Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  “You left Ivory alive. That isn’t like you.”

  “Ah. That.” Wolf gestured at the wall beside him. There was a long sword leaning up against it. Ivory’s long sword. “Perhaps I was feeling merciful? He was a friend once upon a time, after all.”

  “Friends don’t cut out friend’s tongues.”

  “You don’t know some of the people I’ve called friend.”

  “Nor does a smart killer leave a pile of corpses to advertise his comings and goings.”

  “And if I said I was in a hurry?”

  “I’d say you’d stop to cover your tracks on the way out of a burning house.”

  Wolf rested his saber’s tip—his own blade, I guessed, given the raised steel chasing on the guard—on the ground and regarded me. “Yes,” he said. “Very clever. I was right to pick you.”

  “And I was wrong to come.”

  “I gave you no other choice.”

  “There’s always another choice.”

  “You mean stay in Ildrecca?” Wolf snorted. “You wouldn’t have survived, not once I set the other Gray Princes against you.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “But I could have tried. I could have at least stuck around and backed my own organization, instead of walking away.” Could have put something of myself on the line, rather than coming down here and putting everyone else on the line for me. For what I thought a Gray Prince could be.

  “You could have,” said Wolf, “but that’s not your nature. You’ve worked alone too long to let others claim you. You’re like a wolf who tries to run with a pack of hounds: As good as it may feel, you know you’re meant for better things—broader fields, wider skies.” He lifted his sword and let the spine of the blade rest against his shoulder. “Consider yourself fortunate to have figured it out now. It took me three lifetimes to realize an Oath isn’t a cause, that a brotherhood isn’t a tribe. For the others, it may be enough, but for me?” He shook his head. “I’m Azaari: I’m not meant to gather up promises and trade them for my honor. I gave my word to serve a purpose and for action, not to sit and wait and count.”

  “Then why not leave the Order?”

  “An Azaari doesn’t break his word.”

  I couldn’t help it: I laughed.

  Wolf took an ominous step forward. “You mock me?” he said. “Even now? Knowing who I am and what I can do?”

  “I mock you,” I said, ignoring the hole forming in my stomach, “precisely because I know who you are and what you can do. Sworn brothers dead at your hand? The founder of your Order dusted so you could steal his sword? That’s not keeping your word, not even close.”

  Wolf straightened to his full height and glared down at me. “You know nothing.” He picked up Ivory’s sword with his left hand and began to turn away.

  “I know plenty,” I said to his back. “Why else carve your way to Ivory’s door, if not to find out how to break free of the Order? Why go to all this trouble, unless you plan to call the emperor to heel and force him to release you from your Oath?”

  That stopped him. “What do you say?”

  “Markino,” I said. “The emperor, and his other two incarnations, all indebted to the Order of the Degans. All bound by the Oath sworn on Ivory’s sword when you founded your gang.”

  Wolf looked back over his shoulder. “Bronze told you this?”

  “No, the emperor mentioned it over drinks before I left Ildrecca.”

  A thoughtful silence, then, “My sword brother must love you indeed, to share something the Order’s kept secret for so long.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I didn’t.

  “You’re right that I came for the sword,” he said. “But it’s not what you think. I’ve no desire to be severed from my Oath. What I told you before is true: I wish to save the Order. But unlike Bronze and most of the others, I’m not deluded enough to think we can fix our problems with talk or laws. Only action can save us now.”

  “And what kind of action would that be?” I said. “Littering the streets with more bodies? Forcing the emperor to absolve you of all your sins? Or are you planning to put the question in Markino’s hands? To force him to pick between having the Order serve him or the empire? Because if you are, I can tell you which way he’ll jump, no guessing necessary.” Anyone capable of creating a religion for the sole purpose of ensuring his perpetual rule wasn’t about to let a tool like the degans slip through his fingers.

  “You think me a fool?” said Wolf. “Of course I know what he’d choose: He’d say we were his, and the Order would be shattered for good. The fractures among us have grown too deep to be solved by a simple proclamation, even from the emperor. To declare for one interpretation is to drive the adherents of the other away.

