The Silver Bracers (Lady Blade, Lord Fighter Book 1)

by Sharon Green

  I stopped for an instant to force those thoughts out of my mind, then went on again with only that faint hesitation to show what my emotions had tried to put me through. If my family was dead then the ones who had done it would follow behind them, more slowly and painfully than their worst nightmares had ever hinted was possible, and not before they had told me who was ultimately responsible for what had been done. Then it would be their leader's turn, and I would show him things I'd learned from Blades who came from the eastern mountains, things that were passed on in shuddering whispers by those who hadn't, like the mountain dwellers, grown up with them. Someone wanted me rather badly, but when they got me they would be as far from pleased as it's possible to get.

  We reached the end of the family wing and moved out into more public parts of the castle, still meeting and hearing no one, and then Oeran paused to wave a hand at me. That was the signal that told me he now knew where he was, and it proved to be true. At the next intersecting corridor he led his group to the left, which would get them to the stone stairway leading down to the cells it was his job to find. If the cells were empty he would have something of a problem - and so would we - but that could be worried about if and when it happened. My primary concern was finding the hostages - assuming they were still alive - and getting as close as possible to them before anyone was released. After that simple chaos would look like calm, and three swords would be able to do as much damage as thirty.

  At the intersection Oeran took to the left, I led the way right. If my sisters were being held in their apartments there would have been guards in the family wing, so that meant everyone was more or less together. If I had been running things for the enemy I would have done it just that way, keeping my sisters close to my father but not exactly with him, so that if he made any trouble they could be killed before he had a chance to reach them. I think that if my sisters had been boys my father would have tried anyway, but he had the same strange outlook so many men seemed to have. Death is acceptable and honorable if it comes to men and male children, but the thought of the same happening to girls is appalling and horrifying. That's because women are child-bearers, I could almost hear Veslin saying in my mind, more important to the race and therefore, unfortunately, more restricted. It may not be fair, but that’s the way it is … the way it is … the way it is …

  Rull's hand on my shoulder stopped me in mid-step, bringing me back from a distraction I couldn't believe I'd fallen into. I was either more tired than I'd believed or I was an idiot, letting my mind wander when - When there was the sound of voices ahead! Excitement surged through me at the proof that my guess had been right, that my father and sisters were being held in my father's wing of the castle, where there was easier access to other parts of it. Voices and shadow movement were coming from the partially opened door leading to the smallest of the private dining halls, the one that held a board seating no more than twenty-five. The door was ajar but there were no guards in front of it, showing how safe the enemy felt here in the heart of my home. I felt my lips twist and then peel back from my teeth, the snarl rising up in me, visual but silent. Feeling safe is not the same as being safe, a truism the enemy was about to learn.

  Rull obviously wanted to take over the lead from that point, but I moved away from his hand and ahead before he could step in front of me. We weren't in the Company, we were on my home ground, and our Fist was temporarily broken anyway. I thought I could feel him cursing in the whispered breath of no-sound that trailed me as I ghosted forward, but that was no place for an argument and he knew it as well as I. I hugged the right wall of the corridor, being careful of where my shadow from the torches fell, and in moments was sliding up to the door to the dining hall. From that close the voices were a good deal more distinct, and when I went down to my knees and peered around the door edge, I could see as well as hear.

  '' … won't do either of you any good," the louder voice was saying, a voice that would have been more familiar without the ring of absolute authority it was now maintaining. ''Why suffer needlessly, when we already have part of the information? Give me the rest of it, and then we can wait quietly for your ransom to be paid."

  ''My lord has nothing to say, and neither have I," Traixe stated from where he stood between two guards, the calm, steady words worlds more impressive due to the fact that he wasn't standing on his own. The men to either side of him were the ones holding him up, necessary in view of what Traixe had been put through. His brown leather shirt was gone, some of the wounds gouged into his hard body were still bleeding, and a number of the burn marks looked as though they were beginning to suppurate.

  My father sat in the large, ornate wooden chair meant to head the board in that dining hall, but the board had been pushed back and to the right of the door I peered through. His chair stood almost in the middle of the room to the left, and when his fists clenched I could see that he was tied to the arm rests by the wrists. His face was expressionless, but the hatred pouring out of his eyes was strong enough to melt the stone of the walls, a hatred that should have done more than annoy his captor. I could see that the man was not only a traitor but a fool, to have served my father for three years and yet not have learned anything about him.

  ''Really, Duke Rilfe, you’re usually a good deal more reasonable than this,'' Sir Fonid protested, the annoyance the traitor felt sharpening his voice. ''Do I have to have Traixe flayed before your eyes before you'll tell me what I want to know? You're making him suffer for nothing, trying to hide the locations of tunnels I already partially know about. The secret is out, so you no longer really have anything to hide. Tell me where the rest of them are, and I'll have your man here taken to the healer."

