fogheadedness, Sturm removed the breastplate, setting it, along with his shield, on Luin's lightly burdened back. Jack looked at him with wry amusement.

  "Hard to tell Solamnics from servants now, isn't it, Master Sturm?"

  "Follow me," Sturm muttered, and stalked toward the riverbank. Jack, however, moved deftly in front of him.

  "If I might be so bold, sir," he suggested, "let's not stand on pomp and protocol. Let someone who knows the river lead the crossing."

  Eye to eye the two young men stood, not a hair's difference in height and weight. It was as though Sturm looked into a cloudy mirror, in which the face staring back at him resembled his in age and countenance, but was certainly not his own.

  "I'm with the gardener," Mara offered. "A river's treacherous enough with even the best guidance."

  "I don't recall asking your opinion," Sturm said icily, giving scarcely a sidelong glance to the elf.

  Sturm looked out over the waters. Indeed, they did not look that hard to cross. The river was no more than thirty yards wide at this point, and enormous trees overhung its banks—evergreens, of course, and bare sycamore and vallenwood. The branches of one linked with those of another, forming a thin latticework over the river, almost like a trellis or . . .

  . . . or a web.

  "Cyren!" Sturm declared jubilantly. Mara looked at him perplexedly, but Jack caught on at once, herding the reluctant spider to the wide bole of one of the more promising vallenwoods.

  "Now, Lady Mara," Jack said, his dark eyes dancing intently. "If you'd be so kind, coax your spider across the river there, and see to it that he webs a path for the rest of us. I suppose you can lead this party, Master Sturm, if there's stout cording to hold onto and a clear path through the Vingaard Drift."

  "The Vingaard Drift?" Sturm asked. "I—I thought that was east of here." He had heard many stories of the deceptive, switching current in the easternmost fork of the river. Indeed, his own great-grandfather had almost been swept away by the Drift himself, thereby erasing the whole Brightblade line that would follow him. Brightblades and midstreams didn't mix altogether well, and Jack's talk of the Drift made him terribly uneasy.

  "It's not as bad in these parts," Jack explained, "but a river is always deceptive. Perhaps, since I am more familiar with the Drift and its tendencies, we should proceed as we first considered, with me at the head of the party."

  "Very well," Sturm agreed, jumping at the chivalrous offer. "Since, after all, you are Lemish born, Jack. . . ."

  "Done, then!" Jack exclaimed, his mischievous smile spreading broadly as Cyren, prodded by Mara's urgings and a slight nudge from her boot, clambered from vallenwood to sycamore to vallenwood and down safely on the other side of the river. "You'll be a good Knight, Sturm Brightblade."

  A strong, viscous cord extended from bank to bank, and hand over hand, the party began its crossing in the slow-moving waters.

  * * * * *

  The waters were indeed tamer than elsewhere where Jack had chosen to cross. Sturm clung to the cord with one hand and to Luin's reins with the other; Mara followed behind him, leading little Acorn gently and skillfully through the sliding waters. Ahead of them, Jack clambered and bobbed in the river, surfacing and sputtering in delight, as graceful as a seal.

  "Not far now!" he whispered as his head emerged from a swirl of waters, dark locks dripping on his forehead. "You can tell all the other Knights and all the little Brightblades to come about this journey—you crossed a river on a spider's dare!"

  Jack's eyes widened in mock surprise. It was the first time Sturm had smiled at him.

  "My, my, Master Brightblade!" he declared aloud. "I do believe there's someone of substance beneath those Orders and Measures."

  Grinning, Sturm brushed his wet hair from his eyes. At that moment, the crossing seemed adventurous and bright, the waters of the Vingaard loud about him.

  So loud was the rush of the current that none of them—not even the horses—heard the bandits approach. The first arrow fell when Jack had passed midcurrent.

&nb
sp; Chapter 12

  Not Far from the Tree

  It was a strange, ragtag group that attacked them.

  Humans and hobgoblins milled together in the underbrush, masked and unmasked, in chain and leather and cuir-bouilli and in no armor at all. Shouting and hooting, they launched arrow after arrow at the hapless party. Fortunately for the travelers, the attackers were not the best of archers. Most of the arrows passed harmlessly overhead, though one managed to strike Luin's saddle with a sharp whack, startling the poor mare far worse than it hurt her. But gradually the arrows came closer and closer as the bandits began to find their range.

  Jack looked back at Sturm, calmly but intently. He winked, and his black eyes took in the surroundings—the overhang of branches, the dozen or so of the enemy waiting on the banks ahead of them.

  "Are you ready to take 'em, Sturm Brightblade?" Jack whispered, the rustle of oak leaves fluting in his voice as out of the water rose his sword blade, dripping and bright.

  "I—I haven't a weapon, Jack," Sturm said. Instantly he regretted his words. His voice sounded shrill, thin, even trembling amid the outcry of the bandits and the nearby whick, whick of the passing arrows.

  "Nonsense!" Jack exclaimed with a smile. "Follow me, and I'll arm you in a trice!"

  Before Sturm could speak, Jack scrambled up onto the webbing. Like a spider himself, or rather like a tightrope walker, he raced across the strand in a rain of arrows, leaping onto the opposite shore, where a quick, wheeling slash of his sword sent a hobgoblin tumbling to the ground, spattering the red bank with a cascade of bright black blood.

  Casually Jack picked up the monster's sword and tossed it, hilt over blade, to Sturm, who raised his hand for it, closed his eyes, and prayed to Paladine that the hilt would reach him first. The cool, reassuring smack of cylindrical metal in his hand told him that his prayers had been answered, and with his bravest war cry, he pulled himself along the cord through the water until his feet touched solid ground and he could rush up the bank to join his comrade.