The Book of Swords

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  “It’s been a week,” grumbled Sir Hereward, quickly wrinkling his nose several times in an attempt to warm it.

  “It has been six days and we are some considerable distance from the High Pale,” commented Mister Fitz. “Hmmm…”

  “What was that?” asked Sir Hereward. The puppet’s senses were far more acute than his own, particularly for things beyond the ordinary. And even more so when Hereward had a cold coming on. His ears were beginning to be blocked as a consequence of that cold, but he did think he might have heard a distant, fading scream, suddenly cut off.

  “Xavva-Tish-Laqishtax has found some more people to consume,” said Mister Fitz. “No…not entirely, it seems. It has left some fragment of spiritual essence within the husks.”

  Sir Hereward grimaced at the word “husks” and almost remonstrated with Mister Fitz for describing people in such a fashion. But he did not, for he knew the term was entirely accurate and Mister Fitz did not welcome sentimentality over verisimilitude. Whatever was left of the people after the godlet’s devouring passage would indeed be no more than husks, things of flesh without thought or purpose. Unless they were given purpose by a greater power.

  “It fills them with its will,” reported Mister Fitz. “And sends them against us.”

  Sir Hereward swore and dumped the basket, unclasping his cloak in the same motion, letting it drop behind. Mister Fitz leapt from basket to shoulder and thence into the snow.

  The knight’s two long-barrelled wheel-lock pistols were already charged with powder and loaded with silver-washed shot, but they were not wound. Sir Hereward wore the spanner on a thong about his wrist and from years of practice flipped it into his hand and began to wind the first pistol even as Mister Fitz pushed out of the drift and climbed swiftly up the dead, grey trunk of a tree that up until the god’s passage a half hour before had been a luxuriant beech. Its former foliage and much of its bark was now no more than dust below its branches, dirtying the snow.

  “How many?” asked Sir Hereward. In a scant minute and a half he had spanned both pistols, loosened the basket-hilted mortuary sword in the sheath at his side, undone his helmet from his belt and slapped it on, and was now extracting his carbine—a more common flintlock—from the basket.

  “Eight,” said Mister Fitz.

  “Unarmed?” asked Sir Hereward hopefully. Those recently dispossessed of the majority of their spiritual essence often retained some bodily memory of how to use arms and implements, which meant they could still fight with considerable competence even when directed by a puppeteering godlet rather than their own will.

  “Farmers,” said Mister Fitz. “They have hayforks, a scythe, and suchlike.”

  Sir Hereward grunted and primed the carbine from the small powder flask that slotted into the butt of the weapon. He had seen sufficient mortal wounds delivered by hayforks and reaping hooks to have a healthy respect for even such agricultural weaponry.

  “I cannot spare the use of my sole remaining sorcerous needle,” said Mister Fitz. “We may need it to protect ourselves from the godlet’s ravening. However, I shall assist as best I may in a more mechanical fashion.”

  As he spoke, the puppet reached behind his back, and withdrew from a hidden sheath a short triangular blade made to follow the proportion of the Golden Ratio, so it looked rather broader than it should. Some opponents—soon disabused of their fallacious notions—thought such a blade too small to be dangerous, particularly in the hands of a puppet. Most sorcerous puppets were mere entertainers and would not or could not fight under any circumstances. Mister Fitz did not follow that stricture, though it was true he fought hand to hand only when no more elegant alternative presented itself.

  “How close?” asked Sir Hereward. He reached up and quickly fastened his helmet strap and turned up the thick, high collar of his buff coat to protect his neck.

  “As you see,” answered Mister Fitz, pointing.

  Hereward could see them now, dark figures stark against the snowy backdrop, moving in the disturbing, stop-start, jagged fashion of the spirit-shorn.

  “There are nine,” said Sir Hereward, with some surprise, pointing to one far off to the right of the main group.

  “That is not one of the godlet’s playthings,” said Mister Fitz, after a moment’s pause. “It is a whole man…and he has an aura which suggests something of the sorcerer, to boot. Which perchance explains why he approaches on the diagonal, rather than fleeing as one might expect.”

