The Warlock's Last Ride

by Christopher Stasheff

  "Gently, Voyaunt, gently." Elise stroked the hound's neck but didn't sound too sure herself.

  Fess stirred, and his words filled Rod's head through the implanted earphone. If the hound springs, Rod, I shall block his way before he can reach you.

  "Nice to be able to concentrate on my work without worry," Rod muttered. "With luck, the wound won't have begun to, with thanks, Fess-ter."

  "Pray not!" Elise said with a shudder.

  Only my duty, Rod, the horse assured him.

  Rod laid aside the padding and the blood-soaked linen shirt beneath. The rip was long and ugly. Rod frowned. "It was no sword that made this wound, Dame Elise, unless it had a serrated edge. Who did this knight come to confront?"

  "He… he said he merely wished to patrol the park, Sir Rodney, for he thought there might have been poachers about."

  "And he went against them without his game wardens?" Rod shook his head as he pulled out a cloth and a small bottle that looked as though it contained brandy but really held iodine. He poured some on the cloth and pressed it into the wound as he said, "A knight wouldn't wear armor to brace a few poachers."

  "So I thought, but he said he must not become too accustomed to riding without the weight of steel plate." Elise's voice quavered. The hound growled at her anxiety, but she stroked it to calmness.

  "If he meant to exercise, he would have gone to the tilt-yard." Rod placed over the wound a cloth that had been impregnated with antiseptic and clotting agent, then began to wind a bandage around it. "We'll take him home, and when I'm sure the flow has slackened, I'll stitch him up."

  "Stitch?" Elise asked, wide-eyed.

  Rod nodded. "Just as you would a torn garment." He realized that the young woman had been watching him carefully not just out of fear that he might harm her husband, but also to study how he cured the wound. He began to unbuckle the rest of the armor. "However, it won't help him to be carried back with this weight on him."

  "Ahhh! He shells the sweetmeat for us!" cawed a voice high in a tree.

  Rod cawed back, projecting thoughts with the sound. "Yes, but then I'm stealing him from you, greedy ones. Go seek a dead polecat for dinner!"

  "Faugh! How unmannerly of you, to insult us so!"

  "Oh, all right," Rod said, relenting. "I passed a dead boar half a mile back. Go stuff yourselves with pork." Even as he said it, he wondered if the same blade that had killed the boar had also wounded this knight.

  "Ah! Many thanks for this kind information, human!" The ravens raised their wings.

  "Wait!" Rod called. "A favor for a favor, information for information! Do you know the road to Tir Nan Og?"

  "Tir Nan Og?" The third raven turned a blank stare to his mates.

  "I have heard of it," the second said. " 'Tis the Land of Youth, the place the Wingless Ones think they go when they die."

  "Fools! They come only to us." The first clacked his beak in contempt.

  "Aren't ravens supposed to know everything that moves in Middle Earth?" Rod called.

  "Belike, for there are ravens in every county," the third replied, "but how are we to know what a raven a thousand miles distant has seen?"

  "He speaks of fable," the first said, and turned to Rod. " 'Tis not ravens you seek, bare-skin, but crows."

  "Aye, two crows!" the second agreed. "Their names are Hugi and Munin, and they sit on the shoulders of the All-Father Odin."

  "No, those aren't quite the feathered wizards I had in mind," Rod said with a smile. "Well, let me know if you do learn of that road from one of your friends."

  "We shall, but we see them rarely," the first raven told him. "Where shall we find you, soft one?"

  "Prithee let him be," said the second, "for with nonsense like his, he shall come to us soon enough."

  "Or we to him," the third agreed. "Go your way, human, and be assured we shall find you when the time has come."

  Rod managed to keep the smile in place. "Better make sure no one beats you to that boar, hadn't you?"

  "Indeed!" All three ravens leaped into the air, beating their wings to rise above the treetops, then coasting down the wind toward the dead boar.

  Shaking his head in disbelief, Rod turned back to the knight and his wife to find her staring at him in amazement. "I could almost have thought, sir, that you spoke to those birds!"

