The Book of Words

by J. V. Jones

  At first he thought it was Jack at his heels, but the rhythm of pounding hooves became too complex for just one horse. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Tawl spotted a fast-moving form emerging from the Gandt.

  “Hang on, Nabber,” he cried. And then to Jack, “Break to the east on my say-so.” Tawl dug heels into horseflesh and gave his gelding the reins.

  There were more forms now. At full gallop they cleared the forest, cutting a slanting path toward the trail. Tawl recognized the colors: yellow and black. They were knights, and they were trying to head Jack and Tawl off.

  With fresh, specially trained horses beneath them they’d be able to do it, too. Tawl knew his own horse didn’t have much fight left in him. Two to carry, a week of solid riding, the poor old gelding must be on its last legs.

  The riders were drawing level with the road. Tawl could see their faces, but it was to their weapons his eyes were drawn. They were wielding triple-edged spears. Tawl had trained with such a spear, he knew exactly what damage they could do. The leading two-edged blade slipped in first, and the matching barbs went in after. Once the head was pulled out, it tore a man apart.

  Tawl switched his gaze forward. The road swung to the west up ahead. If Tawl and Jack followed it, it would lead them right into the knights’ path. It was too early to break east, though. Best to wait until the last possible moment. Tawl risked a second glance at the riders. Their heads might be bare, but metal gleamed beneath their colors. They were wearing breastplates on their upper bodies, chain mail on the lower. Fighting was out of the question—he and Jack wouldn’t stand a chance.

  The bend was coming up fast. Tawl could see the knights beginning to rein in their horses. He counted—one, two . . . three—then cried, “Now, Jack. Now!”

  Tawl pulled on the right rein. The gelding’s head whipped to the east. Nabber dug his fingers into Tawl’s side as the beast changed its course in midstride. The path was bounded by a ditch, and the gelding barely had time to find its feet before it was forced to leap across the trench. The horse hit the soft muddy bank. It struggled for its footing. Jack’s horse cleared the trench easily, and he rode ahead into the plowed field. Behind them, Tawl could hear the knights crying out to each other, switching their plan from a blockade to a chase.

  Tawl guided his horse farther along the ditch, until they reached a section where the bank wasn’t as steep. The gelding scrambled up and onto the field. Jack was way ahead of them, setting a course for a wooded copse on the other side of the hedgerow. The rain had stopped now, but the field was heavily waterlogged, with pools of water lying between the furrows. The water made the gelding skittish; it was a city horse, unused to country conditions, and although Tawl encouraged it to run straight through the pools, it preferred to jump them.

  The knights were gaining on them. Their blinkered mounts were trained for the chase and bred for speed alone. Swinging his head back, Tawl saw that not all the knights were following his path; some had veered off to the north, and others had come to a standstill. Tawl caught his breath. The men who’d come to a dead stop were dismounting their horses. Marksmen.

  Tawl immediately switched his riding to a zigzag pattern. It slowed him down, but he’d rather take a spear in his gut than risk an arrow in Nabber’s back. Jack was too far ahead to warn, but not far enough to be dismissed from a marksman’s sight. He was almost upon the copse now—if he made it there, he’d be safe.

  An arrow whirred past Tawl’s knee. They were aiming low. Too low to bring down a man. Tawl looked ahead just in time to see Jack’s horse collapse beneath him. Jack was propelled forward, headfirst into the hedgerow.

  In that moment, Tawl realized the knights weren’t interested in killing—they wanted to capture them. Valdis’ marksmen were the best in the Known Lands, and when they brought a horse down rather than its rider it was with intent. The triple-edged spears, too—they were heavy enough to stop a horse in its tracks. A lighter one would do for a man.

  “Nabber,” shouted Tawl, “put your left hand straight up in the air.” They couldn’t outrun the knights. Jack was down, the gelding couldn’t keep up the pace much longer. It was only a matter of minutes before they were caught. It was better to surrender now, while Jack was the only one down, than keep on running and risk arrow nicks and broken bones from falls. It was time to cut their losses.

