The First Book of Swords

by Фред Сейберхэген

  A bold story indeed for any woman to make up out of nothing. Still, the fact was that the Duke could remember nothing like that happening, and he had, as a rule, a good memory. A better memory, he thought, for women than for most things. Of course he couldn't recall everything from thirteen years ago. Exactly what had he been doing at that time?

  The insect-buzzing sound had died away. The wizard pushed up the lid of the huge box. Both men stared at the fine sword that was reveled inside, nesting in a lining of rare and fantastically beautiful blue fur. The sword had not been brought to the Duke in any such sumptuous container as this; in fact it had arrived, wrapped for concealment, in the second-best cloak of a Red Temple courtesan.

  The clear light from the Old World wall panels glinted softly on mirror steel. Beneath the surface of the blade, the Duke's eye seemed to be able to trace a beautiful, finely mottled pattern that went centimeters deep into the metal, though the blade was nowhere a full centimeter thick.

  Putting both hands on the hilt, the Duke lifted the sword gently from the magical protection of the chest. "Are they ready out on the terrace?" he asked, without taking his eyes from the blade itself.

  "They have so indicated, Your Grace."

  Now the Duke, holding the sword raised before him as if in ritual, led the way out of the blind room behind the arras, across a larger chamber, and through another doorway, whose curtains were stirred by an outdoor breeze. The terrace on which he emerged was open to the air, and yet it was a secret place. The view was cut off on all sides by stone walls, and by high hedges planted near at hand. On the stone pavement under the gray sky, several soldiers in blue and white were waiting, and with them one other man, a prisoner. The prisoner, a middle-aged, well-muscled man, wore only a loincloth and was not bound in any way. Yet he was sweating profusely and kept looking about him in all directions, as if he expected his doom to spring out at him at any moment.

  The Duke trusted his wizard to hold the sword briefly, while he himself quickly slipped a mail shirt on over his head, and put on a light helm. Then he took back the sword, and stood holding it like the experienced swordsman that he was.

  The Duke gestured toward the prisoner. "Arm him, and step back."

  Most of the soldiers, weapons ready, retreated a step or two. One tossed a long knife, unsheathed, at the prisoner's feet.

  "What is this?" the man demanded, his voice cracking.

  "Come fight me," said the Duke. "Or refuse, and die more slowly. It is all one to me."

  The man hesitated a moment longer, then picked up the knife.

  The Duke walked forward to the attack. The prisoner did what he could to defend himself, which, given the disparity in arms and armor, was not much.

  When it was over, a minute later, the Duke wiped the long blade clean himself, and with a gesture dismissed his troops, who bore away with them the prisoner's body.

  "I felt no power in it, Blue-Robes. It killed, but any sharp blade would have killed as well. If its power is not activated by being carried into a fight, then how can it be ordered, how controlled? And what does it do?"

  The wizard signed humbly that he did not know.

  The Duke bore the cleaned blade back into the concealed room behind the arras, and replaced it in the magically protective chest. Still his hand lingered on the black hilt, tracing with one finger the thin white lines of decoration. "Something like a castle wall on his sword, the fellow said."

  "So he did, Your Grace."

  "But here I see no castle wall. Here there's nothing more or less than what we've seen in the pattern since that woman brought me the sword a month ago. This shows a pair of dice."

  "Indeed it does, Your Grace: " "Dice. And she who brought it to me from the Red Temple said that the soldier who left it with her had been wont to play, and win, at dice." Annoyingly, that soldier himself was dead. Stabbed, according to the woman's story, within a few breaths of the moment when he'd let the sword out of his hands. The killers who'd lain in wait for him had evidently been some of his fellow gamblers, who were convinced he'd cheated them. Duke Fraktin had sent Sir Sharfa, one of his more trusted knights, out on a secret mission of investigation. "Am I to cast dice for the world, Blue-Robes?"