  "I'm good at bird-calls," Rod told her, "and it worked—I got them to go away."

  The lady shuddered. "I am right glad you did, for they are truly birds of ill omen!"

  "Just creatures trying to make a living, like the rest of us." Rod inspected the bandage around the knight's shoulder. "His wound has clotted enough to make it safe to move him. Let's finish taking his armor off."

  "A wise thought." The lady turned to husking her husband so efficiently that Rod knew she had done it many times before. He only wondered if it was her husband's armor she had removed, or her own.

  He managed to push the knight up onto Fess's back, then leaned him against the horse's neck and tied him into place. "Walk by him, lady, on one side, and I'll walk on the other." Rod gave her a glance of concern. "Though you shouldn't be walking far just now."

  "I've a cart at the edge of the wood," she told him with a grateful smile. "Be sure I have no wish to lose Sir Reginald's son!"

  Or daughter, Rod thought, but only nodded. "Not too long a walk, then—and the cart will be a better place for him than horseback. Let's go."

  Fortunately, the route the lady showed him didn't go past the dead boar.

  The Mocker strode through the house, snapping, "Meeting! Now! News!"

  Each agent stopped what he or she was doing, stopped to stare at the retreating back of their new and former chief. They had each wondered what news the dusty messenger had brought; now they were about to find out. They rose from their desks and hurried to the keeping room.

  They found the Mocker already seated at the head of the table, drumming his fingers in impatience. As the last agent came into the room, he snapped, "Right! News has come! Gallowglass has left his home!"

  "Left!"

  "Gone off?'

  "Where?"

  "Why?"

  "As to 'gone off'—yes," the Mocker said. "As to 'where,' he seems to be wandering through a forest with no particular purpose in mind. As to why, I assume it's his way of dealing with grief."

  The agents were silent a moment, staring at their chief. Then one said, "What happens now?"

  "I don't know," the Mocker said with a certain degree of relish. "This isn't the way things happened in the timeline I just left."

  "You mean he's changing the future?"

  "Right. In history as I know it, that gawky eldest son of theirs left the planet again as soon as his mother was buried—some sort of argument with his siblings. The Gallowglass stayed with them—for comfort, we've thought; at least, that was the historians' verdict."

  "Now it seems that the comfort was theirs, not his," a woman said.

  "Perhaps, although I scarcely think that hulk of a boy could have given much reassurance in his place."

  The room fell silent for a moment, agents glancing at one another, then glancing away.

  "What?" The Mocker glared around at them. "What information are you withholding?"

  "Not really information," another woman said. "Just a guess… from the reports our agents inside Castle Gallowglass have been sending, we'd wondered if… well…"

  "Spit it out!"

  "That woman that's with the eldest," a man said. "She seems to be horrendously insecure, but maybe that's a comfort to the Gallowglass heirs in itself. Certainly, by intention or accident, she seems to be able to prevent friction."

  "An empath?" The Mocker frowned.

  "Maybe a projective empath," the first woman said. "The accounts make it clear she visits with each of them, and they feel more confident afterward."

  "That's simply the effect any weakling has on people who are unsure of their own importance!"

  "The reports don't paint her as
a weakling," the second woman snapped.

  The Mocker glared at her until she lowered her gaze.

  "She definitely is a telepath, at least," the man said.

  The Mocker sat back, thumbs in his belt. "Then perhaps we need to remove her from the equation."

  Nobody looked particularly happy at the idea. The Mocker frowned, wondering why, then shoved the idea aside. "We'll table that. We can always send an assassin later. For the moment, we'll have to split up the siblings, set them against one another."

  Everyone nodded at that. After all, it was obvious; the second generation of Gallowglasses were virtually unbeatable, as long as they all worked together.

  "The Mist Monsters…" another man said.

  The Mocker frowned. "I read the reports. Difficult to believe, I admit, but on this benighted planet, anything could happen."

  "It did," the agent assured him. "It seems they need to be invited in, and the advance guard of illusions they sent were doing a fine job of wangling that invitation until the Gallowglass brats interfered."