  Nabber did as he was told, and Tawl gradually slowed down his horse. He knew the knights would stop firing once they saw the signal: Valdis’ code of honor would prevail. Tawl turned to meet his pursuers. Four men rode forward to meet him.

  “Off the horse. Now!” said the man in front.

  Tawl reached for Nabber’s hand and squeezed it. “We’ll be all right,” he whispered. Jumping down into the mud, he lifted Nabber from the gelding. The boy’s body was stiff and cold.

  The knights withdrew their spears. One man came forward and frisked them for weapons.

  The two riders who had headed north were making their way toward Jack. Tawl had no way of knowing what, if anything, Jack was planning. “Jack,” he shouted, “I’ve surrendered. Come peacefully.” Tawl had seen what Jack was capable of, and this wasn’t the time for a replay of Larn. These men had acted honorably and they would receive honor in return.

  Tawl watched the hedgerow. He saw the riders approach, heard them shout out, and then spied Jack slowly emerging from the bushes. His face was covered in blood and he was limping. His hands were above his head. Good. He had heard and understood the warning. No sorcery. Not on the knights.

  Tawl watched Jack for a moment, satisfying himself that he would be all right, and then spun around to face the leader. “Es nil hesrl,” he said: I am not worthy. It was the traditional greeting at Valdis, and somehow, despite everything—despite Tyren’s betrayal and the knighthood’s decline—it seemed the right thing to say. These men were his brethren.

  The leader appeared surprised to hear the words. He glanced at his companion before speaking. “I am not your judge, Tawl of the Lowlands,” he said. “Tyren claims that privilege in Bren.”

  Skaythe watched the party ride away. Ten knights, four of them marksmen, three hostages, thirteen horses, two mules, and enough supplies to provision a journey to Bren.

  So Baralis hadn’t relied on him alone.

  Skaythe returned his bow to its sheath. The rain had done it no favors and it would have to be waxed and then restrung. A good shot at this distance, with a damp string and the air heavy with rain, would be nearly impossible. The Valdis marksmen were no better than he—just a whole lot closer.

  It had been an interesting scene to watch. It had taught him a little more about his mark. Tawl was not stupid; he knew when to quit. The knights had outrun and outnumbered him, his friend was down and his horse was less than a barn’s length from collapse. The man was no fool, but he wasn’t a hero, either. Skaythe shook his head. Most definitely not a hero. Heroes don’t smash their opponent’s brains out when they’re no longer capable of fighting. They don’t keep on beating a man long after the fight is over. And they don’t kill from lack of control.

  Blayze died by Tawl’s hand. It was an unnecessary death, and one Skaythe intended to vindicate.

  Skaythe rubbed his aching shoulder. The damp brought out the worst in that, too. Tawl had a lot to answer for.

  After the duel on the cliffs north of Toolay, it had taken Skaythe two weeks to recover from his injury. He had found an old woman in a small village to tend to the wound. A lot of blood was lost, the shoulder blade had been grazed, and there had been some minor muscle damage. The old hag had done a fair stitching, but she hadn’t used a clean knife and infection had set in. He lost a week to fever, and another to poor health. When he finally mounted a horse again, he had to ride slowly with many rests. He eventually arrived in Rorn only to find no trace of the knight or his companions. By making inquiries at the harbor he’d discovered that the knight had sailed to Marls two days earlier. Skaythe promptly followed.

  The week ab
oard ship had been good for him. It gave him a chance to finally recuperate. His shoulder had stiffened during the ride to Rorn and the voyage gave him the time to work the suppleness back. He exercised and massaged, gradually extending his range of movements. By the time he landed in Marls his shoulder was strong enough to hold a bow for the draw.

  During the journey north, he had taken a few practice shots. He had lost both distance and accuracy, but even then he could still outshoot Valdis’ best. A few weeks of rest and he would be back to fighting form. The problem was the riding. The knight had set a grueling pace from Marls, and Skaythe was forced to better it to catch up. Long hours in the saddle, combined with sudden downpours and biting winds, had started the stiffening process once more.

