Kingmaker's Sword (Rune Blades of Celi)

by Ann Marston

  “You have not told me what the task is.”

  “Oh, but I have.”

  “I must give this sword to the man who would be King of Celi,” I said. “Is that it?”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  “Who are you?” I asked. “Are you Myrddin?”

  “That is one of the names they call me,” he said. He made a broad gesture to include all of the dance of stone. “This was always my place, even before those who named me came here.”

  “My enemy,” I said. “Who is he?”

  “He is the enemy of all,” he said. “You will meet him again.”

  “And will I defeat him?”

  “I told you before, I cannot read the future. I can only see the shapes of what might become. You have weakened your enemy. You have been given time. I cannot say if it will be enough time to avert what might be.”

  “That is no answer, old man.”

  “It is the only answer I can give.”

  “You speak in riddles,” I said, frustration knotting in my chest. “Can you tell me if Kerri will find her princeling?”

  “Yes, I believe so,” he said. “But I cannot tell you if the princeling will find himself.” He smiled gently. “Go now, my son. You have a long journey before you.”

  “Where is this place?” I asked. “Is this the dance of stone Kerri speaks about? The Dance in Celi?”

  “This place is where it is.” He turned to walk back to the central horseshoe, then paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Do not forget the lessons the Swordmaster taught you. You will be needing that skill.”

  “Wait,” I called. I pushed against the invisible barrier, but could not break through. “You have to tell me what I must do.”

  But he did not reply. Finally, I turned and began the long trek to the foot of the hill.

  ***

  Dawn was barely more than a faintly perceptible fading of the black of the sky in the east when I left the ruined tower carrying my sword. My shoulder was a little stiff, but the soreness was gone. I wore only my kilt in the predawn chill and the dew-wet grass was cold beneath my bare feet.

  I found a flat, open spot and unsheathed the sword. It settled into my hands like an old friend as I wrapped my fingers around the worn leather of the hilt, perfectly balanced and harmonious. I held it up to the achingly pure first light of morning and watched the runes flash and spark in the clear air.

  “Which way?” I asked quietly.

  The soft thrumming began in the blade and gradually spread through the hilt into my hands, then up my arms into my chest. The sweet, melodic tone sang all around me. Gently as a persuasive lover, implacable as fate, the sword turned me to face east, into the brightening sky. Whatever it sought, it still lay east of north.

  “Very well,” I said. “Northeast it shall be. But now, dance with me again.”

  Then, slowly at first, I began the stylized movements, the kata the Swordmaster of my dreams first taught me and Cullin later reinforced. I went through all the routines, moving slowly as a Laringorn bhak dancer who always seemed to be dancing under water. My shoulder and arm had lost much strength while I was ill. I had Healed it the evening before, finding with relief the centred space and feeling the gentle eddies of force connecting me to the ground. It was like returning to the home place after an absence far too long.

  So now, as the sky paled to dawn, I danced the sword on the wet grass, gradually increasing the tempo of the stylized steps and movements. But I could not reach my normal speed. I had lost much since I was taken from Honandun. It would come back, though. With practice and perseverance, it would come back. It would be there when I needed it.

  Sweat rolled freely down my face, chest and my belly when I finally sheathed the sword again, and I was blowing like a wind-broken horse. But I was smiling as I made my way back to the ruined tower. It stood sharp and jagged against the brilliance of the new sun, its long shadow stretching across the grass toward me. Watching it, I found myself grinning widely with the sheer, sensuous pleasure of merely being alive on a summer morning.

  A slender shadow detached itself from the deeper shade cupped in the ruin of the tower. Jeriad skipped lightly over the tumbled piles of fallen rock, humming to himself. He stopped dead when he saw me with the sword. He had been avoiding me since he had given Kerri leave to tell Cullin and me his story. Standing there, half in and half out of the shadow, he reminded me of a startled wild animal, poised for flight.

  “Jeriad?”

  He leaped lightly to the ground at the base of the fallen tower. “Ye be up early,” he said.

  “I was practicing with the sword,” I said. “I’m a bit rusty after being ill for so long.”