  The wizard let the question pass as rhetoric, without an answer. "No common soldier, Your Grace, could have carried a sword like this about with him for long. It would certainly have come to the attention of his officers, and then…"

  "It would be taken from him, yes. Though quite likely not brought here to me. And well, it's here now." And the Duke, sighing, removed his finger from the hilt. "Tell me, Blue-Robes, is it perhaps something like our lamps, some bit of wizardry left over from the Old World? And is the miller's tale of how he came by it only a feverish dream that he once had, perhaps when his arm was amputated, perhaps after he'd caught it clumsily in his own saw or his own millstones?"

  "I am sure Your Grace understands that none of those suggestions are really possible. Much of the miller's tale is independently confirmed. And we know that the Old World technologists made no swords; they had more marvelous ways to kill, ways still forbidden us by Ardneh's Change. They had in truth the gun, the bomb… "

  "Oh, I know that, I know that… but stick to what is real and practical, not what may have happened in the days of legend… Blue-Robes, do you think the Old World really had to endure gods as well as their nonsense of technology? Ardneh, I suppose, was really there."

  "It would seem certain that they did, Your Grace. Many gods, not only Ardneh. There are innumerable references in the old records. I have seen Vulcan and many others named."

  The Duke heaved a sigh, a great sincere one this time, and shook his head again. As if perhaps he would have liked to say, even now, that there were no gods, or ought to be none, his own experience notwithstanding.

  But here was the sword before him, an artifact of metal and magic vastly beyond the capabilities of the humans of the present age. And it had not been made in the Old World either. According to the best information he had available, it had been made no more than thirteen years ago, in the almost unpeopled mountains on the eastern edge of his own domain. If not by Vulcan, then by whom?

  Gods were rarely seen or heard from. But even a powerful noble hardly dared say that they did not exist. Not, certainly, when his domain adjoined the Ludus Mountains.

  Chapter 7

  Mark awoke lying on damp ground, under a sky much like that of the day before, gray and threatening rain. Still, blanketed and fed, he was in such relative comfort that for a moment he could believe that he was dreaming, back in his own bedroom at the mill, and that in a moment he might hear his father's voice. The illusion vanished before it could become too painful. There was Ben, a snoring mound just on the other side of the dead fire, and there was the wagon. From inside it the little dragon had begun a nagging squall, sounding almost like a baby. No doubt it was hungry again.

  And now the wagon shook faintly with human stirrings inside its cover; and now Ben sat up and yawned. Shortly everyone was up and moving. For breakfast Barbara handed out stale bread and dried fruit. People munched as they moved about, getting things packed up and ready for the road. Preparations were made quickly, but fog was closing in by the time everything was ready to travel. With the fog, visibility became so poor that Nestor entrusted the reins to Ben, while he himself walked on ahead to scout the way.

  "We're near the frontier," Nestor cautioned them all before he moved out. "Everybody keep their eyes open."

  Walking thirty meters or so ahead, about at the limit of dependable visibility, Nestor led the wagon along back lanes and across fields. Before they had gone far, they passed a gang of someone's field workers, serfs to judge by their tattered clothes, heading out with tools in hand for the day's labor. When these folk were greeted, they answered only with small waves and nods, some refusing to respond at all.

  Shortly after this encounter Nestor called a halt and held a conference. He now admitted freely that he was l
ost. He thought it possible that they might not have crossed the frontier last night after all — or that they might even have recrossed it to Duke Fraktin's side this morning. Mark gathered that the border hereabouts was a zig-zag affair, poorly marked at best, and in places disputed or uncertain. However that might be, all they could do now was keep trying to press on to the south.

  The four people in and around the wagon squinted up through fog that appeared to be growing thicker, if anything. They did their best to locate the sun, and at last came to a consensus of sorts on its position.

  "That way's east, then. We'll be all right now."

  With Nestor again walking a little ahead of the wagon, and Ben driving, they crossed a field and jolted into the wheel-ruts of another lane. Time passed. The murky countryside flowed by, with a visibility now of no more than about twenty meters. Nestor was a ghostly figure, pacing at about that distance ahead of the wagon.