  ''My man there, as you call him, knows better than to expect healing from you," my father grated, his body still except for the way his wrists pulled at the leather holding them. ''He won't survive this any more than I will, especially if we tell you what you want to know. You'll then be behind my heir's guard the same way you slipped behind mine, and he won't have any idea that you're there. I won't give you his life on a platter, and neither will Traixe."

  "Your heir," Sir Fonid said with a snort of derision, glancing to his right to where Traixe was being held erect. ''You won't have an heir until the elder of those two girls reaches an age to marry, and then the choice of who it is will belong to whomever is appointed her and her sister's regent. By then all of this will have been forgotten, and if the proper choice is made I won't need to use the information you give me. At this point there's very little chance that the proper choice won't be made, but I prefer to play it safe. Tell me what I want to know."

  "You act as though my daughter Sofaltis were already dead," my father said, his tone suddenly brittle as he ignored Sir Fonid's demand. ''I won't believe she's dead, so what you've said is - ''

  ''No, of course she's not dead, nor will she be," the traitor interrupted, now impatient enough to gesture the thought aside. "Our leader has other plans for her, much more important plans than providing you an heir through marriage, which is why we attempted to disrupt the ceremony. But none of that is truly your concern. What does concern you is the question I've asked, the answer to which I will have this very moment. If Traixe's pain fails to move you to a reply, we'll see if the same may be said with your youngest daughter in his place.”

  Again Rull's hand came to me as I stiffened, a mild reaction compared to the twisting agony to be seen on my father's face. Rull was trying to make sure I'd noticed that the ''rebels" holding Traixe and standing around in the room were tan-leathered mercenaries rather than clumsy ex-villagers in home-spun, but I'd already seen that for myself and dismissed it as a problem. Nothing and no one was going to keep me from freeing my family, and giving Traixe the spilling of other blood due him. I began to gather myself - and an interruption came from an unexpected source.

  ''Sir Fonid, really, everything you've said is quite unacceptable,'' a voice I knew protested, and then he walked into my line of sight from the
right side of the room. The man Timper, who had brought me my father's letter, still dressed in tights and tunic and looking like a pompous page.

  ''This is none of your affair, man,'' Sir Fonid snapped in greater annoyance, barely turning his head in the direction of the one who approached him from behind. "Go back to your place by the children and keep silent.''

  "I do believe I've kept silent long enough," Timper answered with a sniff, his familiar disapproval of things more than obvious. ''I strongly doubt that our blessed leader would approve of harming innocent children, and you may be certain he will hear of your intentions on the point. As for the lady Sofaltis, she will most certainly not be made to leave these halls. This is her home and she will remain here, far from those who have taught her such unladylike habits."

  ''So you believe you know the intentions of our leader better than I?" Sir Fonid asked with poisoned sweetness, this time turning full to face the other man. ''You, a thickheaded messenger boy incapable of performing even the simplest of tasks? The girl was to have been taken at the last of the inns before the two of you reached the city, but even sending a message to our people at the proper time was beyond you - as was holding her there until they arrived. Do you deny that?''

  ''Through no fault of my own, I fell ill the night of our arrival," Timper replied stiffly, what I could see of his left cheek beginning to turn red. ''When your man came to me instead, I told him which room was the girl’s. Is the fault to be mine that he had no stomach for facing alone a girl who was armed? He set out to make the attempt, then abandoned it to fetch his followers instead. In the morning I meant to pretend to still be ill, holding the lady there with concern until the others might arrive, but her eagerness to be home led her to depart extremely early, leaving me no more than a message of her intentions. When I learned of her departure, I was very upset.''

  "You were very upset," Sir Fonid mimicked, looking Timper up and down in disgust. "And the night before you were too ill to help my man against not a girl who was armed, but a Blade of a Fist! What help you might have been I couldn't begin to imagine, unless it would have been to distract her attention while your betters took advantage of that distraction. And you may give your thanks to Grail that the girl's escape from the wagon taking her north was due to the negligence of those in charge of her, not to the rescue of those who followed a trail left by a badly damaged wheel. Your denial concerning that odd occurrence fails to strike me as wholly truthful, as I'm certain it would strike our leader if he were told of it.''

  "And I'm certain our leader would agree that the girl's proper place is here,'' Timper returned, still stiffly embarrassed but making no attempt to deny the charge leveled against him. ''She cannot be central to our leader's plans for she is no more than a woman, and has not the leader himself taught that a woman's proper place is in a man's home? These other, unacceptable, concepts must surely be yours, part and parcel of your fear of the girl. I, however, feel nothing of such fear, therefore will I accept my clear duty and keep the girl here - as my own wife.''

  "Ah, so that's the way the wind blows, does it?'' Sir Fonid said with a laugh and a sneer, the understanding in his expression heavy with ridicule. ''Your certainty about all of these matters, not to speak of your odd illnesses and doings, all stem from the fact that you want the girl for yourself! How it pains me to tell you, boy, that the burning in your loins has warped what little intelligence you began with. One such as you would never be allowed the wedding of the daughter of a duke, even if she weren't meant for other things. You've overstepped yourself far more than you know.''