  “No, the only reason the Order has remained whole this long is that we haven’t sought out a resolution, haven’t given one another cause to back our views with steel. We’ve been careful to avoid repeating Ivory’s sins. But now, with Iron and Silver and Ivory dead? With degan blood on degan blades? It’s only a matter of time before someone draws in anger, or pride, or vengeance, and the Order collapses.”

  “But you helped cause that,” I said. “You killed two to Degan’s one, for Angels’ sake!”

  “Yes.”

  “You knew what would happen.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why?”

  Wolf regarded me for a moment, then looked up at the sky. It had gone from black to charcoal around us on the street, with the stars fading overhead. His eyes creased with the hint of a smile.

  “You’re trying to distract me,” he said. “To give Bronze time to get away, or come upon me unawares. Very good. Useless, but very good.” He turned and gestured toward the square. “Come, let’s await my brother together.”

  I didn’t budge.

  What the hell was I missing? If the Order of the Degans was beyond repair as Wolf said, then why hasten its collapse? Why push them over the edge and destroy the truce they’d been holding for centuries? Even if he did get his hands on Ivory’s laws, the odds of him being able to fix the Order once its members started killing one another seemed to rest somewhere between slim and none. If they—

  No. Wait. Not fix. Wolf hadn’t said “fix,” he’d said “re-forge.”

  I looked up to find Wolf staring at me. Waiting.

  “You want the members of the Order to clear steel,” I said. “To start fighting and killing one another.” To see that the Order was doomed, to see that there was no compromise. To see there was no hope. “You want to break the degans.”

  “Sometimes to repair something, you must break it first,” said Wolf. “To forge something anew, you have to tear it asunder. My Order can’t be saved as it stands, but if it were to be built again, from the ground up? Then. Then it would be saved.”

  “Betrayed isn’t saved,” said a voice behind Wolf. “Betrayed is just betrayed. Calling it anything else is a weak man’s excuse.”

  Wolf spun about, his sword snapping to guard, while I slipped to the side and looked past him.

  To see Degan standing in the square.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Wolf tensed for a moment. Then, seeing Degan wasn’t advancing, he laughed.

  “You say this, Bronze?” he said. “You, who have Iron’s blood on your blade? Who are you to speak of justifications? I don’t see you putting yourself before the Order for your crimes, don’t see you standing in the Barracks Hall awaiting judgment. How is your excuse for avoiding justice and coming after Ivory any better than mine?”

  Degan was maybe fifteen feet from Wolf. He had his chain-hilted sword in one hand, Ivory’s widower’s fan in the other. I couldn’t read the look on his face.

  “I didn’t come to kill Ivory,” he said.

  Wolf snorted. “Then more fool you.”

  “He didn’t deserve—”

  “He deserved everything I gave him and more,” snapped Wolf. “Deserved a century’s worth of agony for the lies he told us, for
the lives he stole from us. That old man chained us with our honor and then walked away. Worse, he let us be set aside when he left. We, who were supposed to serve Lucien as his swords, instead spent our time trading promises like merchants doing business in the bazaar. Swords that were once meant to support an empire now settle private debts.” Wolf spit into the square. “A blade rusts if it’s not used, Bronze, and I’ve no intention of rusting anymore. It’s time for our steel to shine again.”

  I eyed Wolf’s back, then took a tentative step forward, making sure to keep the Azaari between Degan and me. If he saw me, if he guessed what I was planning, I knew Degan would speak up rather than let me strike down Wolf from behind. Easy solution or not, he wouldn’t allow that when it came to one of his sword brothers.

  Which meant I just had to be careful as I moved in, is all.

  “And what kind of shine would you have?” said Degan as I took another step. “The glisten of blood on steel? Listen to yourself! You talk about restoring the Order in one breath and destroying it in another. Setting us against one another isn’t going to bring us together, Steel—we’re too hardened to the slaughter for that. You might get a few to relent out of sympathy for the past, but once the blood starts flowing the rest won’t stop. Gold and Jade, Pearl and Brass: They’ll go to their graves before they give in.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why?” I could hear the desperation in Degan’s voice, could imagine the look of frustration on his face. “Why make it so we cut one another down?”

