Book Read Free

Sword of the Bright Lady

Page 30

by M. C. Planck


  Gregor was too insulted to respond, so Karl did. “Without our armor, we would not have carried the field, Pater.” He might have been angry, but with his face torn up like that, it was simply impossible to read the taciturn man.

  “I’m not blaming you,” Christopher said, apologizing. “I’m blaming the armor. It’s stupid and slow. The fault does not lie in you, but in the armor.” The fault lay in this whole stupid world and its stupid habits.

  “It’s good armor,” Gregor said defensively.

  “Not the armor, itself,” Christopher said with exasperation. “The fact of armor, any armor, at all.”

  “Would you change even how we dress?” Gregor asked in surprise.

  “Of course,” Svengusta said. “I told you, Baronet, the Pater would get around to you too, in time.”

  Karl, ever pragmatic, set aside anger and futility, and spoke to the moment. “There are horses in Knockford.” Christopher must have let his dubiousness show, because Karl felt the need to explain. “The Vicar will aid you, Pater. This was open war on her land. She can no longer pretend to be neutral.”

  Christopher still wasn’t so sure. After all, no villagers had been hurt, and the only building burned was his.

  “He brought those things into our lands,” Svengusta said with uncontained disgust. “She’ll throttle him with her bare hands for that alone.”

  “But how do we get to Knockford?” Christopher asked.

  Reflexively they all looked north, to Fenwick’s stable. Impossibly, Fenwick was already leading two horses toward them. Royal spotted Christopher and trotted up to him, nuzzling him with a long, soft nose. His mane and tail were badly singed, but otherwise the horse seemed unharmed.

  Christopher was too overcome with emotion to speak, clinging to the horse’s mane like a drowning man.

  It’s just a horse, his mind said. It is a warhorse, a machine of battle, a military asset. Do not get attached. But he could not help it. He was struggling to not get attached to these people, who he must leave someday when he went home. The horse was the one living thing in this world he dared to love. After all, he might even be able to take it with him. It would not feel out of place in the wrong world, homesick and useless.

  Do not get attached, repeated his mind, implacable. But he noticed that Gregor tenderly stroked the muzzle of his own great warhorse.

  “When Royal kicked his way out of the barn, he went looking for a safe, comfortable place, so he came back to my stable,” Fenwick explained. “I guess Balance followed him.” Fenwick always knew the horses’ names.

  “Then who?” Christopher could not finish the question.

  “How many horses did you leave in the stable?” Karl demanded of the prisoners.

  “Lord Bartholomew left three,” said one of them. “The warhorses, of course, and another he spat on, saying he would leave the druid to burn if he could.”

  Christopher was ashamed that the thought of Niona’s gentle mare dying in terrible agony did not affect him like the thought of Royal had.

  “The ghoul-hand knight tried to claim that destrier,” offered another prisoner, pointing to Royal. “But when it smelled his new hand, it would not let him near.”

  No wonder Hobilar had been so angry. Christopher had stolen the heart of the only creature on the planet that loved him. Or rather, Hobilar had thrown it away by making some kind of unholy pact with Darkness. It all depended on how you looked at it. But that was in the past, now, and it was time to move forward.

  Stroking the warhorse’s long neck, his mind started working again.

  “Lock them in a barn and nail it shut. Let no one in or out. Sven, make sure our people understand how important it is to hide these men’s identities, even the fact that we have prisoners at all.” Hopefully the peasantry here would feel some sympathy for Bart’s peasants. “Karl, bring the mercenaries in that wagon.”

  They still had one of Bart’s wagons, with its two draft horses. Come to think of it, Fenwick had a stable full of draft horses.

  “How much tack do you have?” he asked Fenwick. A horse without a saddle wasn’t worth much to a cavalry man.

  “We won’t be fighting. We can ride bareback to Knockford,” Karl said.

