by J. L. Doty
He let his eyes wander the length of the blade one last time, listened to the single, clear voice within it. Then he turned to face the smiths and repeated its words, “And so must a blade be born.”
The smiths cheered, and the whitefaces around them all joined in.
~~~
JohnEngine reined his horse in one hundred paces from the ancient rock wall that demarked the Penda-Elhiyne border. At one time the wall had probably been cleanly crafted of carefully placed stones about waist high, with straight, almost vertical sides, and a crown of finished, flat slabs. But weather and time had turned it into a line of tumbled stones, a good source of building materials from which local peasants scavenged stone for more immediate needs.
Following the normal formula, the Penda patrol had halted a hundred paces on the other side of the line of tumbled stones. The Penda leader nudged his horse forward in an easy walk, and JohnEngine did the same. From a distance of about forty paces he saw the man’s face clearly and did not recognize him, though the mere fact of that did not raise any alarms.
They both halted a few paces short of the stones. The Penda nodded his head carefully, the formal equivalent of a bow when in the saddle. “Lord JohnEngine,” he said. “It is an honor to finally meet you.”
JohnEngine nodded his head. “You have the advantage of me.”
The man spoke clearly and proudly. “I am Lewendis et Penda, third son of Cyril who is second cousin to Lord BlakeDown.”
Lewendis, not a name on ErrinCastle’s list of those they could count on to keep a calm head; a distant relative of BlakeDown, so probably from the north bordering on Tosk lands.
“Lord Lewendis, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
“You are kind, Lord JohnEngine.” Lewendis seemed wary; not ill-at-ease or intimidated, but distrustful, and his tone carried a note of cynicism.
JohnEngine said, “I wonder that we have not met before.”
Lewendis upper lip curled up slightly, an involuntary sign of distaste, as if he took some insult from JohnEngine’s words. “I’ve just been assigned to the Penda border by Lord BlakeDown himself. I consider it a true honor to guard our borders against incursion . . . by anyone.”
That was an odd way to put it, almost as if he felt the need to specifically fear Elhiyne incursion, not just the usual stray cow or bandit problems. JohnEngine asked, “Assigned by BlakeDown himself? Not ErrinCastle?”
Lewendis gave him a smug grin. “Exactly, Lord JohnEngine. Lord BlakeDown is taking a more personal interest in our border with Elhiyne. He’s quite pleased with ErrinCastle’s oversight, but felt his greater experience in these delicate matters warranted his particular attention. I assume Lady Olivia has done the same, since she has one of her grandsons riding border patrols.”
JohnEngine avoided the obvious probe. “We all pay particular attention to our borders. If we don’t, then something as simple as a stray cow or itinerant bandit might cause a misunderstanding.”
Lewendis’ lips narrowed into a hard, straight line. “And what do you mean by that?” he demanded. “Do you accuse us of sending bandits across the border to rob your people?”
“Of course not,” JohnEngine said, angered by Lewendis’ prickly nature. “Petty thieves and bandits are always a problem, whether they’re yours or ours. And we’ve always worked together to eradicate them.”
That appeared to appease Lewendis a bit. JohnEngine steered the conversation to the usual cross-border comparison of local problems, and slowly Lewendis calmed. But when they parted JohnEngine left with a most uneasy feeling.
~~~
The door to Rhianne’s hut burst open without warning. She started and dropped the potato she’d been peeling, while Braunye jumped to her feet fearfully. One of Fat John’s sons stood in the doorway, breathing heavily, fear plain on his face. “Mistress Syllith,” he panted. “There’s been a fight. You must come right away.”
“What kind of injuries?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Knives and cuts and blood, and stuff like that.”
She had a little kit prepared for such emergencies and stowed in a small canvas duffle. She snatched it up and said, “Come, Braunye.” To the boy she said, “Lead the way.”
Once out in the street she saw the crowd gathered near the smith’s shop and didn’t need the boy’s guidance. But as she approached a wall of tall backs she had to shout, “Make way. I’m a healer.” And even then it took the smith elbowing several of them aside, shouting, “Make way for Mistress Syllith.”
