“Not yet, although the cloak has gone back to being waterproof, all on its own. I think I know exactly where Dragon’s Edge is.”
Wardin had been leaning back and resting his feet on the opposite chair, but at the mention of the sword he sat upright, his boots hitting the floor with a clop. “And you waited this long to tell me?”
“I wanted to set things right between us first. I wanted to be sure …” Arun trailed off and shrugged. “Never mind. The point is, I told you it was under water and over stone.”
“Yes.”
“And Erietta heard that Dordrine mercenaries stole it. So we’ve been thinking perhaps a shipwreck of some kind. Focusing on the sea.”
“Yes, I’m aware of what we’ve been thinking. I’m part of we.” Wardin narrowed his eyes, though he was trying not to laugh. Arun had just humbled himself, after all, and that apology couldn’t have come easily. Let him have his moment. “You say things are right between us, but you’re enjoying drawing this out, aren’t you?”
Arun winked. “I am, a bit. The bones gave me a vision this time.”
“A vision? As in an actual thing you could see?” Arun had repeatedly told Wardin that the bones didn’t work that way. But then, if anyone could push sage magic further than it was accustomed to going, it was Arun. “What was it like? A dream?”
“No.” Arun tilted his head to one side. “More like a memory, I suppose. It was just a glimpse. In my mind’s eye I saw the sword as if I were only just realizing where I’d left it. The way it happens when you misplace something.”
“All right, then, you’ve had your fun. Where is it?”
“Under water,” Arun said with a chuckle. “And over stone. It’s not in the sea at all. It’s sitting on a stone floor, at the bottom of a well.”
“Who would toss the only remaining enchanted sword known to exist into a well?”
“The mercenaries, apparently. Perhaps they feared retribution, and were trying to give it back.”
“What?” Wardin knit his brow, not following Arun’s logic at all. “If they wanted to give it back, they would have given it to my father, as the last Rath king.”
Then it dawned on him, and he groaned. “You’re not saying they tried to give it back to my uncle? Because they thought it was haunted, or cursed or something? His body was buried near Mindoral, but the location’s not marked, and his head was delivered to Bramwell and left to rot on the gates at Witmare. We’d have a hard time getting to a well in either location, even if we brought Erietta to cloak us.”
But Arun was shaking his head. “You assume I mean give it back to your family, but they aren’t its only proper owners. Perhaps not even the most proper. How many times have we been told that the Raths are Eyrdri’s own chosen? There’s a legend that she gave your house that sword, isn’t there?”
It came together at last. “You don’t mean a regular well.” Wardin stared at Arun as he searched the far reaches of his memory for half-forgotten children’s tales. “You mean the Well of Songs.”
As the story went, the Well of Songs was once a deep pit carved into a mountain—the very pit where Graddoc imprisoned Eyrdri. It wasn’t her brothers Hart and Tairn who rescued her from it, but the legendary bard and magician Taslin. (Though were he there, no doubt Corbin would have argued that she was never really abducted at all, and therefore there was nothing to rescue her from.)
When he pulled her from the pit, Taslin embraced Eyrdri, and she kissed him. As Wardin understood it, some sort of great romantic scene followed, though how any of that related to the pit being filled with water he could no longer remember. Perhaps it was Eyrdri’s tears that filled it. Or Graddoc’s.
In any case, Eyrdri took Taslin as her husband, though he was a mortal man, causing not only a great scandal but an eternal rift with her beloved brother Hart, thereby cursing Harth and Eyrdon to never-ending conflict. The happy couple returned to the site of that first kiss to be married. (Perhaps that was when Eyrdri filled it with water. Nobody wanted to have their wedding alongside a pit, Wardin supposed.)
The Well of Songs was considered sacred not only to Eyrdri, but to Taslin, hence its name. Legend told that any man who drank from it would awaken the next morning as a bard, a magician, or a madman.
Wardin didn’t know of anyone who’d tried their luck. Or even anyone who’d visited there. Despite the tale’s happy ending, it had always seemed to him that there was a vaguely sinister quality attached to the well itself. People honored and respected it, but in a hushed and distant way. They didn’t venture close. Nobody wanted to touch that water, which they said was always cold and always dark.
