Shieldbreaker's Story

by Fred Saberhagen

  Mark, standing back-to-back with his huge ally, engaged in peculiar Swordplay—every time he thrust home with Woundhealer, or even nicked one of his attackers, the bright steel of his Sword brought swift healing, recovery, to the Mindsword’s victims.

  First one attacker then another, bloodlessly slashed or neatly skewered, staggered back, dropping weapons, moments later crying out in horror at their own behavior.

  The first men so efficiently de-converted were in moments hurling themselves upon their former comrades, grabbing at sword-arms, trying desperately to stop those still under Skulltwister’s spell from pressing the attack. The odds in the fight had soon shifted dramatically.

  Those injured soon received Woundhealer’s swift, sharp blessing, some of them two or three times before the fighting stopped.

  * * *

  In a minute the skirmish was over. After a last round of healing, wiping away whatever wounds Mark and Ben and their opponents had incurred in the deadly business, the Prince, breathing heavily, sat down on a curb to rest. Ben, gasping even more loudly, had slumped beside him.

  “I am going,” Mark said presently, “back to rejoin the Princess. There will be decisions to be made, and I must learn what reports have come in from around the country. Will you come with me, or scout some more? I leave it up to you.”

  Ben thought it over for a few more gasps. “I will stay here, or move closer in, toward the palace, and learn what more I can learn. Send me a messenger-bird or two when you can.”

  Mark nodded. The Prince took Woundhealer with him when he departed to rejoin Kristin. But he left with Ben a freshly acquired squad of de-converted Tasavaltan soldiers to aid him in scouting out the city and trying to establish an organized resistance.

  * * *

  Ben ordered his de-converted squad back into the city, where, without his easily identifiable presence, they could pretend to be still carrying out Vilkata’s orders. A tentative plan was made for rendezvous.

  Ben himself waited alone for a few hours, indoors in an abandoned suburban house, till darkness fell—then he cautiously advanced, passing inside the city walls without trouble, through an abandoned gate. He was increasingly consumed with the urgent need to find out what had happened to his home, and to his wife and daughter.

  It was no secret that Ben had been on poor terms for years with his wife, Barbara, and in fact months had passed since his last visit to his home—or house—in Sarykam. But since the horrible news last midnight, he’d discovered that this degree of estrangement gave no immunity from fear and grief. For years he’d not seen much of his and Barbara’s only child, their grown-up daughter Beth, but now he knew beyond any doubt that Beth’s fate was still of great importance to him.

  It had also crossed his mind that young Prince Stephen, supposing he had somehow escaped the palace, might have come to Ben’s house looking for help.

  From a block away, Ben saw the ruin of his own dwelling—the upper floor completely gone—without surprise. He knew, without particularly worrying about the fact, that it was extremely dangerous for him to be here in the city, especially in the vicinity of his old house. He did not doubt that the destruction which had claimed this building and much of its immediate surroundings had been meant for him primarily.

  * * *

  Meanwhile, the afternoon had worn on for Kristin, in another little village much like Voronina, but with a different name, and closer than sixty kilometers to the capital, lying outwardly tranquil under a complacent sun.

  In this new village Kristin had relocated herself and, thus, the royal headquarters. By midafternoon she was waiting anxiously for, among other things, her husband to rejoin her.

  Kristin had not been brought up in a farmer’s house—far from it. But she had learned long ago to put up with much worse, when necessary. Today, like most of the village women, she was wearing trousers and loose shirt of homespun.

  The owl which had brought the royal couple their first word of the disaster in Sarykam had come with her to this village and was even now sleeping the remainder of the day away in one of the barns, a bulky alien presence making the pigeons nervous. The Master of Beasts, considering that he had done everything useful that he could do for the moment, was catching a nap there too.

  The central village square, enclosed on four sides by rows of little houses, was quiet except for the usual domestic noises of fowl and other farmyard animals, including a barking dog or two.

  Surrounding the small settlement, which consisted of no more than a score of houses, were fields now lush with summer crops, demarcated by hedgerows. A range of coastal mountains loomed blue in the distance. The people, like most of their compatriots more or less accustomed to the occasional presence of Prince and Princess, were today for the most part going about their usual affairs, though with uneasy faces and many pauses to search the sky.

  * * *

  Mark, about an hour after leaving Ben, came riding into the village, returning about on schedule from his reconnaissance.

  His wife made no great demonstration at Mark’s appearance, but to anyone watching her closely, her sudden relief was intense and obvious.

  Mark agreed with his wife’s suggestion that he get some rest now, while he had the chance. He’d been up since the alarm was sounded, since very early that morning.

  For the last few nights, back in Voronina, he had shared with his Princess the tiny spare room—perhaps the only such chamber in Voronina—of a prosperous yeoman’s house. This new village was even smaller, and Mark guessed there would be no spare rooms available.

  When the Prince had seen to it that his mount was stabled, and heard such reports as had come in during his absence—they seemed of little importance—he lay down in the shade of a tree. The Prince felt comfortingly at home among these country smells and sounds and people. He had grown up in a small village not that much different from this one, and at no enormous distance either, though the home of his birth had not been Tasavaltan.

