Sworn in Steel

by Douglas Hulick

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m neyajin.” As if that answered everything.

  “I know what you are,” I said, “but that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “It answers it perfectly.” She leaned in, inspecting my shoulder. “You can see in the dark. I can’t. If I wish to learn, I need to keep you alive.”

  “But I already told you . . .”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She produced a knife and began cutting away the buttons that held my doublet closed. “The neyajin didn’t know how to hide from the djinn in the beginning, but we learned. We figured it out. Just because you don’t know how your sight works right now doesn’t mean you won’t figure it out later.” She peeled back the cloth from my shoulder and I gasped at the pain. There was plenty of blood.

  “I thought you weren’t going to stay in el-Qaddice,” I said, trying to distract myself. “That you were going to leave your school behind.”

  Coolly: “That was before I inherited it.”

  I winced, and not from her ministrations. “I’m not going to apologize for that,” I said.

  “Did I ask you to? I was the one who attacked my grandfather first. He was my blood, but what he was doing, what he had planned . . .” She shook her head. “His intentions may have been on the right path, but his actions? I couldn’t allow him to take our clan down that road. If you hadn’t killed him, it would have been me. There was no other way.”

  I watched as she walked over to Wolf’s body and cut a length of cloth from his robes, then came back. “So you’re head of the neyajin in el-Qaddice now?” I said as she knelt beside me and began to fold up the fabric.

  Her mouth became a tight, thin line. “Not quite. I may be the last of my blood, but I don’t have the rank or reputation my grandfather did. I expect some will leave. One or two others may challenge me for leadership of the school.”

  “Can you take them?”

  “One of them? Yes. The other, probably not. But it doesn’t matter. I won’t be staying.”

  “But I thought you said—” The rest of my words were cut off by a hiss of pain as Aribah pressed the pad of fabric against my shoulder and closed the doublet back over it.

  “What I said I was that I am neyajin and that I had inherited my grandfather’s school. This is true. But if I stay, the school will fracture and die. Better I take it with me and begin anew somewhere else.”

  The pain I felt was joined by a sinking feeling inside me. “What ‘somewhere else’?” I said.

  A self-satisfied smile. “Why, wherever you and your dark sight go, of couse.”

  “You mean Ildrecca?”

  “Is that where you’re headed? Then yes, Ildrecca.”

  “But you can’t just—”

  Her bloody finger came up, laid itself over my lips. “You’ve lost a lot of blood and nearly lost your life this night, so I’ll be as plain as I can. I need you. I need you alive. Because as long as you’re alive, I have a chance of not only redeeming my family’s line, but of restoring the neyajin through your sight. As I said, my grandfather was right—it’s only his method that was wrong. So if that means following you to Ildrecca, then that is where I will go. Not only for my family, but also for me: I still owe you.”

  I shook my head. “We’re even.”

  “In terms of deaths, yes, but in terms of saving lives? No. You did far more to save mine than simply kill someone, and I will not forget that.”

  I considered the notion of walking into Ildrecca, a string of Djanese assassins in my wake. Or even just one. Yeah, that would go over well. . . .

  But it could be handy.

  “Come,” said Aribah. “We’ve lingered long enough. I need to get you to your people so they can look after you.”

  “I need the swords,” I said, indicating Wolf’s body. “And the fan.”

  Aribah scowled. “Surely you’re not in need of money so badly that—”

  “No,” I said. “It’s not like that. I have debts to people, too, and I need those to pay them.”

  Aribah considered the small collection of swag for a moment, then sighed. As she gathered them up and formed a rough sling from Wolf’s sash and robe, I pulled my doublet closed as best I could and forced myself to my feet. My leg burned and my head felt light, but I knew we wouldn’t be able to make it if I couldn’t walk. Better I get it over with now.

  I fumbled two ahrami from the pouch around my neck and slipped them into my mouth, ignoring the coppery taste of my own blood that mixed with the smoke of the seeds.

