How Firm a Foundation

by David Weber

  “It’s actually a simple concept,” he said. “A friend of mine—I call him Owl—made it for me. He calls it a ‘revolver,’ because the central cylinder here”—he waved his left hand gently—“revolves when you cock the hammer. If you look, you’ll see it has six holes drilled in it. Each of those is big enough to hold one charge of powder and one bullet. The bullets are a bit smaller than the ones most of the Guard’s pistols fire, but to make up for it, the charge is about a fourth again as large, so they hit a lot harder. And it doesn’t need a priming pan because a very clever Charisian officer—another friend of mine, named Mahndrayn—invented something called a ‘percussion cap’ that flashes over when you hit it with a hammer. If you look here,” he reversed the cylinder, showing Raimair the back end, which was solid but had six raised, odd-looking bumps of some sort, “you’ll see where the caps fit over the nipples here so the hammer can strike them as they rotate and each shot lines up with the barrel.” He shrugged. “It’s just a way to carry more firepower, Tobys, and I promise you it violates none of God’s laws. When we get to Tellesberg, you can discuss it directly with Father Paityr, our Intendant, if you like.”

  Raimair held out his free hand, and Merlin smiled slightly as he dropped the cylinder into it. The sergeant turned it, held it up to one of the door lanterns in order to see it better, then raised it to his nose and sniffed the scent of burnt gunpowder. He lowered it again, looking down at it for several seconds, then drew a deep breath, lowered his sword, and handed it back over.

  “I’m sure you know your own business best, Seijin,” he said, “but you might want to warn people before you do things like that. Could save yourself a peck of trouble … not to mention a sword in the ribs, now I think about it.”

  “Tobys, you’re a good man,” Merlin told him, “and if you can get a sword into my ribs, I’ll figure I must have deserved it.”

  Raimair looked at him suspiciously, obviously trying to figure out if he’d just been complimented or insulted, and Merlin smiled. Then he looked past the sergeant as Earl Coris appeared behind Raimair.

  “That was certainly impressive,” the earl said just a little tartly. “Was it really necessary, though, Seijin Merlin? Once they stop running, they’ll spread the tale of your ‘demon weapons’ all over the Kingdom! If they might’ve had any trouble getting together the manpower to chase us before, they certainly won’t now—especially with two Inquisitors dead, to boot!”

  “Finding the manpower was never going to be a problem, My Lord,” Merlin replied calmly, reaching into his belt pouch and extracting a cylinder identical to the one in Raimair’s hand, except that this one was still loaded and capped. He slipped it into the revolver frame and slid the central locking pin back into place to hold it. Then he holstered the reloaded weapon, drew its twin from the other holster, and replaced its cylinder, as well.

  “The Inquisition can—and will—rouse the entire countryside,” he continued as he worked. “Whether or not I had any ‘demon weapons’ won’t matter a solitary damn as far as that’s concerned! But if you’ll notice, the entire Royal Guard has temporarily decamped. I figure they’ll be back shortly—whatever else they may be, they aren’t cowards, and as soon as they get over the shock, they’ll come back. They’ll be cautious, but they’ll come. In the meantime, however, we can get a bit of a head start. And it’s occurred to me that the best horses in the entire Grand Duchy of Talkyra are right here in King Zhames’ stables. I realize you have some nice ones waiting for you at that livery stable outside town, but I doubt they’re the equal of the ones in the royal stables. Not only that, but depriving our pursuers of horses that good strikes me as an excellent idea, as well. And while I’m thinking about things that might discourage or hamper pursuit, I think I’ll just take the opportunity while you and Tobys here go acquire our transportation to leave a few little … incendiary calling cards here and there around the castle. Places like, oh, the magazine, for example.”

  He smiled beatifically and looked at Raimair.

  “Do try to get them moving, Tobys,” he said. “Those Guardsmen may come back sooner than I thought, and I’d just as soon be on our way.”

  He swept the stunned-looking earl a bow and headed down the stairs.

