“But haven’t you slain any number of people?”
Sword paused, and looked at the questioner, letting the bit of feather drift away unmolested. “Why do you ask?”
The man shrugged. “Oh, well, last winter, when we were in Winterhome, I heard stories about how you . . . well, about what you did to a rapist in Dog Pole, and how you cut off the hands of the woman who trapped you in the Dark Lord’s dungeon and left her to bleed to death—”
“That didn’t happen,” Sword said sharply, lowering his blade. “I know nothing of any rapists in Dog Pole—I was in Dog Pole only once, years ago, and I barely spoke to anyone there, I certainly didn’t get involved in any local business.”
“Well, but the Dark Lord’s maids—,” the hunter persisted.
“Were all alive and well last I saw,” Sword interrupted, wiping his blade with his handkerchief. “I admit to threatening two of them, but I never actually struck them. I never drew blood. As of last winter the only person I had ever killed was the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills. I regret to say I did slay several of the Wizard Lord’s soldiers several days ago, shortly before fleeing up the cliffs, but that’s all.”
“But the stories—,” another man began.
“Lies,” Sword said. “Lies spread by the Wizard Lord.”
“Is that why you plan to kill him?” Fist asked. “Because he’s spreading lies about you?”
“No,” Sword said. He slid the sword smoothly into its sheath.
“Because he’s changing all the traditions?” another man asked.
“No,” Sword replied.
“Because he wants to kill you?” Whistler asked.
Sword glanced at him. “Partly,” he said.
“Well, don’t expect us to believe you’re killing him so we can take back the cliff-edge where he built his palace,” Fist said. “I wouldn’t believe that for a minute.”
“Neither would I,” Sword agreed.
“To protect Barokan?” someone suggested.
“From what?” Fist asked. “What’s he doing to Barokan that’s so terrible?”
“Oh, yes, they need to be protected from roads and canals and merchants bringing silks and spices and fancy wines,” a hunter said scornfully.
“He killed a lot of wizards, Whistler told me.”
“Yes, he did,” Sword agreed, “but that’s not really why I intend to kill him. Let the wizards look after themselves—they chose the Wizard Lord, and if they chose poorly, let them face the consequences.”
“He killed your friends,” Whistler said quietly.
“Yes,” Sword agreed. “Yes, he did—he ordered the deaths of two innocent women who never harmed him, who had both made the best of unhappy lives. He killed them without provocation, simply because they were two of the Chosen and he could not be bothered to offer them any alternative. He never gave them a chance to surrender. He never tried to capture them alive. He just had them slaughtered.”
For a moment the group fell silent. Then Fist said, “So you intend to kill him just for your own personal vengeance? Not because it’s your duty as one of the Chosen?”
“Oh, it’s my duty, as well,” Sword said. “It’s very convenient when duty and desire align, don’t you think? I don’t need to choose between them, I can serve both.”
That provoked a round of smiles, and chattering bilingual agreement.
The conversation reminded Sword, though, that he needed to devise a plan to kill the Wizard Lord. He had sought refuge among the Uplanders and he had found it here, but it was only temporary; in roughly another month and a half, when the ara migrated south and the first snow fell, the Clan of the Golden Spear would be making the journey down to Winterhome.
He had three choices, as he saw it. He could continue to live among the Uplanders, accompany them down to Winterhome, live in their guesthouse there—and then what? Simply go on like that, hiding and skulking indefinitely? And what if the Wizard Lord’s soldiers searched the clan guesthouses? Run and hide again?
Sword did not want to hide. He did want to kill Artil im Salthir for what he had done to the Speaker and the Seer. Poor Babble, constantly barraged by voices only she could hear, had never meant the Wizard Lord any harm. And the Seer, Azir shi Azir, had survived and escaped perhaps the most horrific childhood Sword had ever heard of, in the infamous hell-town of Bone Garden, only to be cut to pieces in the supposedly safe and peaceful streets of Winterhome. Sword wanted more than mere survival; he wanted retribution. If he accompanied the Uplanders down to Barokan for the winter, he wanted to have a plan ready, some way to get at the Wizard Lord and kill him.
