The Red Sword (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 1)

by Michael Wallace

  Markal stepped into the gash and waved urgently to Bronwyn. He couldn’t pick her out against the forest because of the angle of the sun and the shadows in which she’d waited with the horses, and for the first time it occurred to him that she might not be able to see him at this distance. He might need to run back a bit and yell for her. They only had minutes before the enemy woke up.

  A groan sounded to his back. Markal whirled to see the soldier in the gray cloak struggling to his feet. He tugged at his sword with a trembling hand, and he stared toward the apprentice with a glazed expression.

  No. Too soon.

  It wasn’t only the cloak that was gray, Markal saw now. The man’s flesh was drawn and pale. Not fair like the paladin, but the skin of an old man who is sick and dying. His eyes were . . . dead. Markal had seen the same look on the face of a poppy eater in the slave quarters of Marrabat, but not the gray skin.

  Markal’s heart fluttered in his chest like a bird caught in a trap. He remembered what Nathaliey had told him about the gray-faced assassins in the desert. And Bronwyn’s gray raiders in the barbarian kingdoms. The same ones who had slaughtered Bronwyn’s brother and half a company of paladins.

  The glazed expression cleared from the man’s eyes. He fixed on Markal, who now stood in the open, the last remnants of his hiding spell dissolving like old cobwebs. A knowing grin stretched across the man’s face. He drew his weapon, a long, curved scimitar.

  “A clever move, my friend, but not nearly clever enough,” he said, and took a step toward Markal.

  There was no way to resist him; Markal had drawn his strength to put the enemies to sleep. The spell had gone as well as he could have possibly hoped, yet he’d still failed. His legs wobbled, and he felt drained, exhausted.

  But he stiffened and stared at the enemy without flinching as the man moved forward. He threw back his sleeves and lifted his slick, still-dripping palms. He forced confidence and authority into his voice.

  “Stand back or you shall taste death. By the Brothers, your soul shall be torn apart by the Dark Gatherer’s hounds this very night.”

  The gray-faced man’s grin faltered. He’d crossed half the thirty feet separating the two men, but now he hesitated and glanced back at his unconscious companions. But when he looked back, his face hardened.

  “You have nothing, wizard. You are bluffing.”

  He started forward again, this time his mocking smile replaced by grim determination.

  “By the sword be damned!” Bronwyn’s voice cried from behind them.

  The paladin came riding in on her horse, Soultrup in hand. She hadn’t put on her helmet, and her braided golden hair swept behind her. Righteous fury glowed on her face. Her sword gleamed red, seeming almost eager for combat.

  The enemy ducked to one side as she swept past. He lifted his scimitar as she swung. Her blow crushed down on his weapon and knocked him from his feet. Bronwyn jumped down from the horse and came at him to deliver the killing stroke.

  But the gray-skinned man moved faster than Markal thought possible. He was back on his feet and ducking out of the way as Bronwyn’s sword swept past his ear. He lifted his weapon, and soon the two were trading blows. The man fought with skill, speed, and a savage strength. He was tall and strong and would have enjoyed a reach advantage if not for Soultrup’s length. No doubt he would have quickly overwhelmed most enemies. But Bronwyn was not just any opponent, and her sword not an ordinary weapon.

  She ducked beneath a vicious sweep of the scimitar and brought her sword around in a devastating counterattack. The blow struck the man across the ribs, and he fell onto his back. His weapon flew out of his hands. Bronwyn sprang on top of him, her blade still embedded in his side. Instead of trying to force it in, she desperately tried to wrench it out. The enemy tried to get free, too, and there was the bizarre sight of both of them trying to get the sword out, even as the blade itself seemed to be digging itself further in.

  The dying soldier let out a long, shuddering cry, and his head flopped back. Bronwyn got the sword free, and also cried out. She tried to cast aside the bloody weapon, but it seemed nailed to her palms. Markal stumbled to her side, still wobbly from using his magic and the loss of blood.

  “No! Don’t touch me. Get your horse!”

  He remembered the unconscious soldiers. They might rouse themselves at any time.

