The Swordsman's Oath toe-2

by Juliet E. McKenna

  “I’m bruised but I’ll be fine.” I turned my head to try and find Grival and Sezarre, wondering why they had not been first to my side. I was more than satisfied with what I saw. Grival had Kaeska face down in the dirt, kneeling on her thighs as he tied her hands securely behind her back. Sezarre was using that cursed veil of hers to gag her securely, pulling her head up at a cruel angle with a hand twisted hard in her hair. The bitch, the whoring, murderous bitch; that poisonous enchantment had to have been her work. No wonder she’d been veiled. Too bad her tame sorcerer had fled his fate, leaving her condemned before all the Islanders to suffer who only knew what fate.

  “Ryshad!” Shek Kul’s abrupt summons silenced the assembled Islanders so thoroughly I could hear the heedless chirping of the birds in a distant tree. Getting to my feet, stumbling slightly as my knees still seemed to be looking for someone else to give their instructions, I crossed the bloody sand to stand before him.

  “The truth condemns the woman Kaeska and she will pay the price,” said the Warlord in an unemotional voice. “You are vindicated, but I find much to trouble me in this matter. This magician has singled you out and you say there has been much strife between his people and those that were yours before you came to this place.” Shek Kul’s voice grew a little louder, to carry his words unmistakably to the outer reaches of the avid crowd. “I truly believe that you are innocent of any taint of magic, the omen of Rek-a-nul declares this. However there is a very real danger that these men will seek you out, to avenge their comrade. I cannot keep you here, to risk bringing such pollution to the domain.”

  Laio stirred in her seat, subsiding as Shek Kul’s head moved as if about to turn and look at her. I stared at the man, wondering what in Dastennin’s name he was saying. Shek Kul folded his arms as he studied me. “You will leave this place as soon as the execution is complete.”

  Turning on his heel, the Warlord strode from the practice ground, Gar catching Laio under the elbow to force her along, Grival and Sezarre hauling Kaeska between them, cruel hands gripping her shoulders, not even allowing her to regain her feet when she stumbled, but dragging her along to score her knees on the gravel of the path. A hand from somewhere thrust a waterskin at me and I emptied it in a handful of parched gulps before taking a cup of thin wine from the steward whose wide smile was belied by the fear in his eyes.

  “Come.” I followed the captain of the guard numbly to the barracks, where I stripped and washed in a quiet corner, my mind in turmoil at this unexpected turn of events. Finding everyone else keeping a constant arm’s length away from me, I was anointing my various bruises and scrapes with a selection of Sezarre’s ointments when a murmur of surprise made me look round. I turned to find that the guards had all melted away. Shek Kul was standing there, looking at me thoughtfully.

  “Let me.” He held out a hand and I gave him the pot of salve, not knowing what else to do. Obeying his gesture, I turned and felt him rubbing the pungent balm into a vicious bruise on my shoulder.

  “You have done me a great service, in many ways, by ridding me of Kaeska,” he remarked. “I always knew she would become ever more dangerous when her brother was killed. Once I no longer needed the alliance of her marriage she knew I would get the domain an heir and stop indulging her nonsense. In many ways, you are a very good slave. I know Laio thinks so and there would be much you could teach her, given time. Yet you remind me of a hawk I once had, taken wild too late and only trained with harshness. He was a fine bird, brave and fearless, swift to fly but always slow to return to the lure.” Shek Kul handed the little jar over my shoulder and I turned to face him.

  “I could always see that bird looking for the mountain heights,” said the Warlord simply, “even when he was hooded and leashed in the mews. In the end, I untied his jesses myself and let him fly. I think this is the only reward I can give you that would mean anything to you.”

  I opened my mouth but he silenced me with an upraised hand. “That would not be enough in itself to persuade me but there is the magic to consider.” His eyes were hard, searching my own. “There was something wrong in that fight, something ill omened hanging around you. I cannot say what it was, but were you any other man, had the great serpent not appeared when you stood alone on the sands, I would have you killed under suspicion of sorcery. As it is I am content to let you go, provided you swear on whatever you consider most holy that you will not return.”