  He grinned with a hint of his former ebullience. “Ye be young,” he said. “The skill be returning soon.”

  “I hope so.” I paused, then: “Jeriad, we’re going to leave today. The lady Kerridwen has an urgent task to perform, and Cullin and I are sworn to help her. You wouldn’t take my plaid brooch in payment for what you’ve done for me, but will you take the hand of a friend given in gratitude?” I held out my hand to him.

  He stared first at my hand, then into my eyes, his eyes again like a raptor’s, fierce and bright. “A friend?” he repeated.

  “Aye. A good friend, Jeriad.”

  “It be my own brother’s men tried to kill you,” he said warily.

  “Aye, it was. But it was you who saved my life. I judge a man by his own actions, not the actions of his kin. Friend?”

  He chortled happily and skipped forward to take my hand in both of his. “Friend,” he said. “Good journey to ye, friend.”

  Part Four — The Prince

  XXV

  Kerri spotted the ravens first. We were not gone more than an hour from the ruined tower when I noticed her staring upward and behind us, and glanced up, idly curious about what seemed so fascinating.

  “Look at those birds,” Kerri murmured. “Whatever are they doing?”

  Hundreds of the huge, black birds circled lazily in the sky behind us. Cullin caught my eye, his expression grim. We had both seen ravens circle like that before. Carrion eaters, they often flocked to the scene of a bandit massacre of a merchant train or travellers. These birds were not in any hurry, nor were they jostling each other for best advantage. They merely circled with endless, hideous patience. That likely meant there was enough cooling flesh to go around.

  “We have to go back,” I said, thinking suddenly of Jeriad.

  Cullin glanced at me, then at the ravens. “Aye,” he agreed. “I think we must.”

  Kerri looked at us in shock. “Go back?” she repeated. “Whyever for?”

  I didn’t bother to answer her. I turned Rhuidh and dug my heels into his flanks. He leapt forward and settled into an easy canter as I leaned forward across his shoulders. Moments later, I heard the sound of two more sets of hooves pounding behind me.

  Three or four furlongs from the river valley, we began to hear the faint sounds of men shouting and the clangour of weapon against weapon riding on the breeze. The clamour of the ravens all but drowned it out. We slowed our horses to a cautious walk.

  “Not over yet,” Cullin said softly.

  Kerri looked at him, puzzled. Sudden comprehension widened her eyes. “A battle?” she asked. “Fighting?”

  “Aye,” Cullin said. “And a lot of it, at that, from the sound of it.” He listened for a moment, his head cocked to one side. “And bitterly fought.”

  Kerri started to spur her mare forward, but Cullin leaned casually sideways in his saddle and grasped the mare’s bridle, arresting the movement before it began.

  “Where in the name of the seven gods and goddesses do you think you’re going?” he asked mildly.

  “We have to help them,” Kerri said.

  “Help who?” I asked, my tone more sarcastic than I had intended it to be.

  She glanced from Cullin to me, startled, then back to Cullin. For a moment, anger flashed in her eyes, and I thou
ght she was about to perform her thunderstorm imitation again. But she subsided and nodded. “Of course,” she said finally. “We don’t know yet who’s fighting whom.”

  “A wise person doesna charge headlong into a bear’s mouth,” Cullin agreed. He gave Kerri a tight-lipped smile. “Mayhap it’s Maeduni slaughtering each other. In that case, we would do well to leave them merrily to it.”

  Kerri managed a return smile. “Mayhap even encourage them in it,” she said. “I see what you mean.”

  Cullin beamed at her like a proud father whose offspring has just done something particularly clever. “See, ti’rhonai?” he said to me. “I told you she was a highly intelligent young woman.”

  Kerri glared at me and Cullin laughed. “We’ll go to see what’s going on,” he said. “But carefully.”

  As we neared the brow of the low hill, the hair on the back of my neck suddenly prickled erect. The characteristic stench of magic came to me, but faint and nearly spent. Whoever else was on the other side of the rise, some of them were Maeduni and they had warlocks with them.