  Markal found his mare about a hundred yards back. When Markal lurched up, it tossed its head, alarmed, and almost ran off before he got the reins. He struggled to get in the saddle. But once up, some of the nausea faded, and he rode toward Bronwyn, feeling stronger every moment. She clutched Soultrup in her hands and looked up at him, sweat pouring from her face. Her horse had come to her side, where it stood, pawing anxiously.

  “The marauder,” she gasped. “He’s joined the others. They’re fighting for it. They’re trying to—oh, the Harvester take me.”

  “Put it away. Sheath it.”

  “I can’t. Get me up.”

  He jumped down, and somehow the two of them—Markal faint from using his magic, and Bronwyn still clenching the sword with two hands—got her into the saddle.

  “What can I do?” he asked as he mounted his mare.

  She clenched her teeth. “Nothing, just ride. Go!”

  And with that, she slumped over the horse’s neck. The sword, now held by one hand, fell over the side until the tip nearly dragged on the ground. But she didn’t let go.

  Markal cast a glance at the remaining soldiers. One was stirring. Markal brought his horse alongside Bronwyn’s and grabbed her reins. Go, yes, but where? Forward or back?

  There was no question what Bronwyn would have said if she’d been alert. So Markal pointed them in the direction they’d been traveling, toward the enemy camp, and rode, leading Bronwyn’s horse and its senseless rider. Toward what he could only imagine was the camp of the sorcerer.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Markal soon worried that he would lose Bronwyn. She swayed back and forth in the saddle, sweat pouring down her face.

  “Put the cursed thing away,” he told her. “Put it in the sheath.”

  She groaned. “I can’t.”

  He tugged the reins of her horse to bring it close to his. “Here, I’ll—”

  “Don’t touch me!”

  The panic in her voice jolted him, and he pulled away, just as she lifted the sword and swung it at him. Her muscles straining, she fought it down even as it sliced through the space where his face had been moments earlier.

  “Please, by the Brothers, I beg you to stay back,” she said. The sword swayed in her hand.

  He cast a glance behind. The Veyrian soldiers would be awake by now, would have seen their dead companion. And what would they make of their unnatural sleep?

  “Bronwyn,” he said. “We should leave the road and go into the forest.”

  “No, we’re too close.”

  “There are enemies at our back, enemies in front of us, and your sword . . .”

  Slowly, deliberately, she put one hand on the flat of the blade and closed her eyes. After a moment, she opened them again. “It is done.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “My brother won. His control is tentative, but it exists. Soultrup is still mine.”

  “For now,” he said, watching carefully as she swung the scabbard around to sheath the blade. “What happens next time?”

  She wiped the sweat from her brow. “We know each other’s limitations, my friend. You hold the knowledge of your order’s magic in your head, but cannot control it. I have a sword that will cut down any enemy, but every time I do so, it risks slipping from my hand and killing me instead.” She glanced at him. “Or my companion.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Avoid another fight. At least until I see the sorcerer. One final death, and I am finished with my struggle.”

  Markal’s doubts had only grown on that score since Bronwyn shared her ultimate plan. Why was it necessary that she die?
<
br />   “Let’s turn around,” he said. “We’ll enter the forest to get around the two men on the road and go back to the gardens to rethink this.”

  “If you’re afraid, you can go. I would prefer you don’t, of course. Your magic might prove useful, no matter its limitations.”

  “I’m not afraid. I should be. Should be terrified, but curiously, no.”

  “Then we ride on. The sorcerer lives, and so we must continue. We are too close to turn around now. I cannot fail.”

  “Turning around is not failure. Now, wait,” he said, cutting off her protest as it sputtered on her lips. “We haven’t killed your enemy, but we have new information. The sorcerer is real.”

  “That was already known.”

  “Not by me, it wasn’t. Not with certainty. And I now know the sorcerer is destroying the Sacred Forest so the high king can build his road. We’ll go back to the gardens and rally our defenses until the master awakes. Once he does, you’ll see what the Order of the Crimson Path can do.”