  An hour later, after a sleep troubled by strange dreams, Mark was up again, standing near the middle of the small village plaza, anxiously scanning the afternoon skies, hoping for another winged messenger. Even more bad news—provided it was not too bad—would be, in a way, some relief.

  * * *

  For both husband and wife this waiting, with no knowledge of what the limits of the ordeal were going to be, gave promise of becoming a supreme test of patience. The hours since the first word of the attack had seemed endless, a desert of time to be got through in which it seemed impossible to do anything useful, or anything at all but wait.

  As the afternoon wore on, with shadows lengthening, it became impossible for Mark, and Kristin too, to sit without doing anything. While continuing a desultory conversation, the royal couple was soon at weapons’ practice, sharing a single battle-hatchet for the purpose. The sound of the thick blade’s impact on the trunk of a dead tree echoed repeatedly from the flat house-fronts of mud brick and wood. Soon some of the simpler villagers came to stand gawking in the background. Soon Captain Miyagi came to join the onlookers.

  Those who had stopped to silently judge the skill of Prince and Princess, some of them with expert eyes, were favorably impressed. The arm drawn back-swiftly, not giving an enemy a chance to dodge—and then snapped forward. Thunk!

  First Mark’s long powerful legs (next turn, Kristin’s, somewhat shorter) strode restlessly toward the target and back again, his (or her) right arm swinging the recovered weapon in a practiced hand.

  This time it was Prince Mark who spun around and threw. Again the sharp blade thudded home. Small chips flew from where previous cuts were intersected. Mark’s aim was good, mechanically good. Another day or two of waiting, he thought, and the target tree was going to be chewed away to nothing. But no, they would have to relocate once more to another village before that much time had passed.

  And every few moments he raised his head, as did his Princess, to scan the skies, on watch for an attack by demons or
flying reptiles, but particularly for more news.

  * * *

  One of the problems reviewed by the royal couple while practicing with physical weapons was that of how to obtain the best possible magical help, and as soon as possible. If only Adrian were finished with his studies and were here … but in fact Adrian was not ready, and not here, and it was not possible that he could be of help just now. Thank Ardneh, the older son at least had not been taken by surprise, as the younger must have been, in Sarykam.

  Karel, too, was ominously out of communication, like everyone else the royal couple had left behind them in the supposed safety of their capital.

  At least General Rostov, traveling in another province at the time of Vilkata’s attack, had now checked in, sending a messenger with some reassuring word about mobilization there.

  * * *

  Kristin and Mark by now had convincing evidence that Vilkata was the author of this latest disaster. The plenitude of demons in the assault had suggested as much. Refugees’ information, such as Mark had now heard first hand, provided more solid evidence. It was true, then: The Dark King had returned to the attack, bringing with him the Mindsword which had been in his possession two years ago when he was hurled away. The Prince could remember all too well the horrible events of two years past, on the night of Vilkata’s previous attack, which had resulted in the Dark King’s banishment and also Kristin’s injury.

  * * *

  In the hours since the first news of the disaster had reached the Prince and Princess, the couple had endeavored to keep up each other’s hopes regarding their younger son, still unaccounted for in Sarykam. Their best grounds for optimism lay in the facts that Stephen was more often than not level-headed and responsible for his age—and that he had been granted access to the Swords.

  The mother and father of Prince Stephen, once more scanning the skies together waiting, hoping, for the next messenger-bird to appear in the sunset skies, repeatedly assured each other how good it was that they had given their young son that much of a chance.

  * * *

  Holding frequent, almost continuous consultation with his Princess, Mark, since the news had arrived, had been making plans—most of them, so far, necessarily only tentative. Which way would Vilkata move now? Was a fresh assault to be expected upon some other part of the realm?

  He was also trying to lay the groundwork for effective countermeasures, as more reports about Vilkata’s assault, each in itself fragmentary, reached him. But there was as yet almost nothing he could do, beyond sending warning to everyone with whom he was able to communicate by messenger, that the Mindsword was in the city and the place must therefore be avoided.

  Mark most especially wondered what had happened to the Swords in his armory.

  It began to be possible for Mark to believe the rumor he had heard concerning the Mindsword. Though Skulltwister had undoubtedly been present last night in the capital, Vilkata was no longer pressing his attack with the enthusiasm that might have been expected had the Blade of Glory been still available. Of course, the Prince dared not disregard the possibility that the horror could be reimposed at any moment.

  And Mark’s and Kristin’s worries continued unabated regarding Stephen, as well as Mark’s parents, Jord and Mala, who had been the only other members of his immediate family in Sarykam at the time of the latest attack.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Moments after Stephen had shouted his last order at them, Amintor and his search party had departed from the walled garden in the middle of the ravaged city, leaving the young Prince alone with the still-befuddled wizard, Karel.

  Stephen, still enduring the renewed burden of a Sword in each hand, stood staring with perplexity at his Great-Uncle, who gazed back at him—rather, at a spot just over Stephen’s head—with all the solemnity of confident worship. The young Prince was about to appeal to Coinspinner for help in dealing with this problem when the Sword of Chance suddenly twitched of its own accord. Then it tugged again, the direction unmistakable. It was guiding Stephen to one of the side gates in the garden wall.