  More time passed. Suddenly, seeming to come from close overhead, there was a soft sound, quickly passing, as of enormous wings. Everyone looked up. If there had been a shadow, it had already come and gone, and no shape was revealed in the bright grayness. Mark exchanged looks with Barbara and Ben, both of whom looked just as puzzled as he felt. No one said anything. Mark's impression had been of something very large in flight. He had certainly never heard anything like it before.

  Nestor, who had heard it too, called another halt and another conference. He didn't know, either, what the flying thing might have been, and now he was ready to curse the fog, which earlier he had welcomed. "It's not right for this part of the country, this time of the year. But we'll come out of it all right if we just keep going."

  This time Nestor stayed with the wagon and took over the driving himself. The others remained steadily on lookout, keeping watch in all directions as well as possible in the fog.

  The lane on which they were traveling dipped down to a small river, shallow but swiftly flowing, and crossed it in a gravel ford. Nestor drove across without pausing. Mark supposed that this was probably another bend of the same stream that they'd just camped beside, and that this crossing might mean a new change of territory. But no one said anything, and he suspected they were all still confused about whose lands they were in.

  Slowly they groped their way ahead, through soupy mists. The team, and the dragon as well, were nervous now. As if, thought Mark, something more than mere fog were bothering them.

  There was the river again, off to the right. The road itself moved here in meandering curves, like a flatland stream.

  Suddenly, from behind the wagon and to the left, there came the thudding, scraping, distinctive sound of riding-beasts hard footpads on a hard road. It sounded like at least half a dozen animals, traveling together. It had to be a cavalry patrol.

  The dragon keened loudly.

  "Halt, there, the wagon!"

  From somewhere a whip had come into Nestor's hand, and he cracked it now above the loadbeasts' backs, making a sound like an ice-split tree. The team started forward with a great leap, and came down from the leap in a full run. So far today they had not been driven hard, and their panic had plenty of nervous energy for fuel.

  "Halt!"

  The order was ignored. Only a moment later, the first arrows flew, aimed quite well considering conditions. One shaft pierced the cloth cover of the wagon above Mark's head, and another split one of the wooden uprights that supported the cloth.

  "Fight 'em!" roared Nestor. He had no more than that to say to his human companions, but turned his energy and his words, in a torrent of exhortation and abuse, toward his team. The loadbeasts were running already as Mark had never known a team to run before. Meanwhile inside the wagon a mad scramble was in progress, with Ben going for the crossbow and Mark for his own bow and quiver. Mark saw Barbara slipping the thong of a leather sling around one finger of her right hand, and taking up an egg-shaped leaden missile.

  Looking out from the left front of the wagon with bow in hand, Mark saw a mounted man swiftly materializing out of the mist. He wore a helmet and a mail shirt, under a jerkin of white and blue, and he rode beside the racing team, raising his sword to strike at its nearest animal. Mark quickly aimed and loosed an arrow; in the bounding confusion he couldn't be sure of the result of his own shot, but the crossbow thrummed beside him and the rider tumbled from his saddle.

  The caged dragon, bounced unmercifully, screamed. The terrified loadbeasts bounded at top speed through the fog, as if to escape the curses that Nestor volleyed at them from the driver's seat. It seemed to Mark that missiles were sighing in from every direction, with most of them tearing through the wagon's cloth. Someone outside the wagon kept shouting for it to halt. Ben, in the midst of recocking his crossbow, was almost pitched out of the wagon by a horrendous bounce.

  Mark saw Barbara leaning out. Her right arm blurred, releasing a missile from her sling in an underhand arc. One of the cavalry mounts pursuing stumbled and went down.

  The patrol had first sighted the wagon across a bight of the meandering road, and in taking a short cut to head it off had encountered some difficult terrain. This had provided the wagon with a good flying start on a fairly level stretch of road. But now the faster riders were catching up.

  "Border's near!" yelled Nestor to his crew. "Hang on!"

  We know it's near, thought Mark, but which direction is it? Maybe now Nestor really did know. Mark loosed another arrow, and again he could not see where it went. But a moment later one of the pursuing riders pulled up, as if his animal had gone lame.