  Her expression hardened. “No, Markal. The sorcerer is close. I can feel him.” She touched the sword hilt. “The souls of the great and wicked alike confirm it. I will cut down my enemy and then fall on my sword to finish it.”

  “But why? Wait for the master. What is the harm?”

  “Your wizard is no match for the sorcerer.”

  “But you are?”

  She thrust out her chin. “Do you doubt it?”

  “Whether I do or not is beside the point. You don’t need to die to see it accomplished. Memnet will awaken, and he can do something about the sword, learn its secrets and how to suppress the evil voices inside.”

  “Markal, this weapon is an ancient relic created by the gods themselves. Neither wizard nor sorcerer nor paladin can change its nature.”

  He wasn’t going to give up, and opened his mouth to try a new angle, when a new sound caught his ears. It was a man’s cry, followed by the scream of a woman. There was pain and anguish in both of their voices.

  Righteous anger flared in Bronwyn’s eyes. “By the Brothers, what fresh evil is this?”

  She urged the horse forward, and Markal had no choice but to follow. The burned cut of forest came up a gradual rise that followed the natural undulations of the land, and as they crested a hill, a wide new panorama opened in front of them.

  The gash in the forest continued down a gradually diminishing slope that stretched toward the northeast. Markal and Bronwyn had been passing through the charred forest since yesterday, but the vast extent of the destruction now became apparent as the burned swath continued for miles and miles, all the way to the horizon, where it dissolved into a yellow, hazy vista from the dust blowing off the parched khalifates to the east.

  Closer to where they stood, hundreds of workers labored with shovels and pickaxes to excavate the soil to a depth of several feet. Behind them, other workers dumped sand into the trench, and untold numbers of carts and wagons piled stones into great heaps. Farther back, the great highway itself was completed, and trains of men and beasts traveled in both directions like tiny armies of marching ants.

  Markal caught his breath. It was one thing to see the burned gash, but another entirely to see the highway rolling for miles through the forest. To witness the scope of destruction, the sheer number of workers and encampments. To know that the highway stretched across the land for hundreds of miles and would shortly stretch hundreds more, until it penetrated into the heart of the barbarian lands on the far side of the Dragon’s Spine. The enormity of such a construction was staggering.

  A fresh cry dragged Markal’s attention closer. Two overseers had dragged a man dressed in rags from his company of workers and flailed him with a whip as he cowered. A woman lay groaning next to him, having already been beaten. The other laborers struggled on, barely lifting their heads to watch.

  Markal stared with horror. “Slaves? This is Aristonia. We never had such a thing.” He watched the soldiers, the overseers, and the movement of goods and people along the road.

  “And so we continue,” Bronwyn said. “Righteous in our actions, with faith and purpose as our shield and sword. If you have magic to calm suspicions of our arrival, cast the spell now.”

  Markal had an incantation that would do just that. It was more subtle than the spell he’d used when hiding in the shadows, while costing less than the one that had put the soldiers to sleep. But the niggling voice was quick to raise new doubts.

  Your last failure nearly cost your life. Why should this time be any different?

  Because it would be. The spell was a trifle. It was a spell cast by the archivists when they came and went from the Secret Vault of the library, so as to hide its location. If Jethro or Karla could manage, then surely he could do so as well. All he had to do was extend its effects a few feet to encompass his companion, and the two of them would slip through unchallenged.

  “Markal,” Bronwyn said. “Overcome your limitations. You can do it. I know you can.”

  She’d guessed perfectly what made him hesitate. He nodded. “Yes.”

  The words of the incantation came easily to his lips, but the blood was harder to draw. The spell might have been a trifle, but he needed as much power as he could get. He was already tired and in need of food, drink, and rest. But with effort, he raised the blood to the pores. When it trickled down his arms, he spoke the incantation.

  Enough power came through to serve his purpose. When he looked around, their immediate surroundings had turned dim, while the people working on the road ahead seemed to glow with their own light.

  Bronwyn looked about her and gave a satisfied nod. “Well done, friend.”

