The Wounded Guardian

by Duncan Lay

  He looked around and saw an old tankard, half-filled with a murky liquid that smelt vaguely of ale. Rather than go to the well and draw up a bucket of water, he decided that would do. Besides, it wasn’t going to make the smell much worse. He grabbed it and tossed the contents into the man’s face, then stepped back, waiting for a reaction. He had to admit, it was spectacular.

  With a howl, the man leapt to his feet, wiped the worst of the liquid off his face with his hand, smelt his hand and let out an even bigger howl.

  ‘You bastard! That was my own piss!’ he roared. ‘I’ve got a mind to…’ His hand started down towards his belt, where an empty knife scabbard sat, then stopped, partly because there was nothing there, partly because Martil had drawn both of his swords. He changed mental gears and continued smoothly ‘…offer you a drink and politely discuss preferred ways to wake a man up. Or the political situation in Norstalos, should you prefer.’ His voice was a little hoarse but Martil could tell two things—he had a trace of a Norstaline accent still, and he had been educated. An ordinary bandit did not talk like that.

  Martil smiled at him. There was no humour in it. ‘Who are you and what happened to this village?’ he demanded.

  ‘Before I start confessing to anything, who’s doing the asking?’ the man asked suspiciously, then added hastily as Martil twirled his swords: ‘I was just wondering.’

  ‘Zorva’s balls, I’m not in the Norstaline or Tetran armies, nor am I a militiaman. But I will have some answers,’ Martil said in frustration.

  The man looked at the swords and shrugged. ‘I am Conal and as to what happened here, that could take a while to explain.’ The man wiped an odorous drip off his cheek and shuddered. ‘Do you mind if I have a wash first, and do you have anything to eat?’

  Martil looked at him with distaste. ‘By all means have a wash. As to the food, that depends on what you can tell me of the fate of Danir the Destroyer. The quality of the food depends on the quality of the information. I have news that will interest him.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Conal snorted. ‘But if my news is worth food, I hope you’ve brought fine beef and a better cook, for I have a tale worthy of a great meal.’ He looked around hungrily and scratched his crotch industriously.

  ‘You sell it well enough and we shall see.’

  Not wanting to let Conal out of his sight, he followed the man out of the inn. If Conal was surprised to see a small girl sitting on a tall horse, he said nothing, just stumbled around the side of the inn, towards the village well.

  ‘Who’s that? He smells!’ Karia announced loudly.

  Certainly loud enough for Conal to hear, and turn back. ‘Well, so would you, if someone had just thrown your own piss all over you,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Did you have a bath in your own wee?’ Karia thought that was hilarious. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am the last of the Destroyer’s men, Conal the Cowardly, at your service.’ He bowed low.

  ‘Not much of a title,’ Martil observed.

  ‘I’m thinking of changing it,’ Conal admitted.

  Several buckets of water did little to improve Conal’s general appearance, but they did seem to help the smell a little. He changed into fresh clothes—although they were only a marginal improvement over what he had been wearing. Then he drank deeply from a last bucket of water before going around the back to the stinking latrine pit and squatting for an age, accompanying himself with a chorus of grunts, groans and exhortations.

  Martil moved Karia and Tomon further away, but it was impossible to block out the noise, despite his best efforts to talk over them at Karia.

  ‘Can you please keep it down!’ he finally roared, when Karia’s questions and giggles got too much for him.

  ‘Just letting you know I’m not trying to run away,’ Conal called back cheerfully.

  Finally, the old bandit appeared around the side of the inn, pulling his trousers back up. ‘Any chance of some food?’ he called out.

  ‘I’m not hungry any more,’ Martil told him.

  Martil had him drag the cleanest table and three chairs out into the fresher air, then handed over an oatcake and a strip of dried beef. Karia sat down and tucked into an apple, while Martil just sat and watched the man wolf down the food.

  ‘So, what happened here?’ Martil asked.