One of the whiteface warriors lay on the ground at the entrance to the smith’s shop, clutching his side and gulping shallow breaths, blood coursing between his fingers. Seated on the ground next to him, a young, whiteface boy held a knife clutched in his right hand, blood oozing from a wound on his thigh. The boy had gone into shock, trembling badly, his eyes staring into a far distance.
Rhianne knelt down next to the boy and said, “It’s all right now.” She gently took the knife out of his hand. There was blood on the blade.
As she used the knife to cut away the legging of his breeches, the wounded warrior hissed through clenched teeth, “Someone send word to the camp.”
Fat John stepped out of the crowd. “Already done. Sent one of my boys for that when I sent the other for the mistress.”
The warrior reached out and put a hand on Rhianne’s arm. “Yer a witch, ain’t you?”
She paused and looked at him. “Yes.”
He shook his head. “We don’t abide magic.”
“I’m a witch and a healer,” she said. “So I won’t use magic, but I’ll use my healing skills.”
He let go of her arm. “Good enough.”
The cut on the boy’s leg was shallow, probably a slice from a knife or sword, and while it bled a great deal it wasn’t pulsing. She gripped Braunye’s wrists, put her hands on the boy’s wound and said, “Put pressure on it like I taught you. I need to check the man’s wound.”
The warrior had a nasty puncture wound just beneath his ribs on his left side, probably a thrust from a sword. If the blade had entered the man’s side at an angle shallow enough, there’d be no damage to vital organs. If he didn’t bleed internally, she could treat it with herbs to prevent festering and he had a good chance of living. But if the blade had gone straight in, he’d have a gut wound, and even with magic to aid her, it would likely fester and he still might not live.
She looked up at Fat John, was about to tell him they needed to get the man off the street so she could work on him, but the rumble of a large number of horses riding hard drowned out any sound she might make. She heard neighing and spluttering and men dismounting nearby. The crowd around them parted and several whiteface warriors towered over her with drawn swords. The man who appeared to be their leader dropped to one knee beside the wounded man and asked, “What happened?”
Rhianne said, “He can’t talk now. He’s hurt.”
The man on one knee ignored her. The wounded warrior ignored her as well, and grimacing with pain he said, “Kulls . . . About six of them . . . Weren’t dressed like Kulls . . . didn’t look like Kulls. And didn’t seem to be together until they all turned on us and attacked. LillianToc hurt one—” He cried out and shook with pain. “I hurt a couple more . . . but there were too many . . . and they took Felina. Headed east, I think. Took her alive.”
Fat John interposed. “They did go east. I seen ’em. And they wore Kull cloaks when they rode out of town.”
The wounded man gripped the leader’s arm desperately. “You got to get her back, Jerst. Got to get her back.”
The leader turned to Rhianne. “We’ll take him and the boy from here. But we thank you for your aid.”
Though she argued, the whitefaces gave Rhianne no choice in the matter. They summarily, though gently, ushered her to the other side of the street. Their leader issued orders for certain whitefaces to remain behind, then he and his men rode out hard and fast. Rhianne told Braunye to return to t
heir hut, while she refused to leave until certain the wounded man and boy were properly taken care of. She stayed until a group of their women arrived on horseback. She watched them bandage the man and boy’s wounds, and had to admit they knew what they were doing. But she stubbornly waited until they’d brought two litters, and carried the man and boy away to their camp. And for the first time in more than a moon, not a single Benesh’ere could be seen on Norlakton’s only street.
~~~
Morgin and the smiths were preparing to quench another blade when they heard voices throughout the camp raised in a general uproar. They stumbled out of the Forge Hall into the late afternoon sun, and got a confusing story of Kulls attacking somewhere. With each heartbeat they learned more: the attack had been in the town, on whitefaces, and they’d taken Felina alive and ridden east.
They buckled on swords, grabbed their bows and quivers then sprinted to the corral. Saddling their horses seemed to take an eternity, but each knew that doing a sloppy job of it now would just leave him on his butt in the road, probably with a broken bone or two. As they climbed into the saddle, Baldrak shouted at Morgin, “They’re headed for the Gods Road. They’ll try to make for Gilguard’s Ford.”