  Both hands still filled with black-hilted magic, Stephen stepped unsteadily along the indicated course and leaned on the gate to open it. Looking out into an alley, he saw two people half a dozen meters away, both of them frozen in watchful attitudes. Their faces, turned toward him, were studies in controlled fear. Immediately Stephen recognized his cousin Zoltan, a sturdy, brown-haired young man of twenty-four, and the Lady Yambu, a gray but relatively youthful fifty-three. Both were armed and on foot, wearing common pilgrim gray.

  Over the past several years Yambu and Zoltan had developed a relationship resembling that of mother and son. They had been out of Tasavalta a great deal, often traveling together on one pilgrimage or another. Meanwhile they had remained on close and friendly terms with Prince Mark and the rest of Mark’s family, and it was not surprising that both of them had been in the vicinity of Sarykam when Vilkata’s latest attack fell upon the city.

  Karel, now doubly deluded, trying to be watchful and protective of his great Master, had followed Stephen to the gate, and was frowning out over his shoulder.

  The four people held their tableau for a long, silent moment in which Sightblinder helped assure Stephen that neither his cousin nor the lady were Mindsword-converts. But the lad quickly realized that they might well be seeing him as Vilkata and trying to play the role of faithful slaves.

  * * *

  Actually Yambu’s first look at Stephen had shown her the image of the Emperor; but then that form shifted, back and forth, in swift alternation with Vilkata’s. At the same time, Sightblinder’s magic held her enthralled, prevented her from realizing the scope of its deception. Understanding little more than the fact that something magical and out of the ordinary was taking place, she glared back proudly at the latest image of the Emperor, and stubbornly refused to speak.

  Zoltan was seeing the Dark King too, but interspersed with fleeting glimpses of a certain mermaid, a creature of importance in his past. Stephen’s cousin, quietly stunned, like Lady Yambu remained silent for the moment.

  Stephen, naturally enough, was first to recover from his surprise. Fiercely he ordered Karel to go and stand guard at the other end of the garden, the far side of the grounds surrounding Ben’s ruined house—then the young Prince put aside Sightblinder long enough to joyfully disillusion his newly-arrived friends.

  Before the three could do more than begin to exchange greetings, the elder wizard was coming back from the other end of the garden. Karel, obviously reluctant to leave his Master in what he perceived as a situation of potential danger, came near disobeying orders, and returned so swiftly that Stephen barely had time to grab up Sightblinder again.

  As he rejoined the small group, Karel looked suspiciously and anxiously at Stephen’s companions, and to his Master openly expressed his doubts that these people were really true faithful converts like himself.

  The young Prince hesitated. He did not dare reveal his true identity to Karel lest the old man try to kill him, as the armorer had done-and—Karel was vastly more formidable.

  After some argument he persuaded the old man to move away again, long enough for a hasty, whispered conversation to take place concerning him. It was obvious that much craft and energy would have to go into the job of managing the old wizard until he recovered from the Mindsword’s lingering influence. There was no known way, as far as any of his three friends knew, to hasten the recovery.

  It was Yambu who came up with what seemed a good suggestion. Stephen, speaking in Vilkata’s name, ordered Karel to mix himself a strong sleeping potion and drink it. “Something that will make you sleep for twenty-four hours.”

  Karel, though frowning, was unable to resist obeying a direct and forceful command from his Great Lord. Stephen’s Great-Uncle mixed the potion as commanded, dutifully conjuring up the necessary materials, along with a crystal cup, apparently out of nothing.

  Having quaffed the draught, the elder, his eyelids
already sagging, was put to sleep in a sheltered place under one of the broken walls of Ben’s house, in what his friends hoped would be safety, until he should waken, they hoped, in his right mind.

  “Will he be all right there?” Stephen asked, leaning against a half-ruined wall. He was feeling an immense relief at having someone he could talk to.

  Yambu shrugged. “We can only hope so. What else could we do with him?”

  * * * * * *

  Half a minute later, Stephen, with a profound sigh of relief, gave his two Swords temporarily into the care of his two friends, and sat down to rest his psyche and his body alike.

  There was no question in his mind about one thing: He had been simply unable to deal any longer with the pressure of carrying two Swords. If he hadn’t lost Shieldbreaker, he might have been forced to abandon it—to hide it on the slim chance he, or someone, could retrieve it before the Dark King’s magic succeeded in discovering the now-ownerless Sword.

  Dusk was deepening, and the three were busy comparing notes on recent events, when there came another movement at the garden gate, a cautious opening. The young Prince grabbed up Sightblinder again, then relaxed when the massive figure of Ben of Purkinje came into view. Stephen realized that Coinspinner was still at work for him, bringing him further reinforcement.

  Ben, cautiously entering the garden of his own ruined house and coming in sight of the occupants, stopped in his tracks as if he had sustained some heavy blow. He saw Stephen’s image transformed into that of a red-haired young woman, tall and strong, and for a soul-shaking moment it was possible for the huge man to believe that his long-lost Ariane was not dead after all.