Or he could leave the clan before that, and return to Barokan on his own. That path likewise led in two directions of its own—either finding another refuge, or making a bid to slay the Wizard Lord, presumably in the Winter Palace. Again, he had as yet no plan for getting at Artil during the winter.
Or finally, he could remain in the Uplands when the clan left, and try to survive the winter up here. His goal in that case would be to be waiting in or near the Summer Palace when the Wizard Lord returned, to ambush him there and kill him while he had no magic protecting him.
Sword had no interest in hiding indefinitely, either among the Uplanders or anywhere else. He wanted Artil dead. He dismissed the possibility of hiding, either among the Uplanders or on his own.
He did know what he believed to be a relatively safe route into the Winter Palace, if he chose to attack the Wizard Lord there; the Thief had shown him a way up onto the roof, where he could smash in the windows overlooking the Wizard Lord’s throne room and drop down unexpectedly.
The problems there were obvious. It was a long drop; if he lowered himself down a rope, that would give the guards time to stop him, and if he simply leapt, he was likely to break a leg or otherwise incapacitate himself before he could slay his foe.
That assumed he could kill Artil; the Wizard Lord had plenty of magic at his command. He couldn’t use it directly against Sword—that was part of the magic of the Chosen, that they were themselves immune to most magic—but he could use it around anything and anyone around Sword. That was one reason there were several Chosen, and not merely a Chosen Swordsman: The Wizard Lord had powerful defenses.
One of them was that he might be able to simply fly away, leaving Sword trapped in the Winter Palace with no way to get out undetected. Jumping down from the roof was only a way in.
And once the Wizard Lord was either dead or gone, Sword would be surrounded by enemies. Sword did not think that simply killing Artil im Salthir would end his hold on the hearts of the Barokanese; his guards would almost certainly butcher Sword on the spot, even if the Wizard Lord was already dead. Yes, he would have his magical fighting abilities back, and would be able to hold them off for a long time, perhaps kill several of them, but sooner or later they would be able to get to him—probably with archery.
If it came to a fight, he might be forced to kill any number of guards, which he did not really want to do—it was only the Wizard Lord’s death he wanted.
Even if Sword escaped the Palace, he would still be in the middle of Winterhome, and might well face an angry mob.
Sword thought he might be willing to die if he could be sure of taking the Wizard Lord with him, but he certainly wasn’t eager to do so, and the possibility that the Wizard Lord might use magic to escape him could not be ignored. Sword didn’t know just what magic Artil had available. Some of it he knew—he knew Artil could fly on the winds he summoned, that he could draw on inhuman reserves of strength, that he was inhumanly persuasive, and so on—but he did not know what other abilities the Wizard Lord might have in reserve.
An attack in the Winter Palace would be a gamble, at best.
Surviving an Upland winter and ambushing the Wizard Lord in the Summer Palace was not likely to be easy, either, of course. Artil would have his guards and other supporters, and Sword’s abilities would not include magic. He would be a good swordsman, but not the greatest
in the world, not superhuman.
But the Wizard Lord would have no magic, either. He kept fewer guards at the Summer Palace—bringing the necessary supplies up the cliff made it impractical to maintain an army there.
Sword would have all winter to set his traps, to learn every nook and cranny of the Summer Palace, to plan his every move.
And if he did manage to kill the Wizard Lord and get out of the Palace alive, he would not be in Winterhome, surrounded by hostile Barokanese; he would be able to flee east, across the Uplands, where the Barokanese would not follow him.
Also, although he could not explain why, Sword thought that the Barokanese were less likely to demand vengeance if Artil were slain while up on the plateau, rather than while in Barokan itself.
An ambush in the Summer Palace really seemed like the best approach. No one would expect him to survive up here. If the Wizard Lord questioned the Uplanders Sword had spoken to, he would almost certainly conclude that Sword intended to slip into the Winter Palace. Everyone thought it was impossible to survive an Upland winter.