  We left the horses in a small hollow, tethered to scrub thorn bushes, and crept to the crest of the hill. We lay hidden by the tall, dry brown grass. Below us lay the shallow bowl of the valley. To the right was the winding glimmer of the river, flanked by broken, sedgy ground. Beyond this, the field rose gently, covered thickly with grass and scrub bushes. The broken tower stood far to our left, alone and dark, standing amid the puddle of its own shadow. There was no sign of Jeriad. I hoped he was safe, hiding in the cave beneath the tower. I thought he had enough good sense to stay well out of the way of any fighting, especially when there were Maeduni and warlocks involved.

  The bottom of the bowl seemed filled with a seething mass of men, struggling together. The air shivered with the uproar and confusion of the battle. I had been in the midst of more than a few minor skirmishes with bandits. From within, it was impossible to tell exactly what was happening when groups of men came together in battle. I discovered it was nearly as difficult to figure out what was going on when one was merely an observer. It took a while to sort it out, but there was no doubt the dark-clad men were Maeduni, and they fought under Balkan’s banner.

  It was obvious we had arrived in time to watch the end of the battle. There were far more black-clad Maeduni bodies trampled into the sodden grass than Isgardians.

  The fighting was fiercest near the centre of the valley. I recognized the Ephir’s banner in the middle, carried by a standard bearer hard-pressed to keep up with his lord. The banner bore the blazon of the eldest son of the Ephir, Glaval. Glaval himself, tightly surrounded by a band of personal guards, fought a man I thought might be Balkan. It was difficult to tell from this distance.

  The battle was all but over. There were few of the Maeduni left standing. The Maeduni, breaking from stand to fighting stand, were pressed gradually backwards toward the small stream. The Isgardians followed them with steadily growing ferocity and triumph. Men began to run in behind the fighting troops to bring out the wounded and dying. Glaval’s banner forged steadily ahead.

  Then, Balkan fell to Glaval’s sword and disappeared beneath the hooves of the horses. With Balkan dead, the Maeduni lost their enthusiasm for the battle. Quite suddenly, they broke and ran. Glaval led a mopping up action as we watched. Those Maeduni still mounted, spurred their horses in a disorganized retreat, and fled the valley to the east. The few Maeduni afoot who could find a horse followed moments later.

  That quickly, it was over and a ghastly silence, broken only by the harsh cries of the ravens, descended onto the valley.

  “Verra interesting,” Cullin murmured. “Was there magic there, ti’rhonai?”

  I nodded. “Aye, there was,” I said. “But only faintly now. Most of it’s gone.” Maeduni warlocks were reputed to be able to turn weapons back on the user. What had happened to that ability down in the bowl of the valley was not immediately clear. But it was obvious, at least to me, that the General was not with Balkan’s Maeduni mercenaries. The unique stench of his personal blood-sorcery was missing.

  “No General Hakkar then,” Cullin said.

  I shook my head.

  “Aye, well, perhaps you really did set him back.”

  “Look. There’s someone coming this way,” Kerri said quietly, pointing downhill.

  Below us, a troop of five or six mounted men broke away from the main body of Glaval’s men and began moving up the hill toward us. As they approached, we got to our feet to meet them. There was little to be gained by getting caught hiding in the grass and mistaken for spies. The leader reined in sharply, startled by our sudden appearance.

  “What be you doing here?” he demanded, one hand going to the hilt of his sword.

  “Merely passers-by,” Cullin said. “We heard the fighting and stopped to investigate.”

  “You be a Tyr by your dress,” the leader said. “What interest does Tyra have in Isgardian affairs?”

  “None at all, I assure you, until an agreement is reached between the Ephir and the First Laird of the Council of Clans of Tyra,” Cullin said, smiling.

  “Mayhap you might explain that to my lord Glaval,” said the leader, a Captain of the Guard. He glanced at the place we had left our horses. “Those be your mounts?”

  “Aye, they are,” Cullin said. “We thought it best to leave them out of sight of the fleeing Maeduni.”

  The leader grunted, then motioned two men to retrieve our horses. We mounted without protest and followed the captain down the hill. We dismounted at the periphery of the battlefield and handed the horses over to a foot soldier. The captain led us around the worst of the carnage. Even so, the ground underfoot was sodden with blood.