  Another bounce, another tilt of the wagon, bigger than any bounce and tilt before. This one was too big. Mark felt the tipping and the spinning, the wagon hitting the earth broadside, with one crash upon another. He thought he saw the dragon's cage, still intact, fly past above his spinning head, all jumbled' with a stream of bedding, and a frog-crock streaming frogs. He hit the ground, expecting to be killed or stunned, but soft earth eased the impact.

  Aware of no serious injury, he rolled over in grass and sand, the ground beneath him squelching wetly. Nearby, the wagon was on one side now, with one set of wheels spinning in the air, and the team still struggling hopelessly to pull it. Meanwhile what was left of the cavalry thundered past, rounding the wagon on both sides, charging on into thickets along the roadside just ahead. Mark could catch just a glimpse of people there, who looked like Ben and Barbara, fleeing on foot.

  The dragon was still keening, inside its upended but unbroken crate beside the wagon.

  On all fours, Mark scrambled back into the thick of the spilled contents at the wagon's rear. He went groping, fumbling, looking for the sword. He let out a small cry of triumph when he recognized Townsaver's blade, and thrust a hand beneath a pile of spilled potatoes for the hilt. He had just started to lift the weapon when he heard a multitude of feet come pounding closer just behind him. Mark turned his head to see men in half-armor, wearing the Duke's colors, leaping from their mounts to surround him. A spearman held his weapon at Mark's throat. Mark's hand was still on the sword, but he could feel no power in it.

  "Drop it, varlet!" a soldier ordered.

  And overhead, out of the mist, great wings were sighing down. And the caged dragon's continuous keening was answered from up there by a creak that might have issued from a breaking windmill blade.

  Another inhuman voice interrupted. This one was a basso roar, projecting itself at ground level through the mists. Mark's knees were still on the ground, and through them he could feel the stamp of giant feet, pounding closer. A shape moving on two treetrunk legs, tall as an elder's house, swayed out of the fog, two forelimbs raised like pitchforks. Striding forward faster than a riding-beast could run, the dragon closed in on a mounted man. Flame jetted from a beautiful red cavern of a mouth, the glow of fire reflecting, resonating, through cubic meters of the surrounding fog. The man atop his steed, five meters from the dragon, exploded like a firework, lance flying from his hand, his armor curling like paper in the blast. Ma
rk felt the heat at thirty meters' distance.

  Without pausing, the dragon altered the direction of its charge. It snorted, making an odd sound, almost musical, like metal bells. Once more it projected fire from nose and upper mouth. This time the target, another man on beastback, somehow dodged the full effect. The riding-beast screamed at the light brush of fire, and veered the wrong way. One pitchfork forelimb caught it by one leg, and sent it and its rider twirling through the air to break their bodies against a tree.

  All around Mark, men were screaming. He saw the Duke's men and their riding-beasts in desperate retreat.

  The dragon changed the direction of its charge again. Now it was coming straight at Mark.

  Nestor, at the moment when the wagon tipped, had tried to save himself by leaping as far as he could out from the seat, to one side and forward. He did get clear of the crash, landed on one leg and one arm, and managed to turn the flying fall into an acrobat's tumbling roll, thanking all the gods even as he struck that here the earth was soft.

  Soft or not, something struck him on the side of the head, hard enough to daze him for a moment. He fought grimly to stay free of the descending curtain of internal darkness, and collapsed no farther than his hands and knees. He was dimly aware of someone, Ben, he thought it was — bounding past him, into nearby thickets promising concealment. And there went a pair of lighter, swifter feet, Barbara's perhaps.

  In the thick fog, cavalry came pounding near. Beside Nestor in the muck, partially buried in it even as he was, there was a log. He let himself sink closer to it, trying to blend shapes.

  The cavalry swept past with a lot of noise, then was, for the moment, gone. Nestor scrambled his way back toward the tipped wagon. He had to have the sword. Whatever else happened, he wasn't going to leave that for the Duke.