The Monster War: A Tale of the Kings' Blades

by Dave Duncan

  “He guided earl there. Lordship gave him a horn. It’s seemly for lords to reward good service, isn’t it? Fine bull horn with gold ’round the top, tooled leather strap. Blows a lovely call, it do. Rhys got lungs! Could hear the boy all the way to Kirkwain on that horn. He wouldn’t sell it for all the gold in Chivial.”

  Wart glanced up at the sun, which was dipping behind the castle wall. “I’m sure he wouldn’t. How far is it to Smealey Hole?”

  “’Bout a league.”

  “North?”

  “An’ a bit west.”

  “You know if there’s more than one way in?”

  “And why wouldn’t I know?” the old man said indignantly, drawing himself up as straight as he could. “Me being bred and buttered in Brakwood, lived here more’n four score years? You want to go and root out those sorcerers, boy?”

  “I’d like to go and take a look at the place.”

  “Why didn’t you say so sooner?” From somewhere the old man produced a green cap with a pheasant feather in it. He stuck this on his head and set off across the bailey, head down, at a lightning-fast shuffle. The dogs snored on unheeding.

  After a day and a half in the saddle, the last thing Emerald wanted to see again was the backs of a horse’s ears. The second last thing was Wart blundering into trouble because she wasn’t there to warn him. If she complained, he would just leave her behind, so horse’s ears it would have to be. She was going to remain Master Luke for a while yet.

  At the stables old Mervyn shot off orders like an archer firing arrows. “Patches for him, Snowbird for Sir Stalwart. You’ve not been skimping on his oats, have you? And Daydream for this one. Fine gentle ride she has. I’ll try Daisy, see what you’ve done to her.” The hands jumped to obey.

  In the confusion of choosing saddles and watching the fresh horses being readied, Emerald managed to sidle close to Wart at a moment when Badger was out of earshot. “You are a flaming air-head! Why did you give him that star? If he’s a traitor, you’ll never see it again. It’s worth a fortune!”

  “It’s not worth as much as my life,” he said glumly. “Or the King’s. Do you think I’d ever let Badger have it if I didn’t trust him?”

  “You mean you do trust him?”

  “Y…es,” Wart said warily. “I think Grand Master’s gotten to him. He wouldn’t be the first Prime who got driven up a tree by that nump. But I’ve known Badger for years, Em. If he says he’ll do something, he’ll do it. He’s solid as a rock.”

  “Perceptive of you to see that. Your brooch is worth a fortune. He’ll be set for life.”

  “He’ll be hanged for larceny, you mean.” Wart was watching the horses, avoiding her eye. “I’m giving him a chance to show his stuff. If he staggers into the palace, dead on his feet and shouting treason and foul play, he’s going to come to Snake’s attention, and Leader’s. Durendal’s, perhaps. Even the King’s. It’s a big chance for him!”

  “Do you trust him or don’t you?”

  Wart shrugged. “Well, yes! Of course. Sort of. Here comes your horse, Luke.”

  11

  The House of Smealey

  Old Mervyn set a cracking pace; the horses thundered through the barbican, over the draw-bridge, and up into the town. Dogs, pigs, and chickens fled in noisy alarm; pedestrians leaped to safety. In moments the riders had left the houses and were out in open country, lit by a low sun ahead. Wart gave Badger a sign; Badger nodded without a smile, and turned his mount away to head back to Buran and the ferry. The old man did not seem to notice that one of his charges had departed; he rode as he walked, with his head well down. It was almost in the horse’s mane.

  Although the plain was wide and fertile, the river forced the trail steadily northward, toward wooded bluffs on their right. The old man cut the pace before he winded the horses, and then Wart was able to pull Snowbird alongside and shout a conversation.

  “Tell me about this Fellowship of Wisdom, grandfather.”

  “Don’t know nothing ’bout them, lad. Standoffish lot. Teachers, so they say.”

  “Do they sell conjurations—good-luck charms, healing?”

  “Not so’s I’ve heard.”

  Was he telling the truth or defending a bespelled Sheriff?

  “You don’t go there much?”