Morgin spurred Mortiss hard, knew she could easily outpace the Benesh’ere mounts, could outdistance them and out endure them. Even he would normally consider such a tactic foolhardy, but if he could catch the Kulls before they reached the ford, use his shadowmagic to protect him and Mortiss, perhaps use it to spirit away Felina if they stopped to rest their mounts, or use it to harass and slow them if they didn’t, there might be a chance. So he gave Mortiss her head and let her ride like the netherwind.
He’d long known she had few of the limitations of a normal horse, guessed she’d been born of some netherlife, and she confirmed that now as she pulled him into a state slightly removed from simple mortality. Thank you, old friend, he thought, knowing she could cover leagues at a pace beyond that of any mortal horse. He didn’t know if she sensed his desire, or if she just knew what was needed, but tendrils of the netherworld brushed through his soul as she raced down the road, and he prayed she would find some way to cross the distance before the halfmen reached the ford.
When she reached the Gods Road, he reined her in for a moment and looked back down the smaller road to Norlakton. Far back he saw the leading elements of his Benesh’ere brethren charge into view. He turned Mortiss north and spurred her on, and she screamed a hellish cry, an oath that she would not fail him.
About a league up the Gods Road Morgin and Mortiss rounded a curve in the road and he saw two Kulls a hundred paces distant, seated atop their horses, swords drawn and waiting for him. The Kull leader had left a few halfmen behind to slow him, and when they saw him they spurred their horses into a charge. He and Mortiss bore down on them, the distance closing between him and the two Kulls. The two halfmen rode their horses on either edge of the road, intending to force Mortiss to ride between them. But at the last instant Mortiss swerved; she didn’t charge off the road as Morgin thought she might, but instead swerved right into the path of the Kull horse on the right.
The impact produced a monstrous crash that threw Morgin into the air. He kept his balance, hit the ground feet first, turned it into a tuck-and-roll, which, after one roll, turned into a tumbling sprawl. He jumped to his feet, amazed he was still alive, amazed he didn’t have any broken bones. The Kull horse and rider they’d rammed lay sprawled in the road, both unmoving. Mortiss, her eyes glowing pits of red fire, faced the other Kull horse and rider, reared once and crushed the horse’s skull. The horse went down; she reared again and crushed the Kull’s chest.
When she turned to Morgin and trotted up to him he wasn’t sure if the glow in her eyes stemmed from the fires of netherhell, or the flow of godmagic, and he didn’t care. He climbed into the saddle, spurred her on, and again she rode like the netherwind.
Twice more he met Kulls waiting in the road for him, and twice more Mortiss dispatched them rather handily. A league after the third such encounter the rear of the main Kull column came into view far in the distance, riding hard up the road. From the terrain about them Morgin knew they were nearing the ford, and he spurred her harder, racing to intercept the Kulls before they reached the ford. But when he saw water fountaining up in giant splashes from the pounding hooves of the Kull horses, he knew then that he’d lost the race. His heart dropped, and he sat up in the saddle, relaxed the reins and Mortiss slowed from a charge to a gallop, then a canter, then a trot, then she slowed to a walk that brought them up to the bank of the ford. He got there just in time to see the Kulls spurring their horses up onto the north bank of the Ulbb.
The Kull lieutenant had a small bundle strapped across his saddle, and he reined his horse around to look back at Morgin. He threw his head back and laughed, braying a loud caw of triumph that echoed off the nearby hills. “ShadowLord,” he shouted. “Oh mighty Elhiyne.”
The bundle across his saddle remained deathly still, and as he untied the straps that held it there, Morgin’s whiteface friends caught up with him, riding horses that staggered with exhaustion. Morgin looked into their faces, and again he saw no sorrow at the knowledge of what had just transpired, saw only that grim resolution he’d seen at the funeral pyre after the March.
“ShadowLord,” the Kull lieutenant called.
He finished untying the bundle, then raised tiny Felina up, holding her under her arms, raising her high above his head. Her head lolled to one side, lifeless, and like Jack the Greater, blood flowed freely from her eyes and ears and nose and mouth. “ShadowLord,” the Kull shouted, “look at your triumph.”
