by Dave Duncan
no bizarre improbabilities afoot. As he
gathered them up again, he nodded to the Brat, who
strutted forward to play his small role. So fast
was the King calling for Blades now that this Brat
had done it three times already. He was still a long
way behind Durendal's record, if it was a
record. Piping out the dedication in his reedy
soprano, the boy laid the cat's-eye sword
on the anvil. Harvest had never touched or even
seen that sword before, but the skilled armorers of
Ironhall had wrought it to be a perfect fit for
his hand, his arm, and his favored style.
Everything was going as it should, yet Durendal was
worried by the two principals. Neither seemed quite
right, somehow. Most Primes approached their
binding with a glow of excitement and fulfillment, but
Harvest looked miserable and unsure. The
Marquis's air of contemptuous bored amusement
might be an acceptable affectation at court but was
no way to approach a dangerous elementary
ritual. He still seemed to expect some meaningless
fakery.
Master of Rituals nodded to Byless, who
stepped over to remove Prime's shirt for him.
Only a week ago, Durendal had done that for
Pendering. If Harvest was a borderline
Blade, young Byless needed at least a year's
training yet. Surely Grand Master must soon
advise the King that the supply of ready
candidates was running out? And in that case, if they
wanted to keep at least one in reserve for
emergencies, how long might Durendal have
to wait for his own call?
Prime turned. Durendal went to him,
smiling cheerfully and trying to ignore the pale
lips and eyes stretched too wide. Oh, let
that only be an illusion of the firelight! He
put a thumb on Harvest's hairless chest
to locate the base of the sternum, although all the
bones were clearly visible. He made a mark with a
piece of charcoal directly over the
heart. He went back to his place at earth
point.
Harvest stepped forward and took up the sword,
barely sparing it a glance. He jumped up on the
anvil and raised the blade in salute as he
swore the oath--to defend Nutting against all
foes, to serve him until death, to give his own
life for his ward's if need be. Words that should have
rung through the Forge like glorious trumpet notes
came out as a mumble. Durendal disliked what he
saw on Grand Master's face.
Prime sprang down and knelt before the
Marquis to offer the sword--which Nutting accepted
with an air of bored indifference--and then backed
away and sat on the anvil. The Marquis
followed to aim the point of the sword at the
smudge of charcoal. This was the culmination of the
ritual, but even now he seemed to be expecting
some sort of trickery. Durendal and Byless
closed in to assist. Harvest took several deep
breaths, raised his arms. Durendal took a
firm grip on one and Byless on the other, together
holding him steady for the thrust. The Marquis
hesitated, glancing around at Grand Master as
if suddenly realizing that what he had been told
must happen was not some elaborate joke or
fake.
"Do it, man! Don't torture him!" Grand
Master snarled.
The Marquis shrugged and spoke his three words
of ritual: "Serve or die!" He poked the
sword into Harvest's chest.
No matter how good the conjuration, that must hurt.
All Blades admitted that the binding had hurt,
although briefly. In this case, the prospective
ward did not strike very forcefully, for the point
failed to emerge from Harvest's back, and yet the
spurt of blood was much heavier than usual.
With a faint moan, Harvest let his head droop.
He did not wrench back at the friends supporting
him, which was what Pendering had done the previous
week. Instead he pulled forward, causing them
to stagger off balance. He pulled harder and harder,
as if he was trying to double over. What was the fool
playing at? Had he fainted? Durendal and
Byless resisted, took the strain, then stared at
each other in horror as the awful truth dawned.
Three knights ran forward to help them lower the
body to the floor. Nutting screamed shrilly and
dropped the sword.
The conjuration had failed.
Now it was Second's turn to try.
The candidates were warned early in their training that
binding could kill, and there were even records of
Second dying as well. The conjurers blamed such
failures on mistakes in the ritual, but
Durendal had witnessed a hundred bindings now and
was certain he would have noticed any deviation from
standard procedure. He assumed the problem had
been lack of will. Harvest had been reluctant
to serve, Nutting skeptical and indifferent.
Harvest had distrusted his own ability, while
Nutting had wanted a Blade as a plume in his
hat to flaunt around the court, not as a vital
defender. Two unenthusiastic principals had
combined to create disaster.
Durendal's first concern was to look at the wound.
The charcoal mark he had made had been blotted
out by the blood, but the hole in poor Harvest was
exactly where it should be, so the error had not been
his.
