King's Shield

by Sherwood Smith

  Tau turned back to the crowd of people alongside the road. Some sat in the trees planted by some long ago noble, or peered over the far older hedgerow; most stood out in the open, faces upturned. Many hostile, most awed, though they hadn’t meant to be. But the sight of the long, long columns of warriors on their beautiful horses with the tear-shaped shields and gleaming helms hanging at their sides, the warriors’ hair pulled up into those martial tails just like the horses’, the tight gray coats with the long skirts, the composite bows, and above all the long swords with the wickedly curved tips in the saddle sheaths—it all impressed them. The Marlovans rode so well—they made it look so easy—they seemed easy, talking quietly, or looking at the countryside, but not answering back because (though the watchers did not know it) the captains had issued orders that the men were to remain aloof, no matter what. No comments, no questions. If they didn’t look they wouldn’t see the backs of hands, or spitting. Most important of all, they were not to answer questions.

  It had been easy to ignore the first gawkers, but they had been coming out in greater numbers over the past couple of days. Now, within two days’ ride of the city up there on the slope, the warriors had other things to think about.

  Tau clucked to his mount, passing a pair of dragoons, one saying, “What’s that tall one with the long leaves?”

  “Corn,” his riding companion replied. “Don’t you southern boys know anything? That’s corn. Just you wait until you taste cornbread.”

  Tau was past, and did not hear the answer. A commotion ahead caught his attention: a signal from the outriders.

  Everyone’s attention snapped forward as dust rose around a pair galloping toward the great war banners at the front of the column. When the dust settled, the word passed back that Barend-Harskialdna Montrei-Vayir was with them.

  Two Harskialdnas!

  Inda hadn’t any such thought in his head. Alight with joy, he was about to yell “Barend!”

  Barend saw him, but his mouth stayed tight. His posture stiff.

  Inda’s joy cooled to question as Barend leaned back, clumsily halting the horse, who snorted, ears flat, whuffing in protest at the heavy hand on the reins. Barend snapped his fist to his chest, the salute returned thoughtfully by his cousin Evred-Harvaldar.

  Inda turned his gaze between the two, and as Evred gave the signal to ride on at a company trot, Barend slid a glance Inda’s way, one thin brow ever so slightly raised, a corner of his mouth curling up.

  Intrigued, Inda pulled back, ceding the Shield Arm position next to the king. For the first time, he dropped behind to ride with Signi and Tau.

  Tau took in the alert glances of the men behind them, the furtive whispers. Everyone expected something to happen.

  The king’s army camped directly south of the city of Ala Larkadhe within a hard day’s ride up the slope. Tau and Signi were taken by surprise when, in place of the usual drill, Evred gave the orders for two fires and then summoned the pair of Harskialdnas to his tent. Surprise was followed by apprehension when they witnessed the hand signal that Evred made when he wanted privacy, and the Runners formed an inside perimeter, not even Signi’s guards within earshot of the royal tent.

  In the privacy of his tent, Evred flicked a considering glance from one to the other, saw the unguarded grins, and his brow cleared. “Barend?”

  “We have to make it good, see.” Barend laughed. “Hawkeye agreed. Men have to see a tight win, commander against commander. Like pirates, Inda.” And when Inda made a noise of disgust, “If I rode in friendly, well, then they don’t expect a tight win.”

  Since his return home, Inda had come to the conclusion that his boyhood knowledge of history, once seemingly so complete, was far too sketchy. He smothered a laugh. “I’m to challenge you? I guess I can see it. But we really don’t want a pirate duel, do we? Guts on the deck?”

  Evred breathed in relief. He had not expected any trouble from his cousin, so the possibility had caught him up hard; and he had not even considered what Hawkeye had clearly foreseen. He said, “It has to look that way, they’re right.”

  “Why?” Inda sighed. “What does a fight, any kind of fight, have to do with us—” He smacked his gray coat. “—taking on the Venn invaders?”

  Barend jerked his chin outward, toward the camp. “It has to do with you looking so tough you’ll lead them into victory. That means they might actually survive.” Seeing Inda’s grimace of misgiving, he added, “Worked for our fleet, too. You never saw it on the ships, but they saw you. You were good with leading, good hand-to-hand. See?”