Sword thought it well might be impossible to survive an Upland winter in the open, or with nothing but tents for shelter, but the Wizard Lord had thoughtfully provided an alternative by building himself a palace atop the cliffs. No one had ever survived an Upland winter before—but no one had ever attempted it in a real, permanent structure, rather than in a tent.
It was worth a try, at any rate—and if it did prove impossible, Sword thought he could still find his way down the cliffs one winter night. Or if he died up here—well, at least he would have tried his best.
But if he intended to spend the winter in the Summer Palace, he would need supplies. He would need food and water, and fuel he could burn for heat.
He frowned. A fire in the Summer Palace might be a problem; smoke would be visible from Barokan. He would need some way to hide the smoke, or some fuel that burned without smoking.
Or he could just let the Wizard Lord see the smoke; after all, what would he be able to do about it?
Water should be easy. Even from his hometown of Mad Oak, one could see the snow blowing from the clifftops in winter; Sword had never heard of a year when the Uplands were not covered in snow, and snow could be melted for water.
Food and fuel, fuel and food . . .
He looked around the camp, past the chattering young hunters, thinking.
The Uplanders did not store a great deal of food; when they needed meat, they killed another few ara and ate the meat fresh. They did smoke meat for traveling, and simply for variety, but they did not seem to keep any stocks for the winter, since the Host People supplied their food down in Winterhome. Sword would need to find his own way of gathering and preserving food.
And fuel—the Uplanders did not need all that much for heat, since they retreated to Winterhome before the real cold came, but they did cook their food. They usually burned a mixture of dried grass and ara dung, but substituted wood or charcoal when they could get it. Ara fat fueled their lamps and made their candles, but was not so suitable for cooking or heating.
Sword had been shocked to realize that the ara dung the Uplanders burned usually included a generous admixture of feathers, but had to admit that trying to separate out and clean the feathers wasn’t practical.
Burning dung, grass, feathers, or fat didn’t sound practical for surviving a winter in the palace, but he didn’t know enough about what else could be found in the Uplands. . . .
But perhaps someone did. He glanced at the young men who had watched his sword practice. Some of them were drifting away now, toward the campfires, but Whistler and Fist and a few others were still seated nearby.
“Tell me,” he said, “what do you eat on the journey to Winter-home? Do you have fresh ara?”
“Of course not,” Fist said. “The ara have all gone south by then—that’s how we know it’s time to leave. We have roots and jerky.” He grimaced. “Which makes it all the better when we get down to the Lowlands and the Winterhome market!”
“Roots?”
“Beets, potatoes, carrots—the women plant gardens in the spring, and we harvest them as we go west. There are markers, saying which clan owns each plot.” This came as news to Sword, and he wondered how he had managed to completely miss these garden plots on his long walk east. “They don’t taste as good up here as they do down in Winterhome, though—the Uplands aren’t good for such things. Ours are small and hard and bitter, nothing like the Lowland crops.”
“And jerky?”
“Dried, smoked ara. With herbs that keep it from rotting.” He looked disgusted. “Nasty stuff, nothing like the usual smoked meat. We only make it for the trip down the cliffs, in case the snow delays us. It’s hard to chew, and tastes like leather, but it keeps us alive.” He glanced up at the sky. “We’ll probably start making this year’s supply in a few weeks.”
Sword nodded. “Will you teach me how?”
Fist snorted. “Oh, you won’t have a choice,” he said. “ Everyone helps with the smoking!”
“Ah.” That sounded promising. He might be able to lay in a supply of food, then.
Which still left fuel. Well, he had a few ideas about that. Grass and ara dung were not hard to find, after all, and even if he had to dig them out of the snow, he thought he could manage. Besides, the Wizard Lord’s staff surely had stocks of wood and charcoal for cooking.
“You’re done with the sword for today?” Fist asked.