  The Mocker nodded slowly. "Send an agent to persuade the peasants to work themselves up to inviting monsters in, eh?"

  "It worked once," the man said, "though we weren't behind it."

  "You should have been! All of that will take time, though. Meanwhile, I think I had better contact our enemies."

  "The High Warlock?" a third woman gasped. "But he'll recognize you!"

  "Not him—SPITE!"

  They all sat back, appalled. "That is consorting with the enemy," a second man said.

  "We can use them to help us get rid of the Gallowglasses, then chop them down." The Mocker's gesture made it seem a simple matter. "We'll have them spring their coup at the same time that we engineer our peasant uprising."

  The agents looked at one another in surprise; then one nodded in reluctant approval. "It could work—but what do we do with SPITE afterwards?"

  "There won't be any SPITE afterwards," the Mocker said, "at least, not on this planet. We'll have agents among the palace guards assigned to shoot down their agents right after they've done in the Gallowglasses."

  "It would be nice to have revenge on them at last." The third young woman gazed off into space.

  Even the Mocker decided he didn't want to know what scene she was imagining.

  Sir Reginald was only a knight, not a lord, so the dwelling Elise led Rod to was a manor house, not a castle, though it was clearly fortified, and they rode on a drawbridge over a moat to come to its front door. Servants and men-at-arms came pouring out as soon as the cart rolled into the yard.

  "Take your master to his bed," Rod told them, "and bear him gently; I'd rather his wound didn't open again."

  "We shall indeed." But the steward cast a doubtful look at Rod, unsure of his right to give orders.

  The lady saw. "How are you called, Sir Knight?" she asked Rod again, for the benefit of those listening.

  "Rodney," he answered.

  "Sir Rodney came upon us in the forest," the lady informed her steward—and the rest of the servants who were listening.

  They paused in the act of pulling the knight onto an improvised stretcher, staring at Rod. Then the steward nodded in respect. "As you bid us, Sir Rodney. Quickly, lads! Bear him to his bed!"

  The soldiers took the stretcher and paced quickly up the stairs and into the house.

  "Had it not been for him, your master would have bled to death on the road," the lady informed the rest of the soldiers and servants, "even if I could have pulled him into the cart myself."

  "Lady, you should not have gone alone!" an older woman chided.

  "You were right to tell me so, Nurse, for I… Ahhh!" The lady doubled over with pain.

  "It is the child! All this parading and worry has brought it before its time!" The older woman bustled up to the cart, arms up to catch. "Some of you stout oafs help your lady down!"

  Three footmen jumped forward and lifted as much as helped the lady down into the nurse's arms. Scolding the servants and soothing the lady, she helped her into the house, one painful step at a time. The next spasm took her on the threshold, but the lady throttled her reaction to a groan.

  "Upstairs and into your bed," the nurse said severely. "The child must be born in its rightful place and time!"

  They went on into the house, the footmen following anxiously in case they were needed to carry their mistress up the stairs.

  The steward turned back to Rod. "Will you take some refreshment, Sir Rodney?"

  "Not a bad idea." Rod dismounted. "After I'm done sewing up his wound, that is."

  The steward goggled. "Sewing?"

  CHAPTER TEN

  "I do very fine stitchery." Rod took first-aid kit out of the saddlebag again and turned to follow the steward. "Show me his room."

  Rod came into a room, which, by its barrenness and the narrowness of the bed, was clearly not used much; the footmen had had the good sense to take their master to a spare chamber. A single tapestry softened one wall, and the windows onto the courtyard did let in sunlight to brighten the cold stone walls. A chest stood against another wall, a table and two chairs against a third. The footmen had finished undressing the knight and put him in his bed. He lay with a sheet pulled over him, still unconscious—and, in medieval sleeping style, naked.

  Rod pulled up a chair beside him, laid the kit on the bed, and took out a needle pre-threaded with sterilized gut. He unfolded the cloth that attempted to keep germs out and told one of the soldiers, "Hold the wound closed when I take off the dressing."

  "Aye, Sir Knight." The soldier stepped close, still a little alarmed for his lord—and very interested.