  ''How dare you,'' Timper choked, his outrage actually tightening his hands to fists at his sides. ''I am a gentleman, Sir Fonid, far more than you can truthfully lay claim to, and have been a loyal follower of the leader and Grail a good deal longer than you. I will have no upstart intruder speak to me of overstepping, most especially one so honorless as you. Did you not have a need to imagine reasons to wish the lady Sofaltis away, I am convinced you would have raised not a single finger to keep her from being sacrificed in marriage to that - that - "

  ''Devil of a duke's son," Sir Fonid finished for him, the words low and filled with loathing. ''I despise all of the nobility, but most especially do I despise those who think themselves better than we who are clearly their superiors, in intellect if nothing else. Petty nobles such as you, boy, one at least who need no longer be tickled to his fancy."

  Timper seemed ready to pursue the argument, but whatever he would have said was lost as Sir Fonid reached to the dagger sheathed at his belt and slowly began to draw it. Not even someone as innocently overbearing as Timper could have missed Sir Fonid's intention, and he didn't miss it. The young courier hesitated almost no time at all before starting to back away, but once again the scene was interrupted. From what seemed like a good distance away I heard the sound of a scream, echoing faintly from the stone of the walls with even fainter sounds of battle behind it, and those in the hall were able to hear the same. Sir Fonid stopped in the middle of his advance, cocked his head with a look of astonishment on his face, then snarled with searing hatred and began to turn to the mercenaries in the room. It didn't take much to know he was about to order his hostages slain, but that's what we were here to prevent.

  As fast as I straightened and began to run into the room, it still wasn't so fast that Rull and Foist weren't already moving with me, three minds and swords with the same thought and intention. Again everything began to happen so rapidly it was difficult to separate and follow it, nothing but flashes here and there sketching in the whole of the picture. Sir Fonid whirled toward us without being able to give the order he had been about to, but the mercenaries didn't need orders to know that they had a fight on their hands. The two holding Traixe dropped him as they began to reach for their weapons, the others in the hall coming alive even faster, but we who were attacking still had the reaction edge on them. Rull headed left, toward the largest block of mercenaries, Foist to the right to the corner where my sisters sat on crude pallets, trembling together in fear, and I - I went straight ahead and only slightly left toward my father, Traixe, - and Sir Fonid.

  The chief traitor still stood with his dagger in his hands, the snarl of hatred just about etched into his face, but this time he wasn't facing a helpless Timper. I could have told him how much good a dagger was against a sword, but I had no urge to talk to the man and even less urge to waste time on him before those two mercenaries behind him were taken care of. My father and Traixe were still in a good deal of danger, so changing that had to be my first objective. I reached Sir Fonid, coming in close enough to lure him into swinging clumsily with his inadequate weapon, knocked it down with the flat of my blade, then arched up in a backswing and clipped him hard in the temple with the fingerguard of my sword. He dropped like a rock loosed from the battlements, and then it was me against the two mercenaries.

  Fighting alone against two swords can be tricky, but no more than that if the two you're facing aren't used to fighting together. I breathed a little easier when the first clash of blades showed me the two probably hadn't even talked much to each other, let alone fought in tandem, and I felt a faint smile forming at their expressions of frustration. They'd had the time to kill their two hostages before I reached them, had decided to wait because it was only a girl who was coming at them, and then discovered that the girl's weapon had the ability to move them around and away from the men they'd been guarding. Slashing hard and swinging purely on the offensive, I'd driven them away from where they'd been to stand with my back to my father and a Traixe struggling ineffectively to get to his feet. At that point I went more on the defensive, intent on holding at the very least until the now free House Guard and Fighters made it through the rest of the intruders and got to the dining hall.

  ''Traixe, untie me!" my father hissed frantically from where he sat, his words low in a clear attempt not to distract me. The mercenary on the left came in then, trying for a backswing to catch my blade long
enough for his friend to finish me, but his friend wasn't expecting the move and was therefore too far to my right. Instead of using my weapon I twisted right myself, brought up the bracer to catch the swing and stop it, then ignored the jarring crash to my left arm to twist back and lunge hard with my point into the fool's unprotected middle. He'd taken the chance of opening himself wide in order to reach me, and was rewarded by being able to rest from the fight - permanently.

  I jerked my blade free of the falling body in time to keep the second mercenary from chopping me down, and once he'd disengaged and fallen back a short way I risked a fast glance behind me before returning my attention to my remaining opponent. The afterimage in my mind showed me the picture of my father fighting the leather tying him to the heavy chair, the air filled with the waves of his silent cursing, Traixe stretched out unconscious not a foot from him. His old friend had tried to free him, that I knew even without having seen it, but Traixe just hadn't had enough strength left. The mercenary came in again then, giving me no chance to try doing the thing myself, I thought, and then I understood his real reason. Three of his blademates were abruptly attacking with him, ones who had apparently gotten past a hard-pressed Rull, and they were no longer looking grim and frustrated. Four was usually enough to finish off one, and then my father would be their prisoner and hostage again.