Then, while knights and seniors milled around,
removing the body and making ready for the next
attempt, he headed for the Marquis, who was down
on his knees near the door, miserably retching
between frantic protestations that he could not
possibly go through all that again. Grand Master and
Master of Rituals stood over him, blocking
any further effort to flee, lecturing him before he
had even recovered his wits.
"With so many spirits assembled, we have raised the
potential to levels where discharge of the elemental
forces--"
That sort of talk wouldn't work on a
pseudo-aristocratic pimp.
"Excuse me." Durendal elbowed the two
knights aside in a way he would not have believed
possible even five minutes ago. Detecting the
preliminary intake of breath that would become a
roar from Grand Master, he said, "This is my
problem!" He hoisted the Marquis to his feet
by his padded jerkin, spun him around, and steadied
him before he toppled over.
Nutting rolled his eyes in honor when he
saw who was manhandling him. Even in the ruddy
light of the Forge, his cheeks were green. "No! Not
you, too! I can't, you hear? I can't.
The sight of blood nauseates me." His boots
scrabbled on the rock, but he did not go anywhere
with Durendal holding him.
"You prefer to die?"
"Argk! Will-what do you mean?"
"You killed one of our brothers. You expect
to walk out of here alive?"
The aristocratic vapidity made a croaking
noise. Master of Rituals opened his mouth
to protest, and Durendal aimed a cow kick at
his shin.
"You only thought you needed a Blade
yesterday, my lord. You most certainly need one
tonight. Without a Blade you can't possibly leave
Ironhall alive. Do you want me or not?"
"Leave him, Prime--we'll let the
juniors have some sport with him." Grand Master
had caught on. Master of Rituals, who had
not, looked as if he were about to have a seizure.
"Please?" whimpered the Marquis. "I need
protection! I'm no good with a sword."
"Come then, my lord." Durendal hustled him
through the crowd of sullen watchers to a trough where
water trickled endlessly from the rocky wall.
"Rinse your mouth, drink, compose yourself." He
gestured at the onlookers--the dismayed and the enraged
--waving for them to leave. He ducked Nutting's
head, pulled it up, and wiped the splutters
away with his sleeve. By that time the others had moved
more or less out of earshot. He put his nose very
close to Nutting's.
"Now listen, my lord! Listen well. The King
wants you to have a Blade and now I am Prime.
My name is Durendal, in case you've
forgotten, a name revered for more than three hundred
years. I chose it so I would have to live up to it
and I did. I am the best to come through Ironhall
in a generation. If you want me, I am yours."
The Marquis nodded vigorously.
"I would rather see you die to avenge poor
Harvest," Durendal said truthfully, "but I
won't feel like that after I'm bound. I can get you
out alive if I have to fight our way out, and
probably not even Grand Master could say as
much." He wondered if he was flying too high
now, but Nutting seemed to be believing every word of this
rubbish.
"What went wrong?" he moaned.
"Mostly Harvest wasn't quite ready. I
am." Was this human chicken even capable
of playing his part in the ritual? He was shaking like
a broom out a window. "And you did not strike
hard enough."
"What?"
"You didn't strike as if you meant it, my
lord. Next time--when you put the sword in my
heart--remember you are fighting to save your own
life. Ram it all the way through, you hear? That's
how the King does it. Push till the point comes
out of my back."
Nutting moaned and began to retch again.
Somehow love point seemed inappropriate
for the still-sniveling Marquis, but he was back there.
Now Durendal stood opposite, at death.
He was flanked by Byless and Gotherton. He
wondered if they would be strong enough to restrain him when
his reflexes took over, and if a man could cut
himself to shreds from the inside out. The singing was over.
The Brat had trilled the dedication, whey-faced
and staring at Prime with owlish eyes, as he laid
another sword on the anvil.
Master of Rituals had invoked the spirits, and
either he had summoned far more than before or else
Durendal was just more attuned to them. He sensed the
haunted chamber quivering with power. Spirituality
fizzed in his blood. Strange lights dancing
over the stonework made every shadow numinous. His hand
itched to take up the superb weapon gleaming on the
anvil.
The Marquis had shrunk till he looked like
a shivering, cowed child compared to the awesome Grand
Master. Could a real man serve such a craven
nothing all his life without going crazy? Could
Durendal endure to be only an ornament, as
poor Harvest had put it? Yes, by the spirits! This
was what he had aimed for, worked for, struggled
for--to be one of the King's Blades. If his ward
was useless in himself, then he would still have the finest
protector in all Chivial. Perhaps a man
might make something out of that worthless human rag
if he tried hard enough, or perhaps the King had some
secret, dangerous mission in mind for him. With
real luck, there would be a war, when a young noble would
be expected to raise a regiment and his Blade
could go into battle at his side.