  “Gregor and I will go on ahead and get things started.” Christopher was enough of a horseman now to know that the draft animals couldn’t hope to keep up with the warhorses. The plow horses were bred for strength and placidity, the warhorses for stamina and spirit. The warhorses were also fed expensive grain instead of cheap hay, a fact that had not gone unnoticed by Christopher’s purse. But they would repay him now, reward him with speed when he needed it.

  Galloping without a saddle was deceptively easy, but all it took was one mistake and you had no chance to correct before you were on the ground. Christopher could barely manage it in his light chain shirt. He could not understand how Gregor could do it in full armor. Well, not quite full armor. The knight had taken off his plated leggings and strung them over his shoulder. He looked ridiculous, but the horse’s naked back was spared the hard metal.

  Thinking of the armor prompted an apology.

  “I’m sorry,” he shouted at Gregor over the pounding hooves. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  The blue knight had been surprisingly complacent since the horses had appeared. Christopher wasn’t sure if that was because he was hiding his anger or just relieved to have his horse back.

  “You owe me no apologies,” Gregor shouted back. “You are favored by the gods and must follow the path they have set you on.”

  “We got lucky,” Christopher objected. “It was just luck.”

  “That’s what I said,” the knight repeated mildly. “The luck, bye the bye, is not that our horses escaped a burning barn. They are trained not to panic, and an ordinary stall cannot hold an animal this strong. The luck was that Black Bart holds no free loyalty. His barns are built like fortresses, to trap the creatures he owns. So he did not see that your barn was built to house, not cage. If your other horse had not panicked, she might have followed ours out.”

  If Bloodfire had been there, she would have followed him, Christopher realized sadly.

  “This is how we defeat Evil,” Gregor said with satisfaction. “It cannot comprehend Good. Well, that and fireballs. I had no idea you were a wizard of such rank.”

  “I’m not a wizard.”

  But the knight was chuckling. “I’ll bet that put a weasel up Bart’s butt. He wasn’t expecting fireballs. His mage could only do sleep. In one stroke you wiped out his secret army of soul-trapped and shattered his battle plan.”

  Christopher shuddered to think what would have happened if the monsters had gotten into the chapel while everyone was asleep and unarmored.

  “But Svengusta drove them from the chapel with his . . .” Christopher didn’t know what he’d done. He’d skipped that chapter in the book. It hadn’t seemed important at the time. “How could they help Bart if Svengusta could drive them out?”

  “How did Bart control them in the first place?” the blue knight growled. “Who knows what plans that twisted mind laid? But I grant you, his recklessness stinks of desperation.”

  “Where did he get them?” Christopher was still drowning in questions. He could deduce that magic had animated the bodies, and presumably Bart numbered a practitioner of the necromantic arts among his allies. “Where did he get so many corpses?”

  Gregor looked at him, surprised or perhaps envious of his innocence.

  “He had two whole villages’ worth at hand, last I heard.”

  On that ugly note they fell silent, the sun rising on the horizon, a promise for the end of the darkness in the sky, though not for the day.

  23.

  AS THE CROW FLIES

  Vicar Rana was waiting for them in her office, despite the early hour.

  “I dreamed badly,” she explained. “Like a child, of the Black Harvest. Monsters of the Dark come to take all our heads. I left my bed chamber to escape the ni
ghtmare, and now here you are.”

  Her stony face showed no reaction to Christopher’s report. Perhaps her dreams had been worse. At the end he broke down in desperation.

  “We have to catch Bart. We have to,” he pleaded.

  “Is your appetite for blood and tael so great now?” she asked, a stone speaking.

  “If motive is the issue,” Gregor said, “I’ll forfeit my share. We must stop Bart. He is gone, Lady, sunk into Black. He no longer acts from profit or even fear but only violence. I fear his retribution on his people will be terrible, a blow to the strength of the Kingdom itself.”

  “Then the high lords will replace him,” she answered.

  “Only after,” Gregor said softly.

  “Me too,” Christopher said. “I’ll give up my share. Just give me horses.”