  * * *

  Irys Daykyn managed not to groan as she swung down out of the saddle. The sun was working its way towards evening overhead, although that was difficult to tell at the moment. The mature growth forest they were passing through had been only thinly invaded by imported terrestrial species, and even the towering Safeholdian pines seemed small and dwarfed under the shadows of the titan oaks. Most of those titan oaks had probably been growing here since the Day of Creation itself, she thought. Some of them were as much as fifteen feet in diameter at the base, and each individual tree would probably have produced enough wood to build an entire war galleon. Even this early in the spring, they wove a solid, green canopy overhead, and the dense shade of their branches had almost completely choked out any underbrush. It was already dim, bordering on outright dark, under that twiggy roof, but at least the absence of undergrowth had allowed the fugitives to make excellent speed.

  They’d maintained an alternating trot and walk for the last twenty-two hours, pausing only to rest the horses occasionally … or to swap their saddles to fresh mounts. Merlin had been right about that, she reflected. Not only had King Zhames’ stables had the best horses available, but there’d been enough of them to provide each member of their party with no less than three mounts apiece. Not all were equally good, but even the worst was well above average, and the spare mounts had allowed Merlin to set a pace they could never have maintained with only a single horse each.

  And he had—oh, but he had! Irys was grateful her father had had scant patience with the more scandalized ladies of Manchyr who’d insisted his daughter had to ride sidesaddle. She would have been even more grateful if she’d been able to stay in practice after her arrival here in Delferahk. Although, to be fair, she’d thought she had stayed in practice … until she’d spent the better part of an entire day in the saddle.

  But by her estimate, they’d traveled almost eighty miles—something closer to sixty, probably, as a wyvern might have flown—and they’d left the foothills of the Sunthorns three hours ago. Which meant they still had somewhere around another hundred and fifty miles—again, in that mythical straight line—to go.

  “He’s a remarkable man, isn’t he, Phylyp?” she asked quietly as the earl took her reins. The princess loosened her saddle girth and patted the weary horse’s neck affectionately, then took the reins of both horses while Coris performed the same service for his own mount.

  “I assume you’re referring to the redoubtable Seijin Merlin?” he said, smiling at her tiredly. He’d done more hard riding than she in the last couple of years, but he was also better than twice her age.

  “Of course I am.” She smiled back and shook her head, then twitched it to indicate the seijin. “Look at him.”

  Prince Daivyn sat on an outcrop of rock, looking up at Merlin with an almost worshipful expression. Irys could have counted the number of times she’d seen him that relaxed since leaving Corisande on the fingers of one hand, yet she knew Daivyn was only too well aware that somewhere behind them they were being vengefully pursued. It didn’t seem to matter to him, though, and she wondered how much of that stemmed from the aura of competence and … well, invincibility that clung to the seijin. Certainly it would make sense for a terrified little boy to take comfort from the presence of an armsman who was renowned throughout Safehold as the most deadly bodyguard in the world. And while she wished Daivyn hadn’t had to see the bodies and blood littering the palace courtyard, knowing all that carnage had been wreaked by a single man who was now dedicated to getting him to safety had to be reassuring.

  Yet that wasn’t the whole story, and she knew it. Unlike her, Daivyn’s instruction in horsemanship had been far from complete when they fled Corisande, and King Zhames had discouraged hi
m from pursuing it in Delferahk. There were times Irys suspected the king had been instructed to do exactly that by the Inquisition—it wouldn’t have done for the boy to be capable of escaping them, after all. But whatever the reason, Daivyn definitely wasn’t equal to the brutal, bruising pace Merlin had been setting.

  Fortunately, he hadn’t had to be. Merlin had simply taken him up before him on his own saddle, wrapped one arm around him, and told him one fantastic fairy tale after another as they rode along. Irys had never even heard of half or more of the stories the seijin produced effortlessly, and in between tales she’d heard his murmuring voice calmly answering Daivyn’s questions without a hint of patronization. And then there’d been the intervals when she’d looked across and seen her brother sleeping peacefully, despite the horse’s motion, held safe in the crook of that apparently tireless arm.