  Conal swallowed his mouthful and belched loudly. Karia giggled and Martil ostentatiously laid his swords on the table.

  ‘It’s a funny tale,’ Conal began hastily, ‘started a few days ago. You obviously know this is Danir the Destroyer’s base. Three days ago he rides out with his men, as usual, planning to hit a farm on the other side of the border that we’d been scouting for a week.’

  ‘We?’

  Conal waved the stump of his left hand around. ‘Can’t ride and swing a sword. I just run the inn for Danir.’

  ‘Go on,’ Martil said, his face expressionless.

  ‘But they weren’t back by dawn, as they usually would have been. We were starting to think about going to look for them, when three men rode in, looking like they had been dragged through a regiment of Berellians backwards. All had been cut, and one had a knife in the guts that killed him before the day was out. We all wanted to know what had happened, so they told us. On the way to the farm, one of the scouts had spotted six men riding at night, formed up around a seventh man, like they were guarding him. Well, including the scout, Danir had twenty-seven men with him. Six guards, they couldn’t stand up to that. And travelling at night, away from the road—it had to be something valuable they were carrying. So Danir set an ambush and charged in.’

  ‘Only they weren’t ordinary guards,’ Martil said flatly.

  Conal chuckled. ‘You’ve been around a bit, I see. No, they weren’t, because they fought like demons. Danir probably should have cut and run, but he was a prideful man who never liked to lose. And any man that rode with him was terrified of the bastard. You didn’t leave a fight until he told you, or you got your guts slowly ripped out later. At the end of it, there were just seven men left alive, including Danir, one of his sons—and the man the six had been protecting. So Danir tells him to hand over his valuables and he might live. And do you know what the man did then?’

  ‘Turned into a dragon?’ Karia asked.

  Conal roared with laughter, showing plenty of yellowing teeth.

  ‘No, he’s holding two knives, just a pair of knives, although he’d already killed five men with them during the fight. He throws them, kills Danir and the man next to him. Danir’s son sees he’s unarmed, so he and the other three swarm in, only this man pulls out two more daggers, kills one more and leaves the last in the guts of Danir’s son before he gets cut down. So there’s two unwounded men, and another who’s as good as dead, out of twenty-seven. And do you know what they found when they searched the bodies?’

  ‘They were all elves?’ Karia guessed.

  Conal laughed again. ‘You have a wonderful imagination, princess,’ he chuckled.

  ‘I’m not a princess, I’m Karia,’ she told him.

  ‘I’m very pleased to meet you. I thought someone as pretty as you had to be a princess,’ he smiled.

  ‘Just get on with it,’ Martil growled.

  Conal took a gulp of water. ‘They were soldiers. Wearing black surcoats carrying the double sword badge of Duke Gello, with some sort of crown above it.’

  ‘Means they were part of his personal guard,’ Martil agreed.

  ‘But the best bit was, the last man to die, the one that used those daggers to such effect, he had a sword in his bag. Imagine that! Fighting for your life but you don’t draw your sword, you just use a dagger! Why didn’t he use his sword?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was blunt?’ Karia guessed.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Conal said, then gulped when he saw Martil’s face. ‘First, I have to tell you what happened to the village,’ he added hurriedly. After a long moment, Martil nodded at him, so Conal continued. ‘So the two men took the valuables
, which wasn’t much, and rode back here with Danir’s dying son, Ferg. Took them a bit longer, because wounded men don’t travel too easily. When they got back here and told everyone that Danir was dead and his band destroyed, there was a fair bit of panic. Folks in these parts, and especially across the Norstaline border, aren’t real fond of the Destroyer. So, with no Danir, and more importantly, no fighting men to keep the area terrified of us, we could see an angry mob come calling. So the villagers took what they could and left that day.’

  ‘And what of Danir’s family? Where did they go?’ Martil asked sharply, wanting to know one way or the other if the option of giving Karia back to some of her family was still there.