  When Aribah came back over, the swords wrapped and slung across her back, the fan in her hand, I was looking up at the pearl-colored sky through the buildings. Dawn was a thing well in progress.

  “Any idea how we’re going to get across town, let alone through a couple of gates, in this condition?” I said as she slipped her shoulder under mine and her free arm across my back.

  “Of course.” She smiled. “I am neyajin, after all, am I not?”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The door swung back on rusty hinges, sending a high-pitched squeal reverberating through the empty hall and up into the rafters. The noise unsettled the birds nesting there, and I saw several pigeons and what might have been an owl make their exit through the large hole that had claimed a good third of the roof, along with part of an upper wall.

  I looked around the dusty, empty space and resisted the urge to sneeze.

  “This is the Barracks Hall?” I said to Degan.

  “What?” he said, pushing the other half of the double doors wide. “Oh, no—this is far older.” He stepped back and brushed his hand against his pants, staring past the drifting feathers and slanting morning light, into the past. “This is where the Order of the Degans began.”

  We were three weeks out of el-Qaddice and somewhere between two and five days east of Ildrecca. I couldn’t be certain of the latter because we’d left the coast road days ago, cutting across farmland and pastures and up into the stony hills beyond. We were between the port town of Niceria and the capital city, but if you’d asked me to point to our location on a map, the best I’d be able to do is indicate one of the many spurs of the Aeonian hills that ran beside the sea. What I did know was that this ruin of a fortress likely hadn’t been marked on any map for at least two hundred years, and maybe more.

  Fowler had continued on to Ildrecca at my instructions. She hadn’t been happy about it, but I needed someone to evaluate just how far things had deteriorated in my absence and have a report ready when I returned. Besides, I knew that Degan wanted as few people tagging along to his meeting with the Order as possible. Ideally he would have gone alone, but I still had his sword—he’d refused to take it back even now—although I’d started keeping it in my bedroll rather than wearing it in his presence. There’s only so much salt some wounds can take. Even then, I suspect he would have left me behind, but for the fact that I was the one who’d retrieved both Steel’s and Ivory’s swords, not to mention the laws. Well, “retrieved” if you counted Aribah carrying them, and in the end, me, to the courtyard of the Angel’s Shadow before vanishing into the night. I hadn’t heard from her since then, but that didn’t surprise me: She was neyajin, after all.

  As for Tobin and his people, they were taking the long, potentially profitable route back. While the play they’d performed might have gotten them expelled from el-Qaddice, that hadn’t stopped several rural sheikhs, and even a provincial Beg, from offering to put up the troupe and pay their way in exchange for a series of private performances. As it turned out, there was a not-so-secret audience for banned plays in hinterland, well away from the despotic court. And that it was a bunch of Imperials performing the forbidden art? Well, that made it all the more intriguing. Mama Left Hand had made all the arrangements, for what I was told was only a mildly rapacious cut. I’d been told to expect the troupe back in the Imperial capital come next spring—probably.

  All of which meant it had been a pleasantly quiet, and
speedy, trip back. Until now.

  “I thought you said Lucien created you?” I said as I took a hesitant step into the space. Bare red and gray stone walls rose almost three stories to a peaked ceiling, with high, narrow windows that had long ago lost any hints of glazing marching in narrow formation to either side. Two massive fireplaces stood opposite each other midway along. The one on the right showed signs of recent usage, although the fire that it had held must have been dwarfed by the potential of the space. Bandits using the hall for shelter, maybe, or more likely a lone shepherd. A few sticks of furniture were scattered about, along with the scarred remains of a long trestle table. None looked to have been original to the place. “I’d think the emperor would favor a more . . . resplendent locale. Or at least more convenient.”

  “You don’t create a secret society of warriors in the courtyard of the Lesser Moon Palace,” said Degan as he picked up a chair and set it aright. One leg was broken off short, causing it to wobble. “That defeats the whole point of it being secret. Especially if all of the members of said society are known, or at least recognized, around the palace. Better to do it away from the Imperial City, where no one is in the habit of spying or prying.”