“Yes,” Sword said, expecting Fist to walk away now that he had confirmed that the show was over.
Fist did not walk away. He hesitated.
“Yes?” Sword asked.
“Could I try it?”
Sword smiled.
“If you’re careful,” he said. He drew the weapon and handed it over, hilt first.
Fist grinned as his hand closed on the worn leather grip. He lifted the weapon and looked it up and down.
“It’s lighter than I thought!” he said. “Is that part of its magic?”
“It isn’t magical,” Sword said. “Just first-rate smithing. It’s the finest steel available, stronger than anything else men can make, so it doesn’t need to be heavy. A heavy blade would tire my hand and arm.”
Fist nodded, and swung the sword tentatively—more as if it were a club than as if he knew what he was doing. Sword resisted the urge to smile; after all, it wasn’t that long since he had been almost as clumsy.
“It feels strange,” he said. “Are you sure it isn’t magical?”
“Even if it were, the magic wouldn’t work up here,” Sword said.
Fist nodded, staring at the sword. He took a few slashes at the air. Then he lifted the weapon again and felt the edge with his thumb.
He drew blood. “Sharp!” he exclaimed. He stuck his injured thumb in his mouth and looked at the weapon with new respect.
“I try to keep it ready,” Sword replied.
“Let me try it!” Whistler called, stepping forward, hand outstretched.
Fist stepped back, sword raised, and Sword was suddenly afraid that someone was going to get seriously hurt. He called, “Don’t move!”
Everyone froze; Fist began trembling, so much that the tip of the sword wavered. “Is it the magic?” he whispered loudly.
Sword decided he had had enough of the truth. “Yes,” he said. “It must return to me. It doesn’t like being handled by strangers.” He reached out and pulled the weapon from Fist’s reluctant fingers, wiped it ceremoniously, and sheathed it.
The remaining hunters watched this in intense silence. Sword bowed and said, “Excuse me,” then turned and walked away, out from the firelit camp onto the dark, open plain.
He glanced back a moment later and saw that the young men had scattered—except for Whistler, who was following him, several paces back. Sword stopped and turned.
Whistler stopped, then smiled bashfully and came forward.
“Did you want something?” Sword asked.
“You said
the sword isn’t magical,” he said.
Sword grimaced. “It’s not,” he said. “But it is dangerous. I was afraid someone would get cut badly.”
“I thought that might be it.”
“You were right.”
For a moment the two men stood silently, facing one another; then Whistler said, “May I try it now, then?”
“If you cut yourself, you’ll have to explain it to the others.”
Whistler grinned. “I can do that.”
“All right, then.” Sword drew the weapon and passed it over.
Whistler took it, much as Fist had, but right from the start he handled it more gracefully; when he turned his wrist he shifted his forearm the other way, keeping the blade in front of him, keeping it firmly under control. He, too, tested the edge, but on his thumbnail, not on the flesh.
Then he tried to imitate a few of the motions he had seen Sword make in his practice.
“You must have a strong wrist,” he said, after several of his own slashes and thrusts had fallen badly off the intended line.
“Yes,” Sword said. “I’ve been working on it for years.” He reached out for the sword. “You handle it well for a beginner, though.”
“I watched you.” Whistler pretended not to see the waiting hand—or perhaps, in the gathering gloom, he genuinely didn’t. Sword couldn’t be sure.
“So did Fist, but he still held it like a stick, not a sword.”
“Well, Fist . . .” Whistler shrugged. “He can use a spear. He’s strong and fast.”
The implication that Fist wasn’t particularly smart was obvious.
“Listen,” Sword said. “Would you like to learn to use a sword?”
Whistler gave him a sideways glance, then looked down at the outstretched hand.
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s easier to practice with someone else,” Sword said. “If you help me out, I’ll teach you the basics.”
“Just help you practice?”
“And perhaps with a few other little things, now and then.”
Whistler looked at the sword, then turned it as he had seen Sword do, and held it out, hilt first.
The Summer Palace Page 6