  “It still isn’t very good. It won’t last as long as we need, and if anyone is looking for us, we’ll be spotted. As soon as that happens, the whole thing collapses and everyone sees us.”

  A nod. “Understood. We’ll make do.”

  No recriminations for Markal’s failings, but Bronwyn hadn’t coddled him with false assurances, either. Markal studied her face, with its strong expression, fierce eyes, and calm air of righteous assurance, and wondered if he’d encountered something truly rare: a hero.

  “Speak softly going forward,” he said. “Keep the horses quiet. The spell will muffle sound, but not eliminate it entirely.”

  They went down the burned swath of land and reached the first workers. Men, women, and children bent at their labors beneath the watchful eye of overseers, clawing at the earth with shovels and picks to force it to yield its stones, to surrender the roots of burned trees that remained tangled in the ground. Other slaves hauled away baskets filled with earth and stone. The man and woman who’d been thrashed by the overseer dragged their way back to the work and picked up shovels to renew their efforts.

  When the two companions had pulled away from the slaves doing the backbreaking work of digging out the roadbed, Markal turned to Bronwyn and spoke in a low voice.

  “It would seem that we’ve found the people of Agria. The king enslaved them to build his highway.”

  “And the animals? What of their flocks?”

  “No doubt slaughtered to the last lamb to feed workers and soldiers.”

  “We will end this madness,” she said.

  All was shortly a confusion of clanking hammers, breaking stone, men shouting, and animals bellowing as they strained against heavy loads. The roadbed was cut deep, with a base of sand, followed by crushed stone and gravel, and finally, enormous flat stones for the surface itself. Markal had never seen such a wide, expensive road.

  Bronwyn gestured to their right, where a company of Veyrian riders trotted briskly from an encampment of tents and onto the road with clopping hooves. The two infiltrators fell in behind them and followed several paces back, taking advantage of the path the horsemen cleared through the work crews. They continued unobserved.

  Markal pointed out the tent encampments of soldiers whenever he saw them, but Bronwyn touched the hilt of her sword and shook her head. They ma
de swift progress, three or four miles in less than an hour. The work stretched on and on and on. Where the surface itself was done, workers cut drainage ditches on the sides. Watchtowers rose at intervals, some no more than foundations, others mortared nearly to the battlements.

  Wherever a watchtower stood, men were in the heights with long brass trumpets. They blasted short notes, long notes, and sustained songs, seemingly improvised, though Markal knew otherwise. Using the horns for communication, the Veyrian army was able to pass messages long distances in a short period of time, as the songs traveled from one outpost to the next. It was a sophisticated language that contained orders, issued warnings, could even request supplies or reinforcements.

  “It’s a road to last for a thousand years,” he said at last. “And an army to hold it.”

  “No road lasts a thousand years,” Bronwyn said. “In the desert, the wind will cover it with sand. In the mountains, the earth will shake it to pieces. Here, imagine what will happen when the armies retreat, as they will. All armies eventually disband, all kingdoms collapse. The forest will approach, its roots will heave the stones and open fissures for new seedlings.”

  “Not this road, Bronwyn. There’s magic in it. Sorcery. Can’t you feel it?”

  She reached back for the sword hilt. “Yes, I do. What does it mean?”

  “There are runes to protect the stones and powerful incantations that bind the highway to the land. This road will stand.”

  Indeed, it was whispering to him, and there was a sensation like a twisted shadow radiating up through his mount and into his body. There were cries of pain in that whisper. Agony and suffering that were still fresh.

  “It’s the pain of the dying,” he decided at last. “Like the blood I draw from my pores, but taken by the lash from those who have suffered and died building this highway.” He shook his head. “I must tell the master. Why didn’t he know already?”

  “The sorcerer is adept at hiding his work,” she said. “Much like those soldiers are unable to see us, only with sorcery more grand and terrible. This road didn’t appear overnight in the heartland of your kingdom, Markal. Even while your wizard was denying the high king passage, his army was forging ahead. His sorcerer was destroying your sacred groves.”