  “Nobody does, lad. Haven’t been there in ten years. Foresters don’t go, even. It’s near the forest, not in it.” After a brief pause, Mervyn added, “Saw lot of swordsmen around, Rhys said. Sheriff keeps the King’s peace! Why’d a gabble of enchanters need swordsmen around?”

  As if he timed the interruption for maximum annoyance, he then turned Daisy off the main trail onto a rough path that disappeared into the steep bluffs on the right. Daisy was a very fat mare, almost as old as he was from the look of her, and she made little speed on the slope. Only when the track emerged in open parkland up on the bench, could Stalwart urge Snowbird alongside again.

  “How many swordsmen?”

  “A score or more, he said.”

  Bad odds. “What else did Rhys tell you? This was when he went there with Lord Digby?”

  “Aye. Nothing much, lad. He was left outside while his haughtiness went in to talk with them. Boy said the swordsmen stood guard on him as if they didn’t want him snooping. Not that he would have, of course. Honest lad—”

  “Did Digby say anything when he came out? Did he seem angry, or frightened…?”

  “Boy said he was white, like he’d had a real shock. He wasn’t talking, though. Didn’t say hardly a word all the way back to Waterby; lad couldn’t tell if he was mad or scared, his wife says.”

  “Rhys is married?” Stalwart had thought they were discussing someone of his own age.

  “Got three sprats,” the forester said proudly. “Eight great-grandchildren I got now. His three, and—”

  “But as far as you know, the brothers are good and loyal subjects of the King?”

  Mervyn rode in silence until Stalwart repeated the question. His deafness seemed to come and go according to his mood. He shot Stalwart a scornful look.

  “How can they be, living in that house?”

  The house was more important than its inhabitants now. Stalwart must become familiar with the surroundings so he could lead the Old Blades in.

  “Tell me about the house.”

  “Ah!” the old man said, launching his tale with every sign of intending to enjoy the telling of it. “There’s a curse on it, there is! Bad place. Been lots of families own it, but never for long. Baron Modred, now…well he got it from his father, Gwyn. Gwyn came from out west aways, somewhere around Ghyll. Rough type—said to have been a highwayman or worse. There’s tales ’bout him….” He told some. Obviously Gwyn of Ghyll had been born with poison fangs and gone to the bad thereafter. “There was a real Earl of Smealey back then. I wooed one of his serving maids for a while. Married a soldier, she did, and much good—”

  “The Earl of Smealey?” Stalwart prompted when he could get a word in.

  “No saying what happened to him, exactly. River runs right under the windows, see? Smealey River. It runs down the Hole and never comes up. Water probably joins the Brakwater underground—least, that’s what Sheriff thinks—but things don’t even come back up. Like bodies. No saying how many bodies gone down there in the last few hun’red year.”

  “The Earl’s was one of them?”

  “Who can say, see? Gwyn claimed he won the house at dice. Leastways he moved in and nobody felt like moving him out. Started callin’ himself the earl. Nobody else did, ’cept to his face. Then came the uprising of 308. First time I handled a sword, that was.” Mervyn sighed nostalgically, without saying which side he had fought for. “Gwyn pretended to join and then sold it out. Or else he saw which way the tide ran. An’ways, he betrayed the leaders. The old king created him Baron Smealey for that.”

  “He sounds utterly charming,” Emerald remarked on his other side.

  “Aye, that he was, lass,” Mervyn agreed, and carried on
without showing any awareness that he had supposedly been addressing a boy named Luke. “He had two sons and a bushel of daughters. Eldest was another Gwyn. He and his father died in…around 320, must of been. In same night, so they say.”

  “Did they also die of too much proximity to the river?” Stalwart asked.

  “Who knows, when there were no bodies to examine? The second son was Modred, who became the second baron. Had several wives.”

  “One at a time?”

  “Mostly. River’s good for divorce, too. Bred seven sons. Ceri was eldest.”

  Stalwart knew he ought to recognize that name, but he was distracted by the landscape, realizing that it was a very good site for an ambush. The valley had become a canyon—enclosed by rocky walls and shadowed now, as the sun set. The floor was tufted with scattered trees and enough scrub to hide several dozen swordsmen. Was the old man leading him into a trap? He considered the timing, and decided it would have been impossible for Lord Florian to order any such betrayal at such short notice. If there was going to be treachery, it would happen when he went back to Waterby. He would have to sleep with his eyes open. He hoped Badger had made a safe getaway.