  A few more weeks of these sorts of conditions and his shoulder would be back where it started. But Skaythe had no choice—especially now—he had to follow Tawl. The knight’s life was his for the taking and no one else was going to get there first.

  Skaythe mounted his horse. Perhaps it was a good thing that the knights had captured Tawl. It would slow the pace down and make him easier to track. Warning arrows were out of the question now, though. With four trained marksmen in the party, Skaythe had no intention of giving away his presence. Skaythe kicked his horse forward. Next time he came for Tawl, the strike would be unannounced.

  Tawl leant back against the tree he had been bound to. Glancing over at Jack, he hissed, “Are you all right?”

  Jack nodded. “My head’s splitting, but I’m sort of used to that by now.”

  It was dark. They had traveled north all day. With one hand tied behind their backs and both feet tied to the stirrups, it hadn’t been an easy ride. Nabber fared better over the back of the mule.

  The knights had just made camp. They were well organized. A fire was started within minutes, and holk and drymeat porridge were set to boil. The horses had been fed, watered, and brushed. A watch was currently circling the camp, bows at the ready to bring down intruders or game. Waterskins had been filled, breastplates loosened, muscles massaged, and brandy passed from hand to hand. Even the captives had been seen to. Jack’s wound had been tended, Nabber had been given herb tea for his cold, all their bindings had been loosened, and they had been retied, with care, to three separate trees. Later there would be food.

  Tawl had watched all the activity with a certain admiration. These men worked well together. They carried out their various jobs with little need for orders. They were efficient, but not unkind, and relied upon each other heavily. Tawl recognized just two of them. Andris, who seemed to be second-in-command, had been a circle below him at Valdis, and Borlin, who was one of the four marksmen and the oldest knight in the group, had first taught him how to use a bow.

  It was Borlin who walked toward them now: heavyset, short for a knight, with arms as thick as his thighs, and the grin of an old campaigner stretching his blue-veined face. He waggled a bow-callused finger. “No talking between the prisoners. You know that, Tawl.”

  “I was just testing your memory, Borlin. After all, it’s got to be thirty years since you learnt that rule.”

  “You calling me old, boy?”

  “I’m not calling you a spring chicken.”

  The sound of Borlin’s laughter brought back vivid memories for Tawl. The low, gurgling laugh had been something of a phenomenon at Valdis. People used to say it sounded like a barrel full of rocks rolling down a hill.

  “Got yourself in a bit of a mess, haven’t you, Tawl?” he said. “Word is you murdered Catherine of Bren.”

  “Word is the knights stood by and watched women and children being slaughtered in Halcus.”

  Borlin’s face hardened in an instant. “You weren’t in Halcus, Tawl.”

  “No, but a friend of mine was—a good man who couldn’t bear it any longer. He headed south and took a boat to Leiss.”

  “A deserter.”

  “No,” Tawl shook his head. “Not a deserter. A man who remembers what Valdis once stood for.”

  Borlin turned and began to walk away.

  “Is that how you manage to live with yourself, Borlin?” Tawl shouted after him. “You just turn the other cheek?”

  Tawl’s chest strained against the bindings. He was shaking, and behind his back his hands were balled into fists. A handful of the knights were staring at him.

  “Why did you say all that?” whispered Jack.

  “Because it needs to be said. These are good men following a bad leader, and in their hearts they know it. But no one dares speak it out loud.” Tawl’s thoughts turned to Gravia. Perhaps he shouldn’t have sailed to Leiss: the knights would have listened to him. He wasn’t an outcast and a suspected murderer.

  “Tyren can’t be the only one to blame,” Jack said. “He must have found knights willing to carry out his orders.”

  Tawl shook his head. “You don’t understand. The knights are sworn to obey Tyren. It’s not a matter of which knights are good and which are bad. They don’t have a choice. Disobey Tyren and they break their oath. Most knights would rather die than do that.” Try as he might, Tawl could not keep the bitterness out of his voice as he spoke. He had broken his own oath in front of the entire city of Bren.

  Jack gave him a long, appraising look, and then said, “The knight who cut me from the horse said that Kylock’s forces were on the move again. They’re heading to Ness.”