  I swallowed on a suddenly dry mouth. “I swear; may Dastennin drown me to cast me naked on the shore if I prove false.”

  Shek Kul nodded, apparently satisfied. “This token will guarantee you safe passage across the Archipelago.” He handed me a gold and jeweled medallion that would pretty much guarantee me a safe retirement if I ever brought it home.

  “My thanks,” I said, quite unable to think of anything else.

  “Now dress and we will deal with the traitor,” the Warlord said grimly. “As her accuser, your responsibility only ends with her death.”

  I dragged on my clothes and followed obediently at his heels, wondering with a sick sensation exactly what I was about to witness as we left the compound and headed for the foreshore. Kaeska was lying on a wide wooden platform fixed to stakes at the high-tide mark, her hands and feet spread and tied. I tried hard not to react when I saw her eyes and mouth had been sealed with wax, burns scoring her skin. Her nostrils flared as she drew what frantic breaths she could. Shek Kul regarded her impassively for a moment then picked a large stone from the black sand of the beach and placed it firmly on Kaeska’s breast bone. She flinched as if it had been a burning coal but could not dislodge it, pinioned as she was. As Shek Kul nodded to me, I reluctantly found a fist-sized rock and laid it next to his, averting my eyes from Kaeska’s blind grimaces.

  “You stay until she is dead.” Shek Kul strode away without a backward glance and I found myself standing there as a succession of Islanders came to add their weight to Kaeska’s punishment, some in tears, some openly gloating, but all adding to the load that was slowly pressing her to death.

  Gar came toward the middle of the afternoon as Kaeska was laboring to draw every breath, her color sickly.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, coming to stand next to me in the shade of the shoreline after laying her own middling sized stone with a somber face.

  I nodded. “Tell me, what is the purpose of all this?” I was struggling with the measured cruelty of the execution. “Why not just let me cut her head off.”

  “Her blood would pollute the ground,” Gar shook her head soberly. “Her mouth is closed so that she cannot curse anyone and her eyes are shut so that her gaze cannot contaminate anything it falls upon. Kaeska has committed a high crime against the domain, against the people and the land, and in this execution all share in her death. When she is dead, all her belongings will be piled on the corpse and burned, to destroy everything that has ever linked her to this place. The sea will carry away the ashes and the defilement with them.” She sighed. “I know how you mainlanders speak of us, as bloodthirsty savages, always at war with each other. In truth, we value life, we value it highly, so when we have to take a life like this, we make sure the nature of that death makes its own statement.”

  Gar, like Shek, did not look back as she left the beach, making her way back to the residence through the Islanders who continued to come to share in this incomprehensible rite. Laio came some while later as the line was thinning out somewhat. She was carrying a large stone that took her all her strength and both hands and it must have come from somewhere in the residence. Panting as she raised it in front of her chest, she dropped it hard on the heap now covering Kaeska’s torso. A feeble whimper escaped the tormented woman and Laio leaped backward as if she’d been bitten by a snake, looking around wildly. Seeing me, she came to sit on the dry sand beneath the fringed trees.

  “I wanted to end it for her,” she murmured softly.

  “That will have helped,” I assured her.

  “Where will you go?�
�� Laio’s voice shook. I reached for her little hand; giving it a comforting squeeze, not caring if this was inappropriate.

  “I’ll be fine, once I’m out of the Islands, I’ll go back to my old master.” I managed a rather bleak smile.

  Laio pointed at the harbor where several large galleys were swinging at anchor, more heading in down the channel between the islands. “That crimson pennant, that is the mark of Sazac Joa. If I speak to the captain, he’ll give you passage. I will make sure that all your belongings are loaded aboard.” Laio lifted her chin to quell a trembling lip.

  “That’s very good of you.”

  “Not really,” admitted Laio with a shadow of her old manner. “Shek Kul told me to make sure you left nothing behind that might taint the domain.”