  No wonder Daivyn looked at him that way!

  And either Merlin had the homing instincts of a messenger wyvern, or else they were hopelessly lost and he simply wasn’t going to admit it. He’d never hesitated, never taken a false turn, never stopped and looked for landmarks. It was as if he had some internal sense which knew exactly where he was at every instant and exactly where he needed to go next. And he had an equally uncanny ability to find the easiest, fastest going. Irys had been on hunting expeditions in Corisande with guides intimately familiar with the area of the hunt, and she’d never seen anyone thread so effortlessly through such difficult terrain. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if there was anything the seijin couldn’t do.

  “I agree he’s remarkable, Irys,” Coris said softly, his eyes, too, on Daivyn as the seijin passed him a wedge of cheese and the boy smiled up at him. “And it does my heart good to see him with Daivyn. But don’t forget—he’s a Charisian, and his loyalty’s to Cayleb and Sharleyan.”

  “Oh, I’m not forgetting,” she told him, a hint of bleakness shadowing her hazel eyes. “But I don’t think he’s pretending to be a good man, Phylyp. Daivyn’s got very good instincts in that regard, and look at how he’s opened up to Merlin! And I can’t see a man like that offering his sword to a monster. Or”—she looked back at Coris, meeting his gaze levelly—“to someone who’d murder a defeated foe who’d offered to negotiate an honorable surrender.”

  “I agree,” Coris said, after a moment. “And I think Cayleb and Sharleyan are probably about as honorable as rulers get. But they’re still rulers, Irys. Even the best of them have to be willing to do what’s required to protect their subjects and their realms. And Daivyn’s a prize of enormous potential value.”

  “I know, Phylyp. I know.”

  * * *

  Merlin drew rein as his weary horse topped out on the long ridgeline and he gazed to the east, down the valley of the Sarm River. The Sarman Mountains stretched away on either hand ahead of them, rising in endless green waves like an ocean frozen in earth and stone. It was the second day since they’d left King Zhames’ palace, the western sky was deep copper behind the mountain summits over his right shoulder, and despite the extra mounts, their pace had slowed as the horses grew increasingly weary.

  “What is it, Merlin?” the boy in front of him asked, looking trustingly up at him. He was almost eleven, which made him not quite ten by the calendar of murdered Old Terra, and he was obviously worn-out from the pace Merlin had set. For that matter, all the flesh-and-bloods were feeling the strain, and he knew it. But they were within less than thirty miles of the rendezvous point now.

  That was the good news. The bad news.…

  “I think it’s time for another rest, Daivyn,” he told the prince. “And I need to discuss some things with Earl Coris, Tobys, and your sister.” He swung down from the saddle, carrying the boy with him, then set Daivyn on his feet.

  “See if Corporal Zhadwail can find you something a little easier to chew than hard tack while I talk to them, all right?”

  “All right.” Daivyn nodded, then stretched and yawned and started off towards Zhadwail. Merlin watched him go, then crossed to Coris and Irys.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said quietly.

  “What sort of ‘problem’?” The earl’s eyes narrowed, and Merlin shrugged.

  “Whoever’s in charge of chasing us is better at his job than I’d like,” he replied. “We’ve left anyone from Talkyra well behind, but unless I miss my guess, whoever they had tracking us initially had messenger wyverns with him. Between that and the semaphore, they’ve managed to figure out roughly where we were headed and get around in front of us.”

  “What makes you think that, Seijin Merlin?” Irys asked.

  “There’s someone on the other side of the valley ahead of us with a signal mirror,” Merlin replied. “I caught the flash from it just as we topped the ridge.”

  “You did?” Coris’ tone sharpened. “Do you think they saw us?” he demanded, and Merlin shrugged again.