Arun saluted him with his mug of mead. “Perhaps I’m a natural bard, a descendant of Taslin himself, and that’s why the well chose me for this vision.”
“You think the Well of Songs chose to show you a vision through bird bones.” Wardin snorted. “Somehow I doubt the well works that way. Or that it particularly cares whether the sword is found or not, for that matter.”
“I don’t know about that. I think Eyrdri cares about her own land, and Taslin’s spirit probably does too. Perhaps it’s their will to deliver the sword to her chosen guardian of Eyrdon, at the kingdom’s hour of greatest need.”
“Sounds dramatic enough for Taslin, all right. Perhaps you really are his descendant.”
“I think you’re missing the point a bit, War. Graddoc, Eyrdri, Taslin—all of those legends go together. Literally.”
Wardin cocked his head, remembering all the maps he’d studied. “The Well of Songs is near Sarn Graddoc.”
Arun nodded. “If I’m right, then all this time Dragon’s Edge has been less than a day’s walk from where we now sit.”
* * *
“They weren’t afraid of retribution, or of being cursed.” Erietta stretched in the chair where she’d been sitting for the past half hour, listening to them tell her the same things Arun had told Wardin the night before. “They wanted the well to make them magicians.”
“You think my vision is right, then?” Arun asked.
“I do. Not only because I’ve learned to trust you when it comes to such things, but because I know the Dords. It doesn’t matter whether we believe the legend about what that water can do. The mercenaries would have believed it. Or they would have wanted to. They have a … complicated relationship with magic, and with their deity.”
“They can’t become magicians,” Wardin guessed. “Or not easily.” And has that got anything to do with whatever bargain you made with Iver? He withheld the last question. The Dords were an extremely delicate subject with Erietta at the moment. Particularly their king.
“Of course they can’t,” said Arun. “Those stories about Dordrine monsters and sorcerers are for children.”
“They may have hoped Eyrdri would give them what Dordan would not,” Erietta said. “But with an equal chance of becoming bards or madmen, perhaps they thought to influence the outcome with an offering. Better to return the great Rath sword to her than let it fall into Bramwell’s hands, right? The servant of her brother Hart, and all.”
They were interrupted by a knock at the archmagister’s door. A moment later she admitted Pate—much to the joy of Hawthorn and Rowena, as Bracken was with him.
Pate nodded tersely at Arun, and barely looked at Erietta while they waited for the baying to subside. When the hounds finally quieted, he spoke only to Wardin. “I heard I might find you here.”
“And so you have. I wasn’t expecting you back quite yet.”
“I stole a horse from a Harth,” Pate said with a shrug. “I managed to get that much from this excursion, if nothing else. The rest of the Pendralyn group will be arriving on foot later, since we had no horses of our own.”
Wardin was unbothered by the commander’s glare. He’d expected nothing less, when he’d just won a battle, and Pate lost one.
“We’d best call a meeting,” Pate went on. “We have to decide what comes next. You can believe that Bramwell won’t be licking his wou
nds for long.”
“Perhaps later.” Arun clapped Pate on the shoulder. “We’ve just been discussing going to get an enchanted sword.”
Pate scowled at him. “What’s this?”
And so Arun told the story for a third time, while Wardin watched Pate’s face, and prepared for a tirade. Pate had hurried back for a reason. They were in the middle of a war. He would shout Wardin deaf for even contemplating going on a lark to look for Dragon’s Edge in some mythical place that might very well be nothing but an old hole.
When Arun finished, Wardin gestured at him and Erietta. “Perhaps the two of you should go look for it. I ought to stay here and—”
“Nonsense!” Pate barked, and Wardin braced himself. “Of course you’ll go with them. What kind of legend will that make, if you send an errand boy or girl to fetch that sword for you? Not much of a tale to write songs of, is it? You’ve got to claim it for yourself.”