The invocation ended. At last it was his move, his
moment, his triumph--five years he had
worked for this! He turned to summon Gotherton
forward, felt Gotherton's fingers shake as he
unbuttoned the shirt. He winked and almost laughed
aloud at the disbelief he saw flood over the
boyish face. In that oppressive heat, it was a
relief to shed the garment, to flex his shoulders, and
spin around. He winked at Byless also when he
came, and this time was rewarded with a stare of open
admiration. Why were they all so worried? Things
only went wrong once every hundred years or so.
He was not poor Harvest! He was the second
Durendal, come into his destiny. He felt the
thumb press on his chest, the cool touch of
charcoal.
Now for that sword! His sword. Oh,
bliss! It floated in his hand. Blue starlight
gleamed and danced along the blade and a bar of gold
fire burned in the cat's eye cabochon on the
pommel. He wanted to whirl it, caress it with a
strop until it would cut falling gossamer,
hold it in sunlight and admire the damask--but
those luxuries must wait. He sprang up
onto the anvil.
"My lord Marquis of Nutting!" The echoes
rumbled and rolled--wonderful! "Upon my soul,
I, Durendal, candidate in the Loyal and
Ancient Order of the King's Blades, do
irrevocably swear in the presence of these my
brethren that I will evermore defend you against all
foes, setting my own life as nothing to shield you
from peril, reserving only my fealty to our lord the
King. To bind me to this oath, I bid you plunge
this my sword into my heart that I may die if
I swear falsely or, being true, may live
by the power of the spirits here assembled to serve you until
in time I die again."
Then down to the floor and down on one knee.
Sallow and trembling, the Marquis accepted the
sword, seeming ready to drop it at any moment.
Durendal rose and stepped back until he
felt the anvil against his calves. He sat.
Grand Master pulled the Marquis forward. He
needed both hands to raise the sword this time. It
wavered, flashing firelight, and the point made
uncertain circles around the target--idiot! It
would do no good if it missed Durendal's heart,
no good at all. He waited until the
terrified noble looked up enough to meet his eyes.
Then he smiled encouragingly and raised his arms.
Byless and Gotherton pulled them back,
bracing them against their waists. He must try not
to thrash too hard
when the shock came. He
waited. He could hear Nutting's teeth chatter.
"Do it now!" he said. He was about to add, "Do
it right!" but the Marquis shrieked, "Serve or
die" and thrust the sword. Either he remembered
Durendal's instructions or he lost his footing,
for he stumbled forward and the steel razored instantly
through muscle, ribs, heart, lung, more ribs, and
out into the space beyond. The guard thudded against
Durendal's chest.
It did hurt. He had expected pain at the
wound, but his whole body exploded with it. Through that
furnace of agony he became aware of two
terrified eyes staring into his. He wanted
to say, "You must take it out again quickly, my lord,"
but speaking with a sword through his chest proved
difficult.
Grand Master hauled Nutting back bodily.
Fortunately he remembered to take the sword with
him.
Durendal looked down to watch the wound heal.
The trickle of blood was astonishingly small,
but then it always was--a heart could not pump when it
had a nail through it. He felt the healing, a
tickling sensation right through to his back, and also a
huge surge of power and excitement and pride.
Byless and Gotherton had released him. The Forge
thundered with cheers, which seemed like an unnecessary commotion,
although he'd always cheered for others in the past. A
binding was routine, nothing to it.
He was a Blade, a companion in the Order.
People would address him as Sir Durendal, although that
was only a courtesy title.
"You didn't need us!" Gotherton gasped.
"You barely twitched!"
They could be thanked later, and the Brat, the
armorers, and all the others. First things first. He
rose and went to recover his sword before the
glazed-looking Marquis dropped her. Now he
could inspect her properly. She was a
hand-and-a-half sword with a straight blade, about
a yard long, the longest he could wear at his belt
without tripping. She was single-edged for two-thirds
of her length, double-edged near the point. He
admired the grace of the fluted quillons, the
delicate sweep of the knuckle guard, the finger
ring for when he wanted to use her as a rapier, the
fire of the cat's-eye pommel that gave her her
balance, which of course was perfect, neither
too far forward for thrusting nor so far back that he
would not be able to slash. The armorers had created a
perfect all-around weapon for a swordsman of