  Tawl exhaled softly. Jack was right: it was a good time to change the subject. With an effort, he switched his mind to the topic of Kylock. “He’s wasted no time.”

  “We can’t either. We’ve got to escape—”

  “No.” Before Jack had finished speaking, the word was out. “There’s no need to escape just yet. We’re heading north. The knights are setting a good pace. We can afford to bide our time for a few days.”

  Jack flashed him a hard look. “What are you up to, Tawl? Why didn’t you want me to do anything in the field?”

  “I don’t want you using sorcery on these men, Jack. They don’t deserve it.”

  “Neither did the seers.”

  Tawl slumped against the tree trunk. There was no possible reply. Jack was focused on what he had to do, and that was the way it should be. But there was something else here, something that had nothing to do with Jack but everything to do with him. He was Tawl, Knight of Valdis, and no amount of vows, denials, or dishonor could change it. The circles would be with him for life.

  Tyren was forcing knights into making a terrible choice: stay in the knighthood and be used as Kylock’s mercenaries, or desert like cowards in a cloud of secrecy and shame. To men who prized honor and loyalty above anything else, it was a hard decision to make. They were damned either way.

  Tawl watched the knights gathering around the campfire. They were settling down, pouring cups of holk, exchanging jokes, rolling out their bedrolls for the night. One man was humming a tune, another was mending his leathers. Good men following a bad leader.

  “Andris!” shouted Tawl toward the fair-haired man who was busy stripping branches for the fire. “Come over here and loosen my bindings.”

  It was time someone gave these men another choice.

  Twenty-seven

  It was early morning, an hour or two before dawn, and Mistress Greal was up and about doing a discreet spot of scavenging.

  The nobles’ quarters in the east wing of the palace were her looting ground. A dark and chilly place. A closed-door, silk-carpeted, rat-rustling sort of place, where fortunes lay around for the taking.

  King Kylock—Borc bless his dark little soul—was having so many of the old nobles impaled, beheaded, and poisoned that it was impossible to keep track of the deaths. Unless one kept a little notebook, of course. Mistress Greal patted her bony bodice, where a softly bound book served to cushion her carcass. “Keep records,” her father always said, “you never know when they might come in handy.”

  Death was a great liberator of wealth. And messy, furtive assassinations made that wealth much e
asier to purloin. A lot of times wives couldn’t be sure that their husbands were dead—one beheaded corpse floating belly-up on a lake looks much like another. When there was no body to speak of, children preferred to believe that their fathers were imprisoned, not dead, and when all one had to go on was a few bloodstained sheets, it was easy to assume one’s errant brother had taken yet another virgin to bed.

  Rumors abounded about the assassinations, but no one knew for sure. Kylock had a talent for disfiguring the corpses. Fingers, moles, birthmarks, double chins, battle-scars, and manhoods of significant size were all sliced off with surgeonlike skill. Mistress Greal had seen her king in action: Kylock was entranced at such times. Blind to the world, he saw only the bodies in front of him and the razor-keen edge of his blade. He spent hours down in the castle dungeons, eyes glazed over, knife in hand, lips moving without making a sound.

  Feeling suddenly chill, Mistress Greal pulled her shawl close about her shoulders. The brief pulling action caused a sharp cramp in her damaged left wrist, and she quickly released her hold on the fabric. Ever since Maybor had broken the bones two years back in Duvitt, she had problems with certain hand and wrist movements. It was inconvenient, but not a great obstacle: luckily her money-grabbing right hand was as nimble as ever.

  She soon came upon the door that marked her destination. Pushing gently upon the honey-colored wood, she let herself into the chamber of Lord Bathroy, one-time close advisor to the duke, now a faceless corpse rotting in a shallow grave. A week ago he had made the mistake of openly criticizing Kylock—blasting his decision to massacre all of Highwall’s troops—and had been taken into custody, tortured, then killed. These days, fewer and fewer people dared to speak up against the notoriously unstable king. The candle Mistress Greal carried gave off just enough light to set the deceased lord’s silken tapestries gleaming. She smiled with satisfaction. Kylock’s madness was her gain.