  “So why here?”

  “Why not?” Degan shrugged, adjusting the wrapped bundle of swords he carried over his right shoulder. “No one thought to ask, I suppose. We were told to come, and we came. That’s what we did back then.”

  “Unlike now,” I said, limping slightly as I entered the hall. Even after a week on my back in the Lower City and regular visits from physickers and Mouths sent by Mama, the wound Wolf had given me still tended to be stiff come morning. I hoped getting home and off the trail would help, but I was beginning to have my doubts on the matter.

  “Oh, the Order still listens,” said Degan. He patted the bundle. “When the call is loud enough, or the stakes high enough.”

  “Which they are now, I expect,” said a voice from the far end of the room.

  Both Degan and I reacted: me by dropping into a crouch, hand on my sword; Degan by turning around and then smiling.

  “I was wondering if you’d come early,” said Degan.

  “Why should I change my habits now?”

  A broad, solid woman with wiry hair, dark skin and an easy smile was standing in a small archway off to one side of the hall. She was dressed for the road, but it clearly wasn’t the same road we’d been traveling: not in a beaded and embroidered tunic, kid-lined riding pants, and a travel coat that looked to be either of finest linen or roughest silk. She seemed suited more for the estate than the wilderness. The only thing on her that did look as if it belonged here was the battered, faded hat she had pushed back on her head, and even that had been a fine specimen once upon a time. Now it just looked like an old friend.

  “Good to see you again, Bronze,” she said as she strode across the room, her coat flowing along almost as easily as she did. I spied a tapering triangle of a sword at her side, the forte of the blade a good six or more fingers wide where it met the guard. The handle was simple—black wood, with a rounded pommel—and had a forward-sweeping crescent of a guard done in deep, honey-yellow metal.

  “Brass,” said Degan. He turned to face her but didn’t advance. She picked up on this and stopped farther away than I think she would’ve liked. Her smile crumbled a bit at the edges.

  “That uncertain, are you?” she said.

  “That careful.”

  Brass regard him. “Probably just as well, for your sake.” She looked at me. “And you are?”

  I wanted to say something like, “In over my head,” but instead went with, “Drothe.”

  Brass cocked an eyebrow. “The Gray Prince?”

  I turned to look at Degan. Degan was smirking. “What can I say?” he said. “You’re famous.”

  Brass laughed. It was an easy, silken thing. “Or infamous. Copper’s had a few choice words to say about you over the past few months, I can tell you.”

  Oh.

  Degan’s voice grew serious. “He’s under my protection.”

  “Fine,” said Brass, “but whose protection are you going to be under? That’s the real question.” She held up a folded piece of paper—one of the messages Degan had sent out to his fellows the moment we’d crossed the border. “This is all well and good, but you know it’ll carry about as much weight as what it’s written on for some of our fellows.”

  “I know,” said Degan. “But I didn’t have a choice.”

  “There’s always a choice, Bronze.”

  Something passed between them in that moment that I couldn’t catch, couldn’t hope to understand. Something that spoke to two hundred years of fighting and feuding and family. Something I suspected you had to be a degan to understand.

  After a moment, Degan nodded and looked away. Brass sighed. Then she pointed at the bundle.

  “So you actually got it? Ivory’s sword?”

  “And the laws.”

  “And the . . . ?” Brass took a stunned step closer. Her jaw hung slack. “You didn’t say anything about the laws, Bronze.”

  Degan smiled. “Well, I’ve got to hold something back for the big surprise, don’t I?”

  “Can I . . . ?”

  “Of course.” Degan set down the canvas, untied the leather laces, and rolled it open. Brass stared down at the three swords and the broken fan and whispered a prayer.

  “Silver and Steel’s, too?” she said after a moment.

  “Steel’s is a long story.”

  “And Silver’s?”