  ‘His wife ran away years ago. When he wanted one of the women in the village, he just took them. You didn’t argue with him. As to his sons—one was killed on the raid, the other came back with a dagger in his guts and is buried out the back of this place.’ Conal shrugged.

  Martil realised he would be looking after Karia and wondered, again, what the old priest had seen. Then he put aside that thought to return to the mystery here.

  ‘The two men who had returned with the prize? The last of Danir’s gang? What of them?’

  Conal sighed. ‘They fought over it and killed each other. Or rather, the victor died of his wounds the next day. I had to bury them.’

  ‘So why did you stay?’ Martil felt there was something missing about the story. ‘I thought you were a coward?’

  ‘Never said that. That’s what they called me, because I wouldn’t ride on raids,’ Conal protested. ‘I stayed because I couldn’t decide what to do with it.’

  ‘With what? Tell me now,’ Martil snarled. His patience was just about worn out.

  ‘I have to show it to you. Trust me, you wouldn’t believe it otherwise. And I’d go and get it, only you might get the wrong idea. You’d better follow me.’

  ‘If this is a trap…’ Martil warned.

  ‘Then I’m even more stupid than I look. Come on.’

  Conal led the way back into the inn; Karia stayed in the doorway, holding her hand over her nose.

  Moving with almost exaggerated care, Conal dumped his straw mattress onto the bar, to reveal a long, cloth-wrapped bundle underneath.

  Martil sheathed his swords. ‘Back away and put your hands—sorry, your hand—on your head.’

  He waited until Conal had done so, then bent down and picked up the bundle. Almost as soon as he picked it up, he knew it was a sword, although it felt the wrong weight for one so large.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Conal said miserably. ‘I stayed because I had no idea what to do with it.’

  Martil shook away the cloth, which seemed to be a soldier’s cloak, and then everything became clear to him. It was indeed a sword, in a beautiful jewelled scabbard. When he stripped off the last of the cloth it seemed to light up the entire room, turning the squalid inn into something bright and warm, and even seemed to take the edge off the smell.

  He was holding the Dragon Sword of Norstalos.

  Cezar was heartily sick of Norstaline inns by now. After his early successes, and feeling as if he would catch up with Captain Martil at any time, he had experienced his first taste of frustration. For some reason, the inns on the main roads had not seen a Ralloran warrior and a little girl—surely the easiest of things to remember. But why should they leave the main road? It was a mystery. Cezar wanted to kill this Martil, sacrifice the girl to Zorva and get back to Berellia. The messages from Onzalez were getting alarming. Make the kill and get out. Time is against you. He had to backtrack, and go a different route before he could find those who remembered them. Still, his chase was drawing to a close. He was two days from the border now and was looking forward to getting his hands on the girl almost as much as he was anticipating the enjoyment of cutting out Martil’s heart.

  8

  Martil was oblivious to Conal as he stared at the sword. The golden hilt was shaped like a dragon, the wings flared to form the cross-guard, the body was the handle, the head, with two rubies for eyes, twisted its long neck around to embrace the blade, while its tail formed the pommel. The black scabbard was encrusted with jewels, and strange runes written in silver rolled up the side. The village, the inn, the smelly bandit, even Karia all seemed to fade into the background. At that moment he could not say where he was or even who he was. Everything seemed to be about this Sword, as if it had expanded to fill the whole world. All that mattered, all that existed, was the Sword and himself. The eyes on the hilt seemed to sparkle at him and the hilt grew warm in his hand. Without thinking, without any effort, as if he was responding to some compulsion, he drew the blade from the scabbard. It was the most natural thing in the world to do, as if it were the logical, the only possible course of action after picking it up. In fact it would have been wrong not to draw it. The blade came free with a strange hissing noise. It was even more beautiful than the scabbard, a perfect piece of shining steel, which seemed to make even the tawdry inn taproom sparkle. The balance was amazing. His eyes told him he was holding a large sword, but his muscles were telling him it weighed no more than a small knife. He gazed at it, entranced, although the spell was broken by Conal’s babbling.