  “Trust me, my eyes are better than most, and we weren’t deliberately reflecting sunlight at anyone the way they were.” He shook his head. “No, I don’t think they could’ve seen us … yet. The problem is they’re down-valley from us, which means they’re directly between us and where we have to go. And even though the ones I spotted may not’ve seen us, I’m reasonably sure there are additional parties sweeping the area. I don’t know if they’ve realized who we’re out here to meet or if they simply figure this is the valley we’re going to follow to get through the Sarmans, but that doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Coris said slowly, eyes slitted as he thought hard.

  “I know you don’t claim to be a seijin, Merlin,” he said after a moment, “but do you think you can pick a way through for us without our being spotted?”

  “Maybe yes and maybe no,” Merlin replied after a moment. “I’m positive I’d be able to spot any of them before they spotted us, but that’s not the same as saying we could evade them all. If they’ve got the manpower to really sweep the valley, it’s likely we’d end up eventually with one—or more—search parties hard on our trail. And good as these horses are, they’re worn out. If they catch scent of us, they’ll be able to run us down before we can reach the rendezvous.”

  There was silence, then Irys reached out and laid a hand on his forearm.

  “You’ve got something in mind, Merlin,” she said softly, gazing up into his face. “What is it?”

  “Well, the simplest way to keep them from chasing you is to give them something else to chase, Your Highness.”

  “Such as?” she asked slowly, hazel eyes locked with his.

  “Such as me,” he told her with a smile. “I leave you with the best, most rested of our horses, then I take all the others, ride off into the mountains, attract their attention, and lead them over hill and dale until they’re thoroughly lost … and you’ve reached the rendezvous.”

  “I thought you just said their horses were going to be better than ours?” Irys said sharply, and he shrugged.

  “True, but the ones I take with me won’t have anyone in their saddles, and without the weight of a rider, they’ll do pretty well.”

  “‘Pretty well’ isn’t good enough if there are enough other horses that do have people in their saddles chasing you!” she snapped.

  “You really are going to get along with Sharleyan,” he observed with a crooked smile.

  “Don’t make silly jokes!” She stamped her foot at him. “I don’t care how mighty a warrior a seijin is. It’s not going to matter if enough of them catch up with you!”

  “And they’re not going to catch up with me, Your Highness,” he assured her. She glared at him, and he shrugged. “You might ask Earl Coris about the visit my friend Ahbraim paid him. For that matter, you might think about the first time you and I met, Your Highness.” He shook his head. “Trust me, once it gets fully dark—especially in this kind of terrain—I’ll be able to slip away from them on foot without any problem. All they’ll catch up with in the end is a bunch of worn-out horses with no rider
s. In fact, I’d love to see their expressions when they do. I wonder if I can hang around close enough to actually watch?”

  She glared at him, obviously unhappy with his airy assurance, and he looked at Coris over her head.

  “She’s your Princess, My Lord,” he said. “Personally, I’m not going to be all that impressed if she decides to throw a tantrum. If she does, though, are you going to be able to handle her?”

  “I’m not a piece of luggage to be handled!”

  “No, but at the moment you’re not thinking very much like a princess, either,” Merlin pointed out, his tone suddenly much more serious than it had been. “Even assuming they were going to catch me—which they aren’t—it would be my job to lead them away and your job to make sure your brother gets to safety. Now, are you and I going to have to argue about this?”

  She locked eyes with him for another moment. Then her shoulders slumped, and she sighed.

  “No.” She shook her head unhappily. “No, we’re not going to have to argue about it. But be careful, Merlin. Please!”

  “Oh, I’m always careful, Your Highness!” He leaned forward and, before she realized what he had in mind, gave her a quick peck on the cheek. She reared back in surprise, and he grinned unrepentantly. “Just for luck, Your Highness,” he assured her, and nodded to Coris, who was trying very hard not to laugh.

  “Take care of her, My Lord.”

  “I will,” Coris promised. “Well, Tobys and I will. And while we’re doing that, she’ll take care of Daivyn.”

  “Are you going to tell him goodbye?” Irys asked quietly. He looked at her, and her smile trembled just a bit. “He’s lost most of the stability in his world, Merlin. Don’t just disappear.”

  “A good point, Your Highness,” he acknowledged, and looked back at Coris.