  “Should I shoot him first?” asked Sir Hereward. Stray sorcerers of unknown allegiance on the field of battle were generally best removed from consideration in the overall military equation.

  Mister Fitz did not answer for a few seconds, his pale blue eyes staring through the falling snow at that distant figure sloshing and leaping through the lesser drifts in an alley between rows of dead trees.

  “No,” he said finally. “It is Fyltak, the man who calls himself the God-Taker.”

  “That charlatan!” exploded Sir Hereward. “If he gets any closer, I’ll finish him with steel, rather than waste my silvered shot on his—”

  “He is not entirely a charlatan, and he may be useful,” interrupted Mister Fitz. “In any event, the soul-reaped will be upon us well before he gets here.”

  “I make no warranty for his life,” snapped Sir Hereward. His previous experience with Fyltak the God-Taker was recent, and had consisted of the latter successfully taking the credit for the banishment of the Blood-Sipping Ghoul, a minor but still sufficiently deadly godlet whose nocturnal predations on the burghers of Lazzarenno had actually been put to an end by Mister Fitz, with Sir Hereward taking care of the godlet’s hematophagic minions. While Sir Hereward did not want his true business known, Fyltak had messed up their careful plans. The knight cared nothing for the false claims and subsequent rewards. He could not forgive Fyltak’s bumbling interference.

  “He bears an interesting sword,” mused Mister Fitz, sharp gaze still fixed on Fyltak, who was leaping in great bounds through the snow, a blade bare in his hand. “I had not occasion to mark it previously, but I believe it is the source of the sorcerous emanations I have felt before. Not Fyltak himself, after all.”

  “Hmmph!” growled Sir Hereward. Sorcerous swords were generally even more trouble than sorcerers. Particularly the sentient variety, who were almost always crazed from centuries of bloodletting, or had adopted strange and annoying philosophies about when or even if they would deign to be wielded, and by whom.

  The knight looked about for some better shooting position and sloshed through the snow to climb upon an exposed rock, which on closer examination proved to be a rectangular-shaped obelisk of marble, a fallen milestone of the old Empire of the Risen Moon. Perhaps a good omen as that state was one of the founding members of the Council that Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz served. Or perhaps the reverse, as the empire, like the milestone, had fallen many centuries ago. So had the moon the empire was named after, Hereward suddenly recalled, feeling a frisson of melancholia. It had only been a very small moon, but it had made a very large crater when it fell.

  The soul-reaped were drawing closer. They employed no tactics, no stratagems, the godlet in all likelihood simply filling them with thoughts of moving in a straight line and killing everything that got in their way. There were five men and three women, none of them young, for which Sir Hereward was grateful. Even knowing they were already dead in all ways that mattered, it was still easier to give grace to those who had experienced some extent of life.

  He raised his carbine when they were some sixty paces away, sighted carefully, and fired. The heavy, silvered ball struck the closest scythe-wielding relict in his chest, hurling him backwards as it blew out lungs and heart. The godlet’s essence within tried to lift the corpse back up out of the snow, but the silver on the ball had disrupted Xavva-Tish-Laqishtax’s hold, and after a few moments of thrashing and reaching, the former farmer lay still.

  Sir Hereward placed the carbine down carefully at his fe
et. There might be a chance to reload. Taking out his first pistol, he took aim again, supporting his shooting arm under the elbow with his left hand, locking in his left elbow as he had been taught long ago. Squeezing the trigger, the wheel spun, showering sparks. The pistol barked its characteristic sharp roar and another silvered ball struck the next closest spirit-shorn, exploding his head like an overripe melon kicked at the market by a disgruntled customer.

  “Two,” remarked Sir Hereward, returning the pistol to his belt and drawing its twin. Xavva-Tish-Laqishtax’s servitors were moving faster now, doubtless infused with more of the godlet’s essence as it became aware of opposition. They were jumping high out of the snowdrifts, leaping ahead in great bounds.

  There would not be time to reload and shoot again, Sir Hereward judged. He let out a long, foggy exhalation, slowing his breath, which had become quicker than he liked, and took aim once more.

  The third shot was not so good, for any one of many reasons. He did not think it was from the fear he kept well clamped within. Sir Hereward was used to fear, and used to managing it, calling on it for energy and direction, rather than letting it use him. He did not trust those who claimed to feel no fear.