  ‘You drew the Sword?’ he gasped, amazed.

  ‘You drew the Sword!’ he cried in shock.

  ‘You drew the Sword,’ he moaned in horror.

  ‘What are you going on about? Of course I’ve drawn the bloody sword,’ Martil dismissed him.

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ Conal gasped. ‘Don’t you know what you have done?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll put it back,’ Martil shrugged.

  ‘You can’t put it back! You’re its wielder now! All of Norstalos has been waiting for one to come along, and now it’s you!’

  Something of the pure horror in Conal’s voice started to penetrate Martil’s head.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you never listen to the sagas, the legends about this Sword? What are you, some sort of sheep-shagging Ralloran?’

  Martil pointed the Sword towards him. ‘Yes, except for the sheep. But you would be wise not to insult me while I am holding a sword.’ Then he relented a little and remembered the little merchant, Berne. ‘No, I haven’t heard the legends about this sword. As I keep telling you Norstalines, I spent my life fighting the Ralloran Wars and trying to stay alive. Strangely, we never sat around and discussed Norstaline myths and legends. So why don’t you tell me instead of babbling like an idiot?’

  ‘The blade doesn’t let just anyone draw it. If it thinks you are unworthy, then not even the strongest man in the world could pull it out of the scabbard. But if it thinks you are worthy, then you become its wielder, with all that entails. Although, if you do not live up to its purpose, you will die horribly.’

  ‘You’re talking as if it were alive. It’s a sword,’ Martil grunted.

  ‘A sword created by the dragons, forged in secret, using great magics. It can never be used for evil. If a good man draws it and then turns to evil, its magic will destroy him.’

  ‘How does it define evil? It’s a sword. Swords do what their wielders make them do. How can it tell if you are killing someone who is bad or good?’ Martil argued.

  Conal smiled. ‘These are questions that have consumed great thinkers and wizards for centuries. I can only tell you what I know, what every Norstaline child is taught. The Sword knows, because it was made that way. It knows what is in your heart, and can feel it. Once you have drawn it, you are linked with it for the rest of your life. This will be a long one, if you are a good man. Otherwise it will be a short, unpleasant one. In battle it will make you invincible but its true power is how it inspires other good men to stand with you.’

  This sounded too much like a saga for Martil’s liking. Saga heroes always triumphed against impossible odds but if half a lifetime of war had taught him anything, it was that notions of good or evil never guaranteed victory. He had heard too many inspirational speeches t
o believe them now. It was all too much to take in, so he did what he always used to do when things were too grim; tried to find some humour in the situation.

  ‘So, have I inspired you to follow me?’ he asked Conal.

  ‘No,’ the old bandit admitted. ‘Now it’s your responsibility, I’d like to run away.’ He considered this for a second. ‘But, to be fair, I’m not a good man.’

  A good man. Martil suddenly thought of the dead children of Bellic. Dead at his orders. How could he be considered a good man? He looked around at Karia. She was in his care because of the way he had slaughtered her family. Another black deed. How had the Sword allowed him to draw it? It made no sense—unless there was no magic in the Sword, and it was all a trick to fool the young and the gullible. This was ridiculous. A man could go mad thinking about this.

  ‘I’ll be heading off then,’ Conal said cautiously, indicating the door. ‘If that’s all right?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you’ve got the Sword, Danir’s dead and I need to go somewhere that’s better for my health. Like southern Aviland. Staying here is likely to prove fatal. If an angry mob doesn’t get you, then Duke Gello will.’

  ‘Duke Gello?’

  ‘They were his men carrying the Dragon Sword. And even a half-blind tracker could follow the trail back to here. Think about it. If he went to all the trouble to steal the Sword and spirit it away, he’s not going to baulk at wiping out a few bandits.’