  Rod unwound the bandage and inspected the wound. The bleeding seemed to have stopped under the clotting, but slight pressure set it oozing again while, with telekinetic touches, he made sure there were no bits of metal hidden in the flesh. Rod nodded, satisfied, and took another sterile cloth to wipe the wound again—with alcohol. "Push," he directed the soldier, and began sewing, as, with telekinesis, he began to knit the muscles together.

  When the wound was stitched and bandaged. Rod sat for a minute or so, studying his patient—and not really probing his thoughts, but certainly paying attention to any images that floated to the surface of his mind. Probably unnecessary—there was no reason to think the man wouldn't regain consciousness—but just in case…

  At last he stood up, stretching, then folded up his first-aid kit.

  The steward, who had hovered nearby, said, "There is rest and refreshment near, Sir Knight."

  "Good idea." Rod nodded. "I could do with a stoup of ale, and there's certainly no shortage of people to watch over him." To the nearest soldier, he said, "Call me as soon as your master is awake."

  "I shall, Sir Knight," the man assured him with a little bow.

  Rod returned it with a nod and followed the steward out of the room. As they came to the top of the stair, a quavering cry, half-gasp and half-moan, echoed down the hall. Rod paused, frowning at the double door at the end of the corridor, then started downstairs after the steward, telling the man, "Send word to the women—that your mistress should go ahead and scream. This is no time for self-control."

  The man stared at Rod as though he had come from Elfland but said, "I will, Sir Rodney." It didn't take telepathy to see that the man was wondering how this knight knew anything of women's matters.

  He took Rod into a small chamber near the kitchen—a pantry, at a guess, but Rod wasn't about to protest; the solar was on the second floor, and the lady should at least have some privacy this day. A bowl of fruit stood ready by a mug of ale. Rod sank into an hourglass-shaped chair with a sigh, took a sip, then looked up at the steward again. "Tell the women to call me at once if there is any difficulty in the birth."

  "I shall, Sir Knight." The steward bowed and departed, clearly amazed at the notion that a man should know anything about birth.

  Alone in the pantry, Rod gazed at the grid of light on the bottle-glass w
indow and mused, thinking over the events of the morning and wondering what the missing piece was that would make the whole pattern take shape. A knight had gone out alone—in the darkness before dawn, probably, considering how early was the hour in which Rod had found him. He had clearly expected battle, or he wouldn't have worn armor—but his wife had known nothing of his going. From what threat had he sought to shield her? And what enemy would require single combat without the presence of even a squire?

  There was no assurance the other guy wouldn't have brought a small army—which meant the knight was either going to meet a blackmailer (but why the armor?), answering a challenge to single combat, or going after a suspected threat that he wasn't sure existed.

  Rod decided on the third.

  "Sir Rodney." The steward was at the door. "Sir Reginald is conscious, but tosses as though with a fever."

  "Delirious," Rod interpreted. "Well, I can do something about that." He stood, picking up his first-aid kit. "Lead on. By the way, steward, what's your name?"

  "Michael Duff, Sir Rodney."

  "Figures."

  A full-throated scream rent the air as they reached the top of the stairs; Rod nodded with satisfaction.

  "How long will the labor be, Sir Rodney?" the steward asked nervously.

  "No way to tell, Michael Duff."

  The steward glanced over his shoulder at the guest and risked informality. "Most call me Mick, Sir Rodney."

  "Mick you shall be," Rod promised. "Let's see your master."

  The knight tossed in his bed, mumbling incoherently—unless he rolled onto the wounded shoulder, in which case the mumbling turned into a cry of pain. Rod sat beside him, frowned down at the man for a moment while his thoughts probed his patient's delirium, then laid a hand on his forehead and said sternly, "Sir Reginald, awaken!"

  The knight stilled as Rod's thoughts calmed his; then the pain bit, and his back arched as he pulled in a long, shuddering gasp.

  "It will mend," Rod assured him.

  Another scream echoed down the hall.

  Sir Reginald tried to sit bolt upright. "What…"