  “No. I don’t. Because a ship fight is so different from a battle this size, when maybe a hundred of them might see me. No one else will.”

  Barend waved him off. “Never mind what’s true. They have to see you win against me, and it has to be a fight better than anything they could win. Like one of our whoop-ups at Freedom. Even better. Then they’ll blab it to everyone else.”

  “Oh.” Inda grimaced down at his sleeve, which covered the scars on his arm. “Not with blood?”

  Barend’s eyes widened briefly, almost enough for one to see their color. “Of course with blood. But you’ll be airing more of mine.” He turned to Evred, and brushed his fingers against the front of his coat.

  Evred said, “He knows about the lockets, Barend. I have not been able to send anything for a couple of weeks.”

  “Us either. Weird, that,” Barend said, without much interest. He’d never expected magical things to work long, and now he no longer had to try to make out words from those tiny letters. “Here’s my report. Nightingale rode off to join up with Ola-Vayir.”

  “They’re at Lindeth already?”

  “No. No sign of ’em yet. So Hawkeye sent Nightingale south to find ’em.”

  “Nightingale’s presence will no doubt smooth the road with miraculous ease.” Evred’s voice had gone dry.

  “Just what Hawkeye said.” Barend gave his wheezy laugh, smacked the tent flap aside, and strode out.

  Evred said, “Whoop-up?”

  Amazing how often Fox’s name came near to mention. Inda gave his head a shake, one hand on the tent flap. “Display fights at Freeport Harbor, to attract captains to hire us. Later, to gain crew.”

  “Inda,” Evred said, his voice low, almost inaudible.

  Inda stiffened at the shift in Evred’s tone. He could not have defined it in words, but it burned warning along his nerves like a shower of wood sparks. Wafri’s voice had been like that at times.

  But this was Evred—and the subject was imminent war.

  Inda let the flap fall, cutting the flow of light. The two of them stood there in the hot, stuffy tent, each seeing the other mostly as shadow. Evred clasped his hands behind his back. “This fight. They’ll expect . . . Barend never wanted . . . will you consider making the change of commander permanent? I cannot think of any better benefit to the kingdom.”

  Inda stared. “You mean become your Harskialdna for life?”

  “Yes. Does that seem so impossible?”

  “Impossible? No. Yes!” Inda laughed, tossed dizzyingly between joy and astonishment. He’d spent his entire exile schooling himself to face the fact that he would never get what he wanted. People didn’t, sometimes. So you made a life as best you could.

  But since his return, what he’d wanted not only fell into his lap without his having to grasp for it, but more. Honor, rank—far more than he’d imagined even in the craziest homesick dream. “I . . . well. I. Ah, look. I’ll do whatever needs doing. You know that. And, well, if we survive this battle . . . well. I’d be honored.” His voice was no more than a gruff whisper, but it resonated with conviction.

  That resonance was so intense it was akin to pain. Evred unclasped his hands, one palm toward the tent flap.

  Inda almost leaped out, then jolted to a stop. He was not supposed to grin, or laugh, or give any sign of the fact that he’d just been offered the highest rank in the land after king. Not just for this battle, but for
life.

  All right, a show fight was what the men needed? He’d see that they got one.

  Schooling his face as best he could, he settled on a mat opposite Barend. Cherry-Stripe and Cama sat with him. Despite his attempt to remain impassive, everyone could see that Inda was tense, but they all mistook his uplifted chin, his compressed lips, his stillness, as challenge.

  Whispers rustled and hissed back through the men crowding forward.

  Evred emerged from his tent and sat between Barend and Rat Cassad, inscrutable as always.

  When the supper was over (cooked and eaten with unprecedented speed), Evred walked out between the two fires, something he’d never done before. By the time he’d taken half a dozen steps every man within sight stopped talking.

  Evred turned in a slow circle. “Barend-Dal Montrei-Vayir, my Harskialdna, has accepted a challenge from Indevan-Laef Algara-Vayir.”

  The men were so quiet (except for a furtive curse or two as the men in the back tried to shove their way forward enough to see) the crackling of the fires was clear in the balmy air.