  “Mere horses cannot catch him,” Rana said. “My stable does not hold zephyrs.”

  She had a point. The prisoners had told them that Bart had brought eight horses with him. Adding Christopher’s, or rather Bart’s original, eight meant he would be doubled up on the ride home. Christopher wasn’t even certain how they could find him, let alone close the gap. He really missed the druid and her kittenhawk now.

  “And if you could catch him, then what? Can your band of mercenaries defeat him and his knights?” The prisoners had also told them that Bart had six knights, although they were newly promoted and poorly armed.

  “Probably not,” Gregor said, “but we’ll try. If the Pater has any more charges in his wand of fire, we have a chance.”

  “I don’t have a wand,” Christopher said with exasperation. “It’s just the sky-fire stuff.” But he checked his satchel while he was talking. “I’ve got three left.”

  “He knows I will send messages to Cannenberry and Copperton. He will not dare to pass those lands. So he must go twenty miles south before he can go east.” Rana seemed to be talking to herself.

  “Can’t you send riders to the other counties?” Christopher asked.

  “That would involve a discussion, and by then Bart will be home. We have only this day to act.

  “Are you both committed, regardless of the danger?” she suddenly asked them. “For no gain but to save men and women you do not even know and owe nothing to? To strike against the Dark now that it is exposed, regardless of the risk?”

  “Yes,” they both said in accidental unison.

  “Perhaps I have sat too long,” she said to herself. “To bring the soul-trapped into our lands is an insult no one will deny.” Her glare blazed out at Christopher. “If I must be driven before the lash of your Patron, I will not spare you. Prepare yourselves for a day of hard riding and harder deeds. Just the two of you. I cannot support more. You have one hour.”

  She folded her hands in meditation, and they were dismissed.

  Outside her office Christopher was mystified, but the knight was grinning.

  “Get a comfortable saddle, Pater. Don’t bother to pack food or water, but bring your bag of tricks.”

  “She’s going to send us after him alone?” Not that he was going to back down now, but the venture seemed unlikely to succeed.

  “No, Pater. You’ve stirred the mountain to move. She’s coming with us.”

  An hour later, Christopher and Gregor stood outside the church in the cold light of the spring morning. Karl and the men were there, disappointed that they would not be accompanying the chase. They had brought Christopher’s armor, and so he was arrayed in the heavy plate and chain, a steel engine of woe.

  “You’ll need it, Christopher,” Karl said. “Without your magic you’ll need every edge.” Christopher’s spells, exhausted in the night, would not renew for many hours yet.

  “How can the horses run with all this weight?”

  “Little good it will do to catch them if we are naked,” Gregor answered. “The horses are trained to this. It is only for one day.”

  Once again Vicar Rana came out in her armor, her guards leading her horse. Christopher’s mind could not reconcile the transformation from middle-aged woman to warrior, no matter how many times he saw it. Nor, apparently, could anyone else’s. The crowd of guards and priests watched in silent confusion, unsettled by the loss of their well-known Lady and this strange replacement. Only Gregor seemed comfortable with it.

  “I cannot fight well,” she told them matter-of-factly, “but I am still sixth rank. And I have my magic. You must dispatch his knights quickly, either with death or fear. Then you must help me with the monster.”

  She turned to each horse and cast a spell. Royal seemed to swell up, and his ears twitched with eagerness. When Christopher mounted, the horse moved under him like he’d just been let out of his stall.

  The horses turned to the south, their heavily laden hooves ringing hollow on the bridge.

  Next to a small wood they paused, while Rana called a huge black crow down from a tree to her open hand. She spoke Celestial in heavy concentration as she locked eyes with the bird.

  “Here is bread, feathered friend. See that I call you to share in my bounty. Will you call me to share in yours?

  “No,” she said when the bird answered her in squawks, “I do not want fresh berries or aged meat. I seek no worms, fat and tasty as they are. I seek a party of horses, many horses, with not enough men. Go, find them, and lead me the way. You will have bread for the rest of your days and my eternal gratitude.”