Wardin blinked at him. “But—”
“Make the reclamation as dramatic as possible. Memorable. Something fathers will tell their sons. And if the reality of it should turn out to be boring, embellish it. Because the legend is all you have left. The Dords have proved faithless.” Pate glared at Erietta with violence in his eyes. She clenched her fists against her skirt, her own eyes flashing.
Wardin stepped between them, though he wasn’t sure which one he meant to shield.
“Without that alliance, there is only you,” Pate went on. “Momentum is a powerful thing. More powerful than you might imagine. You’ve just won a great victory. Riding back into Pendralyn brandishing a legend, while they’re still singing songs about the last great thing you did, is just what you need.”
He put a hand on Wardin’s shoulder. “Go and get that sword. If you don’t find it, I might even go so far as to propose you get a different one, and call it Dragon’s Edge.”
Wardin looked at Erietta and Arun. Both nodded, though doubtlessly it was the attempt to get the real sword they meant to endorse, and not the suggestion of getting a fake one. Still, Arun could barely agree with Pate on the color of the sky, and Erietta was quickly embracing her brother’s opinion of the man. If they all thought he should go, far be it from Wardin to argue.
“All right. Pate, you’ll have your meeting. This afternoon. We should go over a few things, if I’m to be gone for a couple of days.” He grinned at his friends. It was about time all three of them worked in unison again. “As for you two, we leave at sunrise.”
18
Bramwell
Bramwell halted his horse to study the drab settlement before them. Neither a mining town nor a wool town, merely a small fishing village on the southern coast. Well away from Corghest. Well away from anything. Perhaps the most sparsely populated part of Eyrdon, itself an already sparsely populated country.
In other words, it was a place of no consequence, buried within a place of no consequence. The last place anyone of consequence would go.
The war was unlikely to ever reach here—perhaps even more unlikely than it was to reach the ostensibly neutral Tarnarven. And of course, when one was looking for someone who’d gone into hiding, Tarnarven was the first place one looked. That in itself made it dangerous. This was safer, in its way.
Guy rode up beside him. “This is it, Majesty?”
Bramwell wrinkled his nose as the breeze carried back an unpleasant smell of fish and seaweed. It almost made him laugh. “It is. A rather unattractive place, wouldn’t you say?”
“Wouldn’t be my first choice for a holiday.”
They’d journeyed from Narinore to see to a crucial matter farther east, one Bramwell did not want to leave to others. One that would, if it turned out as promised, bring him a boon long desired not only by him, but his father before him. The mere thought of it made Bram’s chest feel lighter and relieved his unyielding fatigue.
Not many things could have delayed him on the way to such a treasure. But when he’d received news that another prize—minor in comparison, but useful nonetheless—was here, only a day off their course, he’d decided to seize it before it could be hidden away again. Best that it be done quietly, discreetly, while so few even knew he was traveling.
“Darren.” He gestured for the captain of his own elite guard to come forward. Bramwell had brought only a small group of men; he wanted nobody to realize that the King of Harth was abroad. Let the commoners who saw them think they were just another passing patrol.
He had no fear of meeting any organized enemy. He knew exactly where the boy was: at his magistery, gloating.
Let him. His triumph would be as brief as what remained of his life.
The loss at Bering Pass had been infuriating. So much so that Bramwell had cut down four of his own officers that very day, for little reason beyond venting his temper. Such was the price of failure in his service.
But he didn’t expect to win every battle, and wars weren’t won with impatience and rage. They were won with calculation. With ruthlessness. And occasionally, Bramwell reflected as he smiled at the inconsequential village, with sentiment—provided it was someone else’s sentiment. Affection, attachment, worry. Love. Such things could be exploited to great advantage, when just the right amount of pressure was properly applied.
“You’ll wait elsewhere,” he told Darren. “Perhaps there’s an inn of some kind. Take your men there for some ale, if you can find any in this vulgar country. Guy and I will see to my errand.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
Accordingly, the guards rode off toward the center of town in search of entertainment, while Bramwell and Guy circled around to the eastern edge, where a simple fisherman’s cottage seemed to lean into the wind. It was badly in need of repair, and smaller than most of the rooms in the palace at Witmare. He chuckled as they dismounted.