  In any case, the ball struck the side of a woman who carried a pruning hook, setting her aback several paces but no more. If she’d still been alive, or more alive, the shock would have put her down, blood loss finishing the job in a matter of minutes. But her wounded body was no longer guided by a fearful human mind. She pushed on, leaving a red trail behind her on the snow, her vicious, long-shafted hook raised high.

  “Take the wounded one!” shouted Sir Hereward, thrusting the second pistol through his belt and drawing his sword in an oft-practiced movement.

  Mister Fitz sprang from his perch in the dead beech, landing on the shoulders of the pruning-fork woman, cutting her throat clear to the backbone and jumping again almost in one motion. This time he landed in the snow, disappearing under the legs of one of the remaining five attackers, who strode on, only to fall a few paces later, his tendons cut. The puppet reappeared on his back, only his head and sticklike arm visible above the snow, the arm vanishing as he struck down into the base of the fallen man’s brain with his short dagger.

  Four others came at Sir Hereward, where he stood high on the old milestone. They all bore hayforks, and again showed no trace of tactical thought, colliding together at the front of the stone and thrusting with their weapons, the shafts clashing together. Sir Hereward trod down one fork, dodged another, and thrust first one and then another of the relicts through their eyes. Even as he pulled the slightly stuck blade from the skull of the second farmer, Mister Fitz dispatched the remaining two, stabbing them in the brain stem, leaping from the shoulders of one to the other then to the stone.

  Dying bodies flopped in the snow around the duo as the godlet tried to reanimate the corpses. But both Sir Hereward’s sword and Mister Fitz’s dagger were well washed with silver, and with brain or spinal cord destroyed, the godlet could not take hold of anything to continue the fight.

  “Hold hard! I come to your aid!”

  Fyltak the God-Taker was still leaping through the snow toward them, waving his sword above his head. He moved very fast, considering the difficulty of the ground.

  Sir Hereward grunted, wiped his sword clean on the sackcloth tunic of the closest no-longer-writhing farmer, sheathed it, and bent down to retrieve his carbine. He reloaded it swiftly, taking cartridge and ball from his belt pouch.

  “No,” said Mister Fitz. “I think he will be useful.”

  “I wasn’t going to shoot him,” lied Sir Hereward. “I am just preparing for the next half-eaten meal Xavva-Tish-Laqishtax will disgorge and send against us.”

  Though Fyltak arrived far sooner than Sir Hereward had expected, the knight had still managed to reload his pistols as well as the carbine. He had also resumed his cloak and picked up the basket. Mister Fitz rode in it again, his knife once more invisible. He had licked it clean with his blue, stippled leather tongue before sheathing the blade, something Sir Hereward still found somewhat disquieting though the puppet assured him he had no appetite for blood. His tongue was merely an effective cleansing agent and upon occasion, the taste would reveal something of import that otherwise might be missed.

  “Thank the kind gods you yet live!” gasped Fyltak. “But know had it been otherwise, I would have avenged you!”

  He sheathed his sword and took several deep, racking breaths, indicating what Sir Hereward considered a lack of acquaintance with physical exertion, or perhaps too great a dedication to cakes and ale, though against this supposition he was quite a lean individual.

  “I care not for your bravado, Fyltak,” said Sir Hereward. “You could no more avenge us against Xavva-Tish-Laqishtax than I could unassisted fly to the closest moon.”

  “That voice is known to me,” muttered Fyltak. He rummaged inside the neck of his somewhat oversized cuirass, to produce a lorgnette on a cord of silk. Placing the glasses on his nose, he gazed up at Sir Hereward, whose face was shadowed by the bars of his visor. The knight noted that looking down at Fyltak the lenses greatly magnified the man’s eyes, and were thus presumably extremely necessary and Fyltak should wear them all the time. Furthermore, he probably hadn’t seen the detail of the combat that had just occurred, which was useful to know.

  “Sir Hereward!” exclaimed Fyltak, letting the lorgnette fall back inside the neck of his breastplate. “Well met, fellow justiciar and executioner of wicked gods!”