  “Is this the main road into Smealey Hole?”

  Mervyn pouted at having his reminiscences interrupted. “No. This is back door I’m showing you. Not many know of it. Main road comes in from the east, fords the Smealey. Mustn’t do that too near the Hole, see?”

  “Of course not. Tell me about Ceri.”

  “Was ringleader in uprising of 354. Folks hereabout figured they worked it out between them—the boy would raise rebellion while his father crawled around King Ambrose, kissing his horseshoes. That way, whichever way things went, one of them would come out on top and rescue the other.”

  This tied in with Badger’s story. “Then it was Ceri and one of his brothers that Durendal slaughtered when they tried to kill Ambrose outside Waterby?”

  “Naw, that was Kendrick and Lloyd, other brothers. Another of the seven, Edryd, died in the siege of Kirkwain.”

  “Then what did happen to Ceri?”

  “Well, after the rebels lost, he was an outlaw for a while, roaming the hills. Till he made the mistake of dropping home for a bite of food and a chat, that is.”

  “He went down the Hole, too?”

  “He’d have been better off,” Mervyn said sourly. “His father sold him to King Ambrose. They say the price he got was his own head left on his shoulders. That an’ his lands.”

  “So Ceri was executed?”

  “Beheaded in the Bastion, side by side with Aneirin.”

  “Another brother?” Badger had mentioned only one brother dying in the Bastion.

  Mervyn nodded with the satisfaction of a storyteller whose tale has reached a fitting conclusion. “Aneirin was second son. He murdered Modred for betraying Ceri, you see. Strangled his own father with his bare hands! That pretty much finished the line of Gwyn.”

  Stalwart counted on his fingers. “Two Gwyns, one Modred, then Ceri, Aneirin, Edryd, Kendrick, and Lloyd.” That put the score at: Curse eight, Smealeys two. “You left two unaccounted for.”

  The old man shrugged. “There were a couple’a kids left over. Don’t know what happened to them. The Crown seized the lands. They say King thought of using the house as a hunting lodge, decided was too risky—the curse’d get him. Eventually he put it up for sale and yon bunch of sorcerers bought it.”

  It was as gruesome a tale as Stalwart had ever heard. “How well do you know the grounds right close to the house?”

  The old man nailed him with his usual shrewd stare. “Told you I hadn’ been here for ten years or more. As a kid I hung around some, courting that girl I told you about.” He shrugged.

  Wart laughed. “And a bit of poaching.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I won’t tell the Sheriff. How much do you know about the secret passage?”

  “What secret passage?”

  “I was told that it was common knowledge that a secret passage—” That did not make much sense. “There’s a back door from Smealey Hole into a cave.”

  “First I heard of it. Doesn’t mean there isn’t one, though. Whoa, boy! Here’s the Hole.”

  12

  The Hole

  Stalwart realized that he had been shouting louder than ever, because a dull roaring had added itself to the problem of Mervyn’s deafness. Mist laid a chill dampness on his face. The sides of the valley had been rising steadily, and now the ground fell away precipitously right in front of him. The deeper canyon continued on, curving so that its extent could not be seen; it was no wider but it held a river. Coming into sight around the bend, the stream was darkly smooth; soon it frothed over white rapids, vanished in a clear fall into the great pit almost directly under his toes. No wonder nothing ever reappeared! Anything that went down there would be smashed to fragments in the cavern below.

  “Not far to the house,” Mervyn bellowed. “You can take a look without being seen. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he urged old Daisy down the slope and disappeared. Stalwart’s mount declined to commit suicide, balking, tossing its head, backing away. To his intense fury, Emerald easily persuaded her horse to follow the old forester, so she disappeared also.

  “You,” Stalwart said through clenched teeth, “are going to go down there if I have to carry you! In pieces!” He drew Sleight. A rapier made a very good riding crop, because it was flexible and had no cutting edge. In this case he did not even need to use it; he demonstrated the swishing noise it could make, and Snowbird whinnied surrender and agreed to proceed.