“Well, she can’t like this, can she?” Bram lowered his hood. “Not with the way she was brought up.”
With an answering grin, Guy pounded on the door. “Open for His Majesty, Bramwell Lancet, King of Harth!” Bramwell had given him leave to use his title and all the pomp accorded to it for this. Traveling in secret had its advantages, but now that they were here, a bit of intimidation might be required.
Only a small bit, if the panting woman who answered was any indication. She looked terrified. But despite the haste with which she yanked the door wide and curtsied, it had taken her too long to come. Further evidence that this was the right place.
Bramwell followed Guy inside—he had to stoop to get through the door—ignoring the woman’s stammered questions about what she’d done to be so honored, and how she might serve the king.
The cottage reeked, quite predictably, of fish, and was none too clean, bringing another smile to Bram’s face. The girl might just come with him willingly, if this was the squalor she’d been sent to seek harbor in.
Or her hosts might give her up willingly. It had been three or four years since Bramwell last saw her, but she had a memorable personality. He had no doubt she made a challenging guest for people such as this.
He turned to the older woman with a bored sigh. “Your husband is out at sea, I suppose?”
“He is, Majesty.” She curtsied three more times, her face flushed. “Were you wanting to see him about some fish, Majesty?”
Bramwell scoffed. “You cannot possibly take me for a fool, ma’am.”
“I … I don’t follow you, Majesty. I’m afraid I’m not very quick or clever, you see.”
With another sigh, he gestured at Guy, who began overturning furniture.
“It can’t take him long to search such a small place,” Bramwell said to the fishwife. “I’d suggest you become more obliging before he finishes. If you can’t be useful, well, then we’ll have no use for you, will we?”
The woman swallowed and brought a hand up to her throat. He offered her a gallant smile. “If, on the other hand, you produce the Lady Rora before Guy here finds her, I will double what the Baron of Heathbire is paying you.”
> While her eyes darted to and fro—perhaps a sign she was thinking—Bramwell peered around her, at a silver plate above the fireplace that she could not possibly have afforded for herself. “It looks like he’s been rather generous, and you’ve already accepted some of your payment. He won’t trouble you to return it. So you see, you could come off quite well out of all this.”
“But he … I …” The fishwife was trembling so violently, Bram feared she would shake the flimsy cottage down. He wondered whether there wasn’t more at stake than a payment from Dain. Perhaps her husband wasn’t at sea, but the baron’s hostage?
No, that would be entirely too much trouble, surely. Dain was devious and manipulative, but he was also lazy. More likely she was some distant kin of the Forthwinds, making Rora family.
There was a commotion behind him, and Bramwell turned to see Guy leaping back as a trap door in the floor opened, pushing aside a thin, threadbare rug. A female head, topped with a mountain of unruly auburn curls, popped out of it.
“Oh, don’t bother! Honestly, I don’t know why she put me through the trouble of going down there. I told her as soon as we saw the horses coming that it would be no good, and you’d never leave without me.” She looked over her shoulder at Guy. “Not much of a gentleman, are you? Don’t just stand there, help me up! Surely you don’t expect your king to do it.”
Guy seemed at a loss for words. He stepped awkwardly over and bent to extend his arm. Rora grabbed his wrist and heaved herself up the last steps of the ladder.
“Now then,” she said crisply, offering Bram the slightest of curtsies. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Majesty, but would you be so kind as to tell me whether you’ve executed my father?”
Bramwell didn’t bother trying to hide his smile. “A delight, Rora. I haven’t seen you since you were presented to me at sixteen. You’ve grown since then.”
Her laugh was like her father’s, a boisterous sound that filled the cottage and seemed to rattle its walls. “In all the right ways, you mean? Yes, I’m aware. Father says I’ll bring him much as a bride. Not that he’s shown proper effort in that direction. I’m nineteen, you know, I ought to be interviewing suitors even as we speak. Or better yet, in Tarnarven, or across the sea, where women have more options. Yet here I am, with no options at all, rotting away.”
A Dark Reckoning Page 20