Morgin leaned forward in the saddle, and with rage coursing through his soul he was about to spur Mortiss forward and be damned with the consequences, but beside him Jerst held out an arm, blocking him. “No. You’ll just waste your own life.”
Morgin couldn’t stop tears from streaming down his face, and on a sudden impulse slid out of the saddle and dropped to the ground beside Mortiss. He grabbed his bow, had it strung in an instant and reached for an arrow, but Jack the Lesser put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s too far. They know the range of our bows, and they’re standing just beyond it.”
“ShadowLord,” the Kull cawed, still holding Felina’s corpse high for them all to see. “My king has a message for you. If you live among the whitefaces, they will pay your rent in lives.” He shook Felina’s lifeless body. “And this is the first of many payments. If you live among peasants, they will pay your rent in lives. Wherever you live, someone will pay your rent in lives.”
Morgin shut his eyes and tried to tune out the braying sound of the Kull’s boast. Valso would never allow him peace. With everyone thinking him dead, he’d thought he might find harmony in anonymity among the Benesh’ere. Somehow, Valso had known.
The voices in the steel around him, the voices in the swords and arrowheads did bring him a kind of peace. As he soothed them, as he taught each piece of steel to speak with a single voice, it brought him some peace in return. He listened to them now, hoping to find a greater peace, but instead he found the same determination he saw on the faces of the Benesh’ere. And too, he found a confidence the whitefaces did not have, a belief that no exile could limit the steel. He still held his bow with one arrow nocked, and he focused on that one, single warhead, and when he heard its message he raised the bow, drew back the string, and fired the arrow into the air. Only then did he open his eyes.
He’d fired the arrow so quickly he’d startled his Benesh’ere friends. Jack the Lesser looked at him and shook his head. “A waste of a good arrow,” he said.
Morgin smiled and simply said, “I asked the steel to help.”
Jack and several of them heard him, and their eyes widened as they turned to look hopefully at the arrow arcing high over the ford. The Kull lieutenant saw the arrow also, and crowed with increased laughter. The arrow reached the zenith of its arc, then started its slow descent downward. But even long befor
e it reached the ground, all there saw that it would fall thirty or forty paces short, and the anticipation on the faces of the Benesh’ere died. But just as it reached the same height as the Kull seated atop his mount, it turned unnaturally, and streaked a flat, level trajectory above the ground. The Kull lieutenant, still crowing with laughter, still holding Felina high, looked down just as it punched into his eye and out the back of his head.
Morgin pulled another arrow from his quiver, nocked it, raised his bow, pulled and fired. In rapid succession he nocked, pulled and fired five more arrows, each time picking out a specific Kull and asking the steel warhead in the arrow to strike true. As the six arrows arced out over the ford, no one but Morgin yet realized the Kull lieutenant was a dead man. Not until he wavered in the saddled, dropped poor Felina’s lifeless body to the ground, then tumbled to the ground himself, not until that moment did any of them realize the steel had obeyed the SteelMaster. There came a moment of utter stillness, surprise and silence from them all, then the six arrows punched into the eyes of six more Kulls.
The remaining Kulls panicked, tried to rein their horses about, but they were too tightly packed to do so quickly. Morgin started firing arrows, one after the other, asking the steel warhead in each to give him the boon of a Kull death. He drew and fired until no arrows remained in his quiver, looked dumbly at his empty hand for a moment after he’d reached for an arrow that wasn’t there. But at that moment Jerst placed an arrow in his hand.
He continued to fire arrows until the last Kull disappeared around a bend in the road on the other side of the ford, though he noticed, interestingly enough, that the arrows didn’t hesitate to follow the Kulls around the bend. Of the three twelves the Kull lieutenant had brought with him, six halfmen lay dead back on the road where Mortiss had killed them, and another twenty lay dead on the opposite shore of the ford.
Dusk had settled over the land as Morgin unstrung his bow, wrapped it in its oilcloth case, and then tied it to his saddle. He looked at Baldrak and said, “I’ll go fetch Felina’s body. We won’t leave her for the crows.”