  The duelists took off sashes and coats, handing them to Runners to hold. Barend loosened the top of his shirt laces to ease his breathing, but Inda ripped his free with an absent movement and tossed them aside; on the pirate ship he’d never fought with laces. Tau, on the watch, caught the silken cord from the air.

  Inda and Barend took their cavalry swords from waiting Runners, and at Evred’s silent gesture saluted him and then faced off, standing only in shirt and breeches and boots, knife in left hand and sword in right.

  “Begin,” Evred said, settling back onto his mat.

  They hurled themselves at one another, commencing a duel so wild, so unpredictable that the men crowded in on one another even more, leaning on those in front in an effort to follow the flurry of moves.

  Clash! Clang! One, then the other, was sent rolling, to leap up and whirl straight into a complexity of fast moves nearly impossible to follow. Balance, speed, precision raised fierce joy in fighters as well as watchers; unknown to the Marlovans, it was just the sort of showy mock-duel that Kodl used to choreograph back in the Freedom Island days to draw ship captains to hire marine defenders before their reputation had rendered such displays unnecessary. But they had always been great fun, especially when Fox designed them.

  At just the right moment Barend whirled, his sword hissing over Inda’s head—nearly slicing off his flapping horsetail—then scything toward his knees. Inda tumbled over the sword, landed kneeling, arm straight out, sword point toward the sky, hilt toward the ground, the other hand bringing his knife into guard.

  A single heartbeat later the square toes of Barend’s boots (he’d stopped his horse and put them on when he saw the army’s dust on the horizon) thunked smack under the hilt, sending the sword arcing over and over into the air. A small laugh escaped him, a brief flash of teeth, but by now the spectators were so intent that those few who caught it assumed it was the triumph of a man about to go in for the kill.

  His foot continued its arc, snapping a sidekick toward Inda’s head; he sheathed his knife, both moves beautifully coordinated. Inda tumbled away from the kick and rolled to his feet as Barend caught Inda’s sword hilt in his free hand, to a roar from the watchers.

  Inda pulled his second knife from the wrist sheath. Another susurrus whispered back.

  Barend stepped toward Inda, swinging both swords with bloodthirsty zeal. Inda whirled in, caught one blade on his crossed knives, kicked up backward to block the second blade, whipped the first arm down, twisted, and slammed his elbow into Barend’s gut.

  Barend doubled over, the swords flying—one nearly landing in the fire, the other skittering across the dirt. Barend kneed Inda, who flipped backward. Barend threw a knife, light glittering in runnels off the slowly spinning steel until Inda nipped it out of the air, causing a shout from the crowd. He threw it back.

  Barend kicked it whirling into the air, and caught it by the blade.

  Roar!

  They rolled to their feet and each gripped two knives as they circled, circled, then Barend attacked.

  Zing! Inda’s cross block ripped along the edge of Barend’s knife, sending sparks showering down, causing another shout.

  Now the fight was even faster, a blur of complicated moves: all the men could see were places the knife points had been, marked by gleaming crimson lines of blood on the combatants’ flesh. Forehead, shoulder, wrist, above a knee, cheekbone, arm bloomed with cherry spots of blood. Barend showed more cuts than Inda.

  Barend took three hard blows in a row, ending with Inda whirling to deliver a crushing sidekick in the gut. Barend folded, letting out a yell. Inda brought a knife hilt down against the back of his neck. Barend slammed to the ground and stayed there.

  Inda walked to the edge of the circle while Barend took his time rising to a sitting position, then standing; Vedrid and the Runners surrounded him with strips of cloth to bind up the cuts, which they discovered were extremely superficial. Precise. Inda shook blood off his arm and wiped the nick on his temple, smearing it as he turned in a slow circle. “Are there anymore challenges?”

  Silence. Profound silence.

  “I ask again, anymore challenges?”

  No one moved.

  Inda faithfully repeated what he’d remembered from the old ballad, surprised at how serious he sounded even to himself. “For the third and last time I ask, are there any challenges?”