  “I am not your fellow!” barked Sir Hereward. “You are to me and mine as a…a flea is to a dog. Damnably irritating and hard to shift!”

  “Ah, the growl of one who has not breakfasted well!” exclaimed Fyltak. “I understand. Nay, I feel the lack myself, but fortunately I bear within this most cunning canister coffee still hot from the kitchens of the Duke of Simiril and within this round tin, pastries fresh-baked from that same kitchen. Allow me to spread a cloth upon this stone and set forth a repast!”

  “A man must eat,” said Mister Fitz, standing up on the back of the basket. “The godlet has paused in its travel, in any case. We cannot go closer for the nonce.”

  “Ah, the most wondrous puppet!” exclaimed Fyltak. “Perhaps you might play a cheerful gigue or sing us a roundelay, to lift our spirits while we eat and drink?”

  Clearly Fyltak had no conception of what kind of puppet Mister Fitz actually was and had made the common mistake that he was one of the standard performing variety. This further confirmed Hereward’s deduction that the man needed his eyeglasses and only pretended to use them as an affectation. A kind of double blind. The knight’s mouth quirked at this wordplay, and he wished he could share it with Mister Fitz. Though the puppet would doubtless not find it amusing. He considered nearly all of Sir Hereward’s jokes and witticisms foolish, or at best, not worth the breath required to make them.

  “I fear it is too cold for my lute, and my throat is a little rusty and wants sweet oil,” replied Mister Fitz. “Would a poem suffice? I must cogitate a little to create, but I do not wish to hold you gentlemen from your coffee.”

  “I do not want any coff—” Sir Hereward started to say angrily, but he stopped as he felt the pressure of Mister Fitz’s fingers on his shoulder. The puppet saw some use in Fyltak, or in his sword, so with some effort Hereward forced down his ire. Besides, the God-Taker had opened the “cunning canister” and the delightful aroma of hot coffee had reached Sir Hereward’s nose.

  “I do not normally drink coffee among corpses,” continued Hereward, climbing down to sit on his fur cloak at the far end of the stone, as far away as possible from the bloodied snow and the fallen bodies at the other end. “But there is nowhere else to sit in this new wasteland the godlet has made.”

  Fyltak handed him a steaming demitasse of coffee. Hereward raised one eyebrow at the delicate pale blue and silver porcelain cup, surely not long to survive any serious travel or fighting, and sipped.

  Mister F
itz recited his poem as the two men drank.

  Soft, the snow falling

  Steam spiralling from coffee

  The slain cold and still

  Fyltak nodded several times in appreciation. Sir Hereward, who considered himself a far more skillful and talented poet than Mister Fitz, privately made a face at his companion that indicated he could do better but would refrain so as not to raise doubts about the puppet’s nature.

  “Which…err…godlet is causing the trouble?” asked Fyltak, after a suitable pause to absorb the full beauty of the poem. “There is considerable panic in Simiril, many already flee the town.”

  “Very wise,” said Mister Fitz. He moved closer to Fyltak and reached out with one hand toward his sword, wooden fingers making an understated grasping motion, quickly quelled. Sir Hereward noted this. Fitz really was interested in the charlatan’s weapon. It seemed unremarkable to the knight, an old-fashioned sword with a dull blackened steel hilt and from the look of the plain scabbard, a heavy blade made for hacking and slashing, rather than for any finesse with the point, which was very likely dull.

  “Your sword interests me,” continued the puppet. “I am something of a student of antiquities. I perceive it is of an ancient make.”

  “What? This old blade?” asked Fyltak. “Been in the family forever, but it’s nothing special. I bear it for reasons of sentiment, no more.”

  “I see,” murmured Mister Fitz, bending closer to examine the hilt. Fyltak swapped his demitasse to his left hand and draped his right over the hilt, obscuring the puppet’s view.

  “As I said, it is quite an ordinary weapon,” he blustered. “But tell me of our business! Which godlet is it? What are its powers and weaknesses?”

  “Our business!” exclaimed Sir Hereward. He would have gone on, but Mister Fitz glanced at him meaningfully again, so the knight subsided. Fyltak handed him a pastry, which was as excellent as the coffee.