  There was a path of sorts, but slippery with moss and tangled with ferns. It angled northward at first, down the steep slope to the canyon wall, and then became even steeper, a ledge with a sheer face above and the ghastly maw of the Hole below. The worst part came after that, when it reached water level and the rapids. Cold spray blew in his eyes and the horse’s, while a terrible roar echoed back and forth until he thought the noise would burst his skull. At that point there was little pretense of a road, just rocks scoured clean and smooth by the river, part of its bed when it was in spate. The passage was obstructed by tangles of driftwood. On his left rose a carved and polished wall of stone, sculpted into fantastic niches and pillars; on the other side white water fell away into nothing.

  Why had he ever gone to Ironhall? Why hadn’t he stayed a minstrel?

  Worse, Emerald had stopped, blocking the way. Old Mervyn was past the horrors and waiting for them up ahead, perceptibly higher than they were. From him the river fell, swirling and leaping, raising white cockscombs against the rocks, spinning in dark whirlpools. Just behind Stalwart, it disappeared altogether…. His horse was trembling even harder than he was.

  It was not a good place for a chat.

  Emerald looked around, her eyes wide. She shouted something. He saw her mouth move, but could hear nothing. He yelled back to demonstrate. She understood, and pulled her right foot out of her stirrup as if she was going to dismount.

  “Don’t!” Stalwart screamed. “You’re crazy!”

  There was no room for such nonsense. The horses were growing more terrified by the second. If one hoof slipped on the slick-wet rocks, the Hole was going to have two more victims, or even four. Fortunately Emerald worked that out and let her horse proceed up the slope, out of that madness.

  The path continued upriver, still too narrow for two horses abreast, while the noise gradually dwindled behind them. The trail rose higher above the water as it rounded the bend of the canyon and entered a wide valley, bereft of real trees but shaggy with brush and saplings. Mervyn reined in and pointed a bony hand at a knoll some distance ahead. Its river side was a cliff, but the rest of its slopes seemed gentle enough. It bore buildings on its crest.

  “Smealey Hole,” he explained needlessly, then scowled at Emerald. “What was wrong with you, lass, back there? All that tomfoolery?”

  “There’s something d
own there,” she said, speaking to Stalwart. “I can’t see what it is, but I know there’s something. I’m going back to see.”

  Whereupon, she slid down from the saddle, knotted her reins around a sapling, and ran back the way she had come. The old man just sat his horse, looking puzzled, but Stalwart was right on her heels.

  “What sort of something?”

  “Magic, of course. I don’t know what. Not a sort I’ve ever met before.”

  Night was falling. Seen from this side, the path they had followed down the great step was barely visible in the shrubbery. It showed as a narrow ledge around the side of the Hole, and then disappeared into that jumble of rocks between the base of the cliff and the plunging rapids. It was hard to know exactly where Emerald had stopped. But there was something there, pinned under a shadowed overhang, half in and half out of the torrent.

  Hoping for a better view, Stalwart stepped onto a flattish boulder in the stream. He jumped to another beyond it…and another…then a larger one, a tiny island in midstream with water rushing by on both sides. Emerald followed him, tried to join him, and missed her footing. He grabbed; she grabbed. They teetered in mortal peril for a long and horrible moment before regaining their balance. He swallowed his heart back down where it belonged.

  She put her mouth to his ear and yelled, “Thanks!”

  He wanted to make a joking response and couldn’t think of one, so he pointed instead. Now they had a clear view, except that spray kept blowing in their eyes.

  “It’s a body!” she shouted.

  He nodded. It might well be a body. If it was a body, he was most utterly, completely, positively sure that it was a dead body. He was going to be very surprised if it was not the missing Rhys. To let the old man see his grandson in that position would be horribly unkind. Common sense said to say nothing more, go back to Waterby, and return with a team in the morning. On the other hand, if the water rose in the night, the river would take that corpse away, never to be seen again. Had Emerald not sensed the magic, they would have missed it altogether. Why should there be magic associated with a corpse?