  “Because we need to realize how truly broken we are. For the last two hundred years, all we’ve done is argue about which path is the proper one, ignoring the fact that both roads lead nowhere. Serve the emperor? Serve the Empire? Both have forgotten us. Like fools dying of thirst, we sit in the desert remembering the taste of water instead of seeking it out on our own. If the Order of the Degans is to reclaim any kind of purpose, any kind of honor, we have to leave the dust of our past behind. We have to free ourselves of the old ways before we can create the new.”

  “Killing someone doesn’t make them free,” said Degan.

  Another step.

  “It’s not the dead I’m worried about,” said Wolf. “Let the zealots and the true believers slaughter one another; let them paint the empire with blood. Once we start littering the streets with our dead and hanging fatherless swords in the Barracks Hall, the others will begin to waver. Those degans who remain will see the need.”

  “And what need is that?” said Degan.

  “To be free of the Oath,” said Wolf. “To serve the empire as we see fit, without chains of words and magic holding us back. We have all of us seen and made history—we should be chieftains in our own right, sheikhs and sheikhas, leaders of men, not hired swords waiting on a summons that will never come. Ivory called us a brotherhood, but to be brothers and sisters there must also be a father. Well, I’ve outgrown my father the emperor, as I think the rest of us have. We are no longer a brotherhood; we are a tribe, joined together by the souls we surrendered and the blood we’ve shed. When this is done, we will stand together as tribesmen should: free and equal and bound to no one but one another.”

  “And what do you think ‘father’ will have to say about that idea?”

  Wolf hefted Ivory’s sword. “I don’t think he’ll have much of a choice once I remind him of his former incarnation’s promise.”

  Degan’s voice grew cool. “So you were planning on killing Ivory for the sword all along.”

  “Planning? No. I merely thought to find the blade. Ivory being alive was merely good fortune on my part, less so on his.”

  “And if you hadn’t found it?”

  Wolf shrugged. “There was always you.”

  “Me?” said Degan. “You can’t think I would have come back to Ildrecca with you after I found out you killed Silver.”

  “Come back to . . . ? Ah, I see: The Gray Prince has been sharing his tales. Very good. But the truth is, I never planned to bring you back. Not that I don’t think you could sway the Order if you put your mind to it—you could, which is the problem. You would bring balance when I need blood. No, I wouldn’t have returned with you—I would have returned with the sword of the degan who killed not only Iron, but Silver and Ivory as well.”

  “You would have blamed it all on me?” I could hear the pain, the disbelief, in Degan’s voice. “Why?”

  “When an exemplar falls,” said Wolf, “it can be almost as powerful as the thing he represents falling. You becoming a butcher, not to mention turning your back on the degans because you saw us as too flawed to continue, would have shaken the Order to its core. And while it may not have given me the war I wanted, you would have at least turned me into a savior. Not as effective as having access to the emperor’s Oath, I admit, but there are other ways to steer things to a breaking point.”

  “And now that you have Ivory’s sword?”

  “Now?” I heard the smile in Wolf’s voice. I was close now. Very close. “Now I call in your Oath.”

  “My Oath?” Degan chuckled. “You forget: I relinquished my sword. I walked away. That’s why I’m here—of all of us, I’m the only one who can stop you.”

  I was maybe six paces away. I cocked my left arm to flick my wrist knife free, then thought better of it and let my right hand slip into my left sleeve instead. This close, I didn’t want to risk even the tiny click the knife would make sliding free.

  Damn, but I wished I’d thought to ask Aribah about borrowing some poison.

  I took another step. Degan came into view just around Wolf’s shoulder. He was too busy glaring at his sword brother to notice me.

  “Walking away isn’t the same as leaving the Order, Bronze,” said Wolf. “Ivory could have told you that. Well, he would have if he’d still had a tongue, I suppose.”