  Degan shook his head. I could still see him coming to my room, two nights after I’d woken up in the Lower City, Silver’s sword clutched in one hand, other men’s blood spattered across his clothing. He hadn’t been willing to tell me how he’d tracked down the sword Wolf had worn when I first met him, just that he had.

  “I’d rather tell it all at once,” he said.

  “I understand.” Brass knelt down before the weapons and reached out toward Ivory’s sword.

  “Getting a bit ahead of yourselves, aren’t you?” said a voice from the main doorway. We looked up to find three degans standing between the open doors. One I recognized from months ago when I’d been questioned about Degan’s disappearance. That was Gold Degan. The second I didn’t know.

  The third was Copper.

  She grinned a dark grin at me. I pretended not to notice.

  “There’s no harm in looking,” said Brass. Still, she stood without laying hands on any of the weapons.

  “There’s every harm if you let Bronze’s offerings to the Order sway you,” said Gold as he came forward. He was a trim, compact man who nonetheless seemed to own the room just by stepping into it. Silver-haired, slate-eyed, with a measured way about him, I got the feeling that the last place you’d want to be was across a gaming board from this man. “Don’t forget why we’re here, sister: Iron and Silver are dead, Steel is missing, and now Ivory’s sword conveniently shows up in our fallen brother’s hands? You don’t gather up that much Oath-bound steel without shedding blood and taking lives.” He stopped and looked at Degan. “Do you, brother?”

  “I’m not your brother anymore,” said Degan, his head dropping low as he stared at Gold from under his eyebrows. “I cast away my sword.”

  “How convenient for you, then, that we can’t examine it. And where might it be?”

  I forced myself to continue watching Gold, to not glance past him toward the doors and courtyard and my mule beyond. If he noticed the effort, he didn’t show it.

  “Safe,” said Degan.

  “Yes, I’m sure it is.” Gold deigned to turn his eyes to me. “Who’s the rapier?”

  “Drothe,” said Copper, stepping up beside him. “You remember: the one who lied to us about Iron?”

  “Ah, yes. I didn’t recognize him. What are you doing here, thief?”

  “He’s here at my request,” said Degan, stepping in front of me before I could respond. “If it weren’t for Drothe, we woul
dn’t have any of the swords, let alone the laws. He’s the one who got them from Steel.”

  Gold looked truly surprised for the first time. “Him? Are you saying that Steel’s dead as well, and that this one killed him?”

  “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  “And Steel isn’t. Another convenience for you, brother.”

  Brass took a step forward as well. “Back off, Gold. The tribunal hasn’t started yet. We’re still waiting on the rest.”

  “Hm, yes.” Gold looked over his shoulder at his two companions, then back at us. “Although I have to wonder if it wouldn’t be easier on everyone if we just had the adjudication now? Call it a field court, if you will, and settle things quickly. Save us all some time.” He smiled. “A show of hands, perhaps?”

  “Or of steel,” said Brass, putting her hand on her sword hilt.

  The degan beside Copper grinned. “Oh, I don’t think you’d want to choose that option, sister,” he said, putting his own hand on his weapon. There were white dots set in the ribbon steel that made up the guard, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Pearl? Bone? White opals?

  “No, you wouldn’t,” rumbled a voice behind them. “Because once steel comes out in this company, you never know who’s going to walk away.”

  A tower of a man stepped into the hall, tall and wide enough to make the entryway look small. He was dark, with broad features that gave nothing away, and a great sword propped up against his shoulder. He wore a simple brown-and-green-striped tunic and bloused pants, with a head scarf whose pattern looked disturbingly familiar. The sword’s cross guard and ring looked to be of plain metal, with chips of something gray in it I couldn’t quite make out.

  I leaned over to Degan. “Who’s the tree?” I whispered.

  “Stone,” he said. “Steel’s brother.”

  “His . . . ?” I suddenly found it hard to swallow.

  “I know what you mean,” said Degan. “I’ve always found him intimidating as well.”