  The bird preened, cackled, and took to the air. The horses took to the ground, and they flew south, over tracks and trails, through fields and pastures. The horses were not in full-out gallop, merely cantering, but even twenty minutes of that should have left Royal wet and foaming. Royal ran on and on and on, long past Christopher’s experience and past his own endurance. His butt was getting sore. But it was just pain, so he ignored it.

  They stopped to water the panting horses in the middle of a field of stubble. Rana handed out empty leather waterbags, then held her fingers in an “O” over each one in turn. Water gushed from her hand like a magic trick.

  While the horses drank she spoke to Christopher.

  “Do not seek to appease me by flattering my son.”

  “I do not flatter him,” he answered automatically. “I need him. He is like me, in a way. He works with metal in his head, not with his hands.”

  “It is true he obsesses over your scrollwork. I caught him wasting good Church paper trying to do his own. I would think him enspelled if I did not know better.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll replace the paper.” Paper was something Christopher had plenty of now.

  The coldness he had come to expect from her suddenly cracked, as if his simple apology had been a piton driven into a block of ice.

  “No, you owe me nothing,” she said. “I owe you, for you have given my son what I could not. Day by day he summons your machine into being, turning paper into metal. With each part his father’s respect grows. Your gold fills the shop’s coffers, wrung out of your papers like water from rags. Jhom does no metalwork but directs the men, and as your machine takes shape so does their respect.

  “I fought your changes, in everything. And now here I am, lashed into war, punished for my intransigence. You have taken my Saint, my town, my son, and now my peace.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Christopher said helplessly.

  “Your Patron has much to answer for,” she said equally helplessly. “But I forgive you now. I can do this because we likely ride to our deaths. Thank you,” she said humbly, “for the light you have put in my husband’s eyes and for the spring in my son’s step. Should it all end here, those moments were worth it.”

  What could he say? So he said nothing.

  The waterbags were empty. Rana went to each horse and cast a healing spell on them.

  “A shameful use of power,” she said. “But it is to need.”

  And they rode again, cantering through the sunny day, the horses fresh as if they’d just left the barn.

  Their feathered guide circl
ed them late in the morning, cawing, and winged to the east. They followed as best as they could.

  “I should not have sent him out so soon,” she told the men, “but we are in luck. No hawk took him.”

  “Will Bart know he is followed?” Christopher asked.

  “He’ll assume it,” Gregor said. “We’ll not catch him napping.”

  But it was starting to look like they would catch him. The horses had run for an unnatural length of time, and still they pressed on.

  Shortly before noon, the horse-magic faded. The horses were merely mortal again, and Rana had no power to spare to refresh them, saving the rest of her spells for battle. But they had covered an incredible distance.

  Bart had barely more than two hours’ head start on them. He had double horses, but they had magic ones, and they had a guide. The sun was still high in the sky when the crow squawked, calling attention to the herd of horses traveling east.

  They were spotted, too, and the herd broke into a gallop.

  “Idiocy,” Gregor declared, as their own horses burst into pursuit, but then he saved his breath for the coming fight.

  Bart did not seem to have a plan, just a panicked flight. He ran his horses brutally, but they simply could not keep up the pace, not after a long day of hard traveling. When one of them simply stopped running, and then a half-dozen began to stumble, he came to his senses and stood his ground.

  The black lord and his six knights pulled their panting horses into a wide, ragged line as Christopher’s party slowed to a trot. The men were in chain mail, with cheap wooden shields.

  “I do not see the mage,” Gregor said with a frown.

  “I rejoice at your coming,” Bart shouted at them, his voice tinged with maniacal frenzy. “I will take your head to the altar and be redeemed. I will show I am the stronger servant.”

  Rana ignored his lunacy, addressing his troops instead. “Flee now and we will not pursue you. We seek only your master.”

 

‹ Prev