  “You lie.”

  In answer, Wolf brandished Ivory’s sword. “Bronze Degan. By the Oath sworn on this steel, I summon you to account. I call on you, in accordance with the laws of the Order of the Degans, to fulfill your Oath as a degan.”

  I saw Degan’s eyes go wide at the words, his sword hand begin to tremble. Watched as what must have been the grip of a two-hundred-year-old promise begin to close around him.

  Shit. Wolf wasn’t bluffing.

  “By blood and magic, by soul and steel, I call on you to—”

  I moved.

  Unfortunately, so did Wolf.

  I knew better than to think he’d forgotten about me—Wolf wasn’t that dumb. But to hope he’d lose track of me as he talked, to think he might have missed my padding up on him while he focused on Degan? That had seemed worth the risk.

  Now it just seemed stupid.

  Wolf spun as I lunged, bringing the long sword in his left hand around in a blurring arc. I felt the sword’s handle hit my wrist, grunted as the knife slipped from my suddenly tingling fingers.

  I kept moving forward, going for the close fight. Backing away would let Wolf bring his own sword to bear; but here, in tight, I had the advantage.

  I thrust the heel of my left palm up toward his face even as my right foot stomped down toward the inside of his leg. Shin, instep, toes—I didn’t give a damn where I landed at this point, as long as it hurt him. As long as it gave Degan enough time to close the distance and strike.

  Wolf raised his shoulder and ducked his head, deflecting my palm. I felt my foot connect with something, but only sparingly. I was still shifting my weight, still trying to turn my palm thrust into a vicious elbow to his side, when Wolf brought the long sword guard back around and connected with the side of my head.

  Pain and light exploded behind my eyes. The world wobbled. I reached out for support, felt something against my shoulder, and grabbed hold. Wolf cursed. For a moment I was upright; then my legs became entangled and I fell, taking the support with me.

  I heard Wolf yell something at Degan, only to have it cut off by the sound of steel meeting steel.

  I tried to push myself up,
to roll myself over. That turned out to be a bad idea. The world spun some more, and what little food I had in me decided to come up and see what all the fuss was about. It spread itself across the street and the side of my face in roughly equal measure. I gagged some more.

  Grunts and gasps; the sound of feet moving quickly over pavement; sword meeting sword—all came to me through the lingering sound of a bell echoing in my head. I couldn’t tell if the two degans were right on top of me or half a square away.

  I took one shaking breath, then another. The heaving in my middle settled down to an uneasy quavering. I blinked, saw street and bile and bits of what once had been food, all with barely any hint of amber. Dawn was nearly here.

  I lifted my head, moved my hands, and pushed against the ground. Something scraped and shifted on the street beneath me. I looked. Ivory’s sword.

  So that’s what I’d grabbed hold of. Between the tangle of my arms and it somehow getting caught between my legs, I must have levered the sword out of Wolf’s grip. Good. Served the bastard right.

  I started to laugh, felt the world tip a bit, and stopped myself. Gloat later, Drothe: Live now.

  I gathered my knees beneath me and turned my attention toward the sounds of fighting.

  Degan and Wolf were standing just short of the square, where the narrow street opened out into the filth-strewn piazza. Degan was trying to hold his ground, using the superior reach and speed of his rapier to keep Wolf trapped between the buildings, where the Azaari’s curved blade had less room to maneuver. As for Wolf, he was attempting to push forward, using a dizzying array of cuts and off-line thrusts to beat Degan’s blade aside and force the other man back.

  Normally, I would have put odds on Degan when it came to controlling the fight; but seeing how he was facing another degan, and seeing how Wolf looked to have just as much, if not more, say in the matter, I wasn’t willing to make any predictions at the moment.

  I watched, slack-jawed, as Wolf threw a downward cut, slid his shamshir off Degan’s parry, swept the blade around for a cut from the other direction, turned that attack into a thrust at the last moment, and then stepped forward and pushed a third slice at Degan’s head, all in one seamless action.