  That made sense. Laio rose to her feet and brushed sand from her dress. “I’ll send Sezarre down with some food,” she promised over her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” I called as I steeled myself to check the pulse in Kaeska’s neck again. Her skin was clammy to the touch but the faint beat of her life still pushed against my fingers. I sighed and sat down again to wait out this grim vigil.

  Kaeska took three long days and nights to die.

  The coast east of the settlement,

  Kel Ar’Ayen,

  34th of Aft-Spring,

  Year Two of the Colony

  “How’s the river bed, captain?” Temar looked up from making painstaking notations in his journal as the weather-beaten seaman stood before him, wide stance secure on the deck as the ship rode the gentle swell.

  “Sound enough, the anchor will hold. The old Eagle will nest safe enough here for a while.” The thick-set sailor patted the mast with affectionate satisfaction, a smile creasing his leathery face and softening the scowl molded from his bushy brows by a lifetime squinting in the sun and wind. “I’ve set Meig to keep an eye on the tide and the run of the river.”

  “Good.” Temar got up from his seat beside the lateen rigged aft-mast and stretched his cramped shoulders, half inclined to shed his stout hide jerkin in the strengthening sunshine. He looked around the broad estuary, thickly forested hills dropping sharply to an open beach of shingle and scrub, winding away inland on the banks of a wide, brownish river that offered tempting access to the mysteries of the hidden interior. The fitful breeze brought an alluring fragrance from the burgeoning woodlands. Temar took a deep breath of the scent of spring. “They would surely have put in here to take on supplies, wouldn’t they, Master Grethist?”

  The captain nodded. “They had fair copies of the Sieur’s charts, just the same as us, the ones he made when he was exploring the coastline with the Seafarer and they’re good for another six days’ sailing beyond here. This place is marked clear enough as a good anchorage with game and fresh water to be had.”

  Temar moved and leaned over the rail of the stern, sighing. “So where are they? Could they have come to grief? I suppose things will have changed, sandbars and the like, those charts must be what, eighteen or nineteen years old by now.”

  “I know Master Halowis.” The mariner folded his arms as he too gazed at the shoreline. “He knows to take care sailing in strange waters. In any case, if they’d come to grief, we’d have seen sign of it. We found the wreck of the Windchime and she was lost on the crossing last year, wasn’t she? That was still plain enough, even after a whole winter of high seas tearing it up—her cargo was scattered all along the strand.”

  “I suppose a storm could have hit them,” mused Temar. “They did set out barely halfway through For-Spring, but no one was prepared to wait until the Equinox, given the weather seemed set fair.”

  “It would have to be some storm for all three ships to founder without at least one making it to land and no survivors washed ashore.” Grethist shook his head stubbornly. “We’d have seen sign of weather that severe as well, uprooted trees and the like.”

  Temar shrugged. “So what do you suppose befell them? Sickness, disease, falling prey to beasts when they put ashore? We’re talking about eighty-some men, Dastennin help them!”

  “I’ll get the longboat launched.” The captain set his square, gray-bearded jaw. “If they made landfall here, there’ll be fire-pits and such, some sign, and we should be able to get some idea of when they landed, how many they were. That should give us something to work on. Maybe they’ve headed up this river, it looks as if it should be navigable a fair way inland. Wasn’t that something they were supposed to be doing?”

  “You’re probably right.” Temar nodded, the tension in the back of his mind easing at this eminently reasonable suggestion. “Still, we don’t know what’s prowling these forests, do we? Make sure the rowers take weapons with them, swords for those that have them and the ship’s axes for those that don’t. Let’s not take any chances.”

  He stood with Grethist and watched as the crew lowered the shallow ship’s boat down to the glassy surface of the estuary, oars hitting the water with a crack that echoed back from the distant hills.

  “Can I speak with you for a moment, Temar?”

  “Demoiselle.” Temar turned and bowed to Guinalle with precisely calculated courtesy.

  She ignored the faint provocation in his greeting but swept him an ironic curtsey more suited to a silken robe than the practical gray woollen dress she was wearing. “There’s something wrong,” she stated abruptly. “I can feel something peculiar, just hovering beyond my comprehension, a threat of some kind.”