  Cherry-Stripe discovered he’d grabbed Cama’s arm when the latter, with a faint smile, peeled his fingers off one by one. Noddy whistled silently under his breath. He had an idea that that fight had something odd about it, but only because Barend had fallen directly in front of him. Surely a man whose stomach had just been flattened against his spine wouldn’t be grinning as he went down.

  Inda turned slowly, meeting wide gazes in which the fires twinned. Listen to me, he thought. Whatever it takes to believe you can win.

  The Sier Danas had watched intently, Cherry-Stripe trying to figure out whether it had been serious or not. Cama had figured it out from the first move, so he’d watched in silent appreciation, wondering if he was ever going to meet Fox Montredavan-An. Probably not.

  What surprised Noddy was the intensity in Inda; he just did not seem the same person they rode with every day, even the same one who scrapped so deftly with Taumad-Runner each morning behind the command tents.

  An impulse caused Noddy to flick a glance Evred’s way, to catch an avidity in his old mate who was usually the model of reserve. He realized the impulse had come from hearing Evred’s breathing; and that explained why Evred and Hadand, who so noticeably admired each other, behaved like brother and sister. Noddy was surprised at the sense of rightness he felt at the idea of Inda and Evred heart-bound.

  Then Inda spun about, smacking the knife blade against his heart in a gesture more extravagant than anything Tau had ever seen on the stage—but it worked. “Evred-Harvaldar, I present myself to be sworn as your Harskialdna.”

  Evred stood, remote again. “Bring me your sword.”

  Noddy, leaning forward, observed little signs that his first impression was wrong. Or almost wrong. Evred was ardent, his speech only to Inda. They all could have vanished right then, would he have noticed? But Inda spoke to everyone in hearing, not just to Evred.

  Evred’s vowing to Inda, and Inda to the Marlovan king. Noddy sat back, grimacing. Was that good, or not? He usually didn’t think about such things. And he wouldn’t now, either, he decided, reaching for the wine being passed from hand to hand.

  Signi alone had not enjoyed the mock duel, nor did she like the intensity in these young, determined faces. She and Tau were the only ones who saw the tremor in Evred’s hand as Inda dropped to one knee before him and held up the sword.

  In those days Marlovans knelt when making their first vows at Convocation, at promotion on the field, or at public judgment.

  “I, Evred-Harvaldar, call you, Indevan Algara-Vayir, to b
ecome my Harskialdna, Royal Shield Arm.”

  Then—assailed by hoarse, fervent cries of approval from all around them—he offered the hilt of his own sword to Inda.

  Inda rose, flushing, and took the sword as Harskialdna, and raised it.

  “Do you swear,” Evred said in his throne room voice, “to defend me, and by defending me, defend Iasca Leror, with your body and your blood, your heart and your mind, as long as you shall live?”

  Inda spoke the words, his halting voice sounding to his own ears like it came from someone else. Tau, blocked by the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd of Marlovans, heard Inda’s voice for the first time just as a voice—unexpectedly deep and resonant when he pitched it just so.

  Tau clasped his hands together, thinking, For six years you called no one master. I hope you know what you are doing.

  Signi kept Inda in her gaze, even though her eyes blurred. This was the time of life when the young, so new to adulthood, gave structure and meaning to their lives with vows. Sometimes so blithely spoken, so heartfully meant—sometimes so very hard to keep.

  “. . . then you shall be my eyes and my ears, and my right arm. And you shall speak with the King’s Voice at all corners of the kingdom.”

  Signi laid her palms together, breathing May the Stars above the Tree light the path for the both of you—and then the two clashed the blades together, sending sparks arcing skyward.

  Inda and Evred returned together to the mats as the solid-packed crowd stirred and slowly broke up. Some brought out hand drums, and the ballads began, this time not in groups here and there, but everyone singing together, voices ringing with conviction.

  Inda sat at Evred’s left again. He sang all the songs he knew, his voice clear and unexpectedly melodic. He thumped time on his knee to the ones he didn’t know, but joined the chorus as soon as he had some of the words. Tau had never before heard Inda sing. On Evred’s other side, Barend-Dal Montrei-Vayir also sang, tuneless as a crow, but just as full of conviction. He was still the king’s cousin, and still would command as Evred directed, but he was no longer Harskialdna.