  Beside me, Kerri made a strangled sound. I turned and saw what she was looking at. The burial detail had pulled away the last body from a small mound of dead, revealing something straight out of a nightmare. It had been a man, once. Now, it looked like nothing more than an empty husk, something a snake might leave behind after shedding its skin. Still vaguely man-shaped, it was white and bloodless as snow, the skin stretched over the bones, dry and severely withered, with a bizarre, papery texture. The skin had caved in over the chest and belly as if there were nothing beneath, not even muscle, and the arms and fingers were nothing but sticks beneath the transparent, flaking skin. The faint stench of magic, with a peculiar overlay of a scorched hair and skin, emanated from the husk.

  Kerri stared at the mummified corpse in horrified fascination for a moment before she turned away, mouth drawn down in revulsion. “As if it had been sucked dry,” she murmured. “It’s horrible.”

  “A warlock,” the captain said, negligently. He gestured to the pile of bodies the burial detail was removing. Most of the corpses were roughly dressed and pierced with spears and pike-staffs. Common foot soldiers. “Throw enough men at them, and they burn themselves out,” the captain continued. “They had four with them. Once they were dead, the battle was ours.”

  “How many men died to get them?” Cullin asked.

  The captain shrugged. “They were only peasants,” he said.

  Kerri shuddered again. “So much blood,” she said. “So very much blood.”

  Cullin looked down at the desiccated husk, then around at the scattered dead. “With this much blood, I would think their magic might be very strong.”

  Kerri shook her head. “No,” she said. “Maeduni magic feeds on blood, but it needs suffering, too. Torture to death. This—” She gestured around her. “This is a clean death.” She made a wry face. “Relatively clean, anyway.”

  The captain frowned at her, then shrugged and beckoned us to follow him. He led us across the field to the small pavilion that had been set up for Glaval. His banner fluttered briskly on its standard above it. The entrance faced the side of the hill, away from the scene of the carnage. He looked up as the captain entered with us in tow.

  “I found these people on the hill, my lord Glaval,” the captain said. “They claim
they are not spies, but I thought you might want to question them yourself.”

  Unlike his father, Glaval was tall and heavily built, but he had inherited the flat, grey eyes that resembled silver coins. His hair and beard were nondescript brown, and even on the battlefield, he wore them curled and dressed to the height of fashion. He studied us for a moment, his eyes and face expressionless. Finally, he allowed a hint of a smile to play around his mouth.

  “Ah,” he said softly. “The man who gave my father the information. You are Cullin dav Medroch of Tyra, I expect.”

  “I am he,” Cullin said, graciously inclining his head in acknowledgment.

  “My father was somewhat annoyed when you refused his kind offer of hospitality,” Glaval said. “You left the city rather abruptly, I understand.”

  Cullin smiled. He held his body relaxed, but alert and ready. “Aye, well,” he said apologetically. “The Ephir’s offer was most generous, but I had urgent business elsewhere that needed attending to. Regretfully, I had to refuse.”

  “He mentioned that the offer might be reiterated,” Glaval said. “He does not offer hospitality often.” He smiled thinly. “And he is not a man to trifle with.”

  One of Cullin’s eyebrows rose fractionally. “Nor am I, my lord,” he said. “Or my father, either, for that matter.”

  “The Ephir thought you might be of great assistance in the negotiations between himself and your father.” Glaval said.

  Cullin smiled again. “I doubt that. My father often employs me to deliver messages, but I fear he has little faith in my ability as a negotiator.” He made a depreciating gesture. “I’m no much of a diplomat, ye ken.”

  “On the contrary,” Glaval said, matching Cullin’s smile. “I believe you might make a very good negotiator.”

  “Or perhaps a hostage to guarantee negotiations in good faith?” Cullin asked. He shook his head. “I fear you place too much value on me in my father’s estimation. I am, after all, only a younger son, with an older brother who has three sons.”

  “You devalue yourself too much,” Glaval said. “I will be moving on to the late Lord Balkan’s country estate as soon as we’re finished here. It would please me if you would join me there.” He made a small gesture with his left hand.