  “Quietly, please.” Temar looked around to see if anyone had overheard this unnerving pronouncement, relieved to see the remaining sailors absorbed in watching the longboat make its slow way inshore. “What exactly are you telling me?”

  “I don’t exactly know,” admitted Guinalle, her frustration plain to see as she tucked her hands inelegantly through her braided leather girdle. “I can’t put my finger on it but something’s wrong. Avila and I have been reaching out to see if we can find anyone to contact; the expedition may have been lost, but I can’t believe no one survived.”

  “But you can’t find anyone?” interrupted Temar.

  “It’s not that, exactly.” Guinalle frowned. “It’s more as if I’m trying to look through a fog. Avila says it’s like trying to shout when you’re wearing a veil.”

  “You were saying yourself that working Artifice from a ship was causing some odd effects,” Temar reminded her, a suspicion of satisfaction in his voice. “Perhaps things work differently on this side of the ocean. There was that business when the far-seeing to the mines went all wrong, wasn’t there?”

  “That was seldom-used Artifice in barely trained hands,” insisted Guinalle. “I am arguably one of the best practitioners anywhere in the Empire and this is a skill I mastered long ago. This is different, Temar, you have to believe me. There’s a danger out there and everyone needs to be alert for a sign of it. Avila feels it too, just a little but enough to convince me it’s real.”

  Temar raised a hand to silence her, frowning. “All right, I take your word for it. What do you want me to do? You say we’re in peril, but you can’t tell me how or why. Look around you, these men are tense enough; they had friends, brothers aboard the ships we’re searching for. They’re already worried enough about getting so far along the coast and still failing to find them.” He realized his words were sounding harder than he intended and tried to soften his tone. “Please understand me; it’s not that I don’t believe you, I do, honestly. It’s just that I’m simply not prepared to make a potentially bad situation worse by giving out some vague warning of danger when I can’t answer the first question that anyone puts to me about it. When you have something definite to tell me, something I can explain to the crew, I will act. Until then, please keep this quiet; we have enough problems to handle without adding unfounded fears.”

  Guinalle’s lips were thin with irritation and a faint flush of anger reddened her cheeks. “Of course, Esquire, my duty to you. I’ll do what I can.” She turned on her heel and strode briskl
y away, neck and shoulders stiff with annoyance, soft shoes hissing across the polished decking.

  Temar watched her go with a sinking feeling compounded of contrition and exasperation. When would he be able to have a conversation with Guinalle without one or other of them giving or taking offense in some way? He was doing his best to avoid her, since she’d made it clear she wanted no part of him, Saedrin curse it, but given the seriousness of this situation, Den Fellaemion had insisted on putting Guinalle and her deftest pupils aboard.

  “Did the Demoiselle have some word for you?” Master Grethist’s curt enquiry pushed Temar’s personal turmoil aside.

  “Not as such, nothing important.” Temar smiled in what he hoped was a convincing manner.

  The sailor took a pouch from the pocket of his rough, sailcloth tunic, helping himself to chewing leaf before offering Temar some as an afterthought. “Coming all this way, finding no answers, the lads are starting to ask questions. Have you heard how the other expedition fared, the one that headed south?”

  “Yes, of course.” Temar shook his head at the offer of leaf and at his own stupidity for not sharing his news. “I should have told you, I’m sorry. From what they’ve reported, it seems that coast runs pretty well due south for a hundred and sixty leagues or so, and then it curves around back to run east and north, up a long sound fed by a massive river, about eighty, ninety leagues inland overall. It’s excellent land for running cattle on by all accounts, not nearly so much timber as these northern and eastern reaches.”

  The captain’s eyes brightened. “That sounds promising, somewhere to think about taking the young stock calved this year.”

  “It’s looking very good,” agreed Temar. “Messire Den Rannion is already talking about founding a new settlement there before the turn of the year. As far as he can judge, it’ll be only a scant hundred leagues from the port overland, less from the mines.”