Age of War: Book Three of The Legends of the First Empire

by Michael J. Sullivan

“Twenty-nine? Seriously? Are you sure?” Flood said.

  “Not everyone is as fat as you! Yes—twenty-nine!”

  “Perdif is forty miles away,” Padera told him. “Someone has to race there and light that fire by midday tomorrow or everyone in Alon Rhist will die, and after that, the rest of mankind.”

  “And you want me to—I can’t get to Pew-dif by midday. I’d be lucky to walk back to Hopeless House by then.”

  “Here she is.” Gifford spun to see Raithe’s friend Malcolm. He entered the smithy leading a beautiful white horse. “They didn’t even ask me what I wanted her for. The Instarya aren’t overly fond of horses. In general, Fhrey prefer to keep their feet on solid ground.”

  Gifford had seen horses before, but never this close. He sometimes spotted them along with deer in meadows near Dahl Rhen, and on occasion—also like deer—they were hunted for food.

  “Her name is Naraspur,” Malcolm explained, rubbing the animal’s muzzle. She snorted and stomped a hoof, making a disturbingly loud noise on the stone floor.

  She’s huge.

  “You are going to ride her, Gifford,” Padera said with admiration, as if he’d already done so.

  Gifford looked up at the towering animal. “No, I’m not.”

  “On the back of that animal, you’ll run faster than any man in history.”

  “How will I stay on?”

  “You hang on to the mane,” Malcolm said. “Lean forward, lie low, and just hang on tight.”

  “The gods made your arms strong for a reason,” the old woman told him.

  “How will I make it go the way I want?”

  “With this.” Malcolm came over then, holding a piece of metal with straps and buckles tied to it. “It’s called a bridle. Slip this metal piece between her teeth, slide it all the way to the back of her mouth, then buckle it around her head. These long straps will make it possible to turn. She’ll go where she’s facing.”

  Malcolm put it on the horse. Then Roan hurried back to the worktable, grabbing up wads of cotton padding.

  “Relax,” Padera said. “The horse is the least of your worries.”

  Frost waved for Gifford to bend over as if he planned to tell him a secret, then he wrapped the string around his head. “Fourteen and a half.”

  “Fourteen and a half,” Flood repeated.

  “Why they doing that?” Gifford asked.

  “The hard part will be getting past the elven army,” Padera explained. “You have to ride across the Grandford Bridge right through their camp. They’ll know you’re trying to carry a message, and just like when they destroyed the Spyrok, they’ll want to stop you, too.”

  “They’ll kill me.”

  Padera nodded. “They’ll try.” She might have been smiling. “According to absolutely everyone, what you’re about to do is suicide. That’s why you have to do it. Don’t you see? It’s perfect. You have nothing to lose.”

  “My life. I could lose my life.”

  “Like I said, nothing to lose.”

  Gifford didn’t have an answer. He knew he ought to, but he didn’t.

  “Don’t look so miserable,” she said with a grin, that one eye glaring at him. “I’m not sending you to your death. You won’t die. I know it. Your mother knew it, too. Now pay attention, Roan has a present for you.”

  He looked over to see Roan and the dwarfs carrying over a suit of armor. All silver, the thing looked like sunlight on a lake; so shiny, he could see his face looking back at him.

  “I fashioned this from iron,” Roan said. “But it’s not iron. This is a new metal, something I’ve been working on. I made it using a new percentage of charcoal—a better mix. It’s harder, lighter, tempered. And I polished it. I figure the smoother it is the less chance a blade will catch.” Frost, Flood, and Rain all nodded.

  Malcolm stepped in and lifted the big plates hinged together by leather straps over Gifford’s head. One plate covered his chest, the other his back, and the straps rested on his shoulders. Then Malcolm and Roan swung shoulder plates over the top and began buckling them on.

  “The best part is”—Roan took the matching helm and turned it over, revealing a series of etched markings—“all of the metal has been engraved with the Orinfar runes. So, not only will swords glance off, but magic should, too.”

  Padera grinned so that both eyes were squeezed to slits. “You’re going to make your mother proud, boy.”

  * * *

  —

  Roan struggled with tightening the helmet straps. She punched a new hole, having underestimated the size of his head. He tried to make a joke about it, but Roan, who was always too serious, was downright grave. She refused to look him in the eye as she set the helm on his head with a ceremonial formality as if he were a chieftain—or sacrificial lamb.

  “Dammit!” she cursed and pulled the helm off again. “Still too small. You said fourteen and a half. It’s more like fourteen and three quarters.”

  “Woan?”

  “Yeah?” she said, turning back to the worktable and pulling the buckle out.

  “I want to tell you something.”

  Padera had kept him breathless for the last hour, but as the dwarfs painted the Orinfar markings over the white horse, and Roan continued to work the armor to fit, Gifford had a moment to think. It had never crossed his mind to refuse. The old woman was right. He would go. He would ride across that bridge, not for mankind, or even his mother, but to save Roan. Already he’d thanked Mari five times for even this slim chance to do something. All his life he’d watched others play, run, fight, marry, have kids, build homes, hunt, farm, raise sheep, and dance. Gifford never did anything but make cups and look foolish. In an emergency, he couldn’t even run for help. He’d always been a burden, always a mouth to feed with the labor of someone else’s work. His pottery was a way to give something back, which was why he worked so hard to make it the best it could possibly be, but it wasn’t really needed. Gifford had never been needed by anyone.

  I’m going to die.

  The thought wasn’t painful, or scary, just heavy, sobering, like the end of an era. He felt nostalgic rather than frightened, which was strange because Gifford had few good memories. But those he had—every one of them—involved Roan.

  “Woan…” he began. “I know about Ivy. I know Padewa killed him to save you.” Bad time to bring it up maybe, but time was running out. He knew she felt guilt for Iver’s death, for what Padera had done on her behalf. He wanted to help her understand it wasn’t her fault. This would be his last gift to her, his last amphora.

  Roan dropped the helmet on the ground. It rattled and did a half-roll, bumping up against her foot.

  He waited.

  She slowly turned, her eyes wide, but this time she looked right at him. He loved those eyes, those windows to worlds of marvels yet undreamed.

  “I—I know this is a bad time to be…” he started, then paused and took a breath to center himself. “I’ll pwobably not see you again, and I just wanted you to know that—”

  “Padera didn’t kill Iver,” she said in a weak voice. “I did.”

  The words spilled out of her in one breath. They fell between them like the helmet, with a rattle.

  Gifford stared, confused. “You did? What do you mean you—”

  Roan looked down, maybe searching for the helmet; he couldn’t tell.

  “Woan?”

  Her face came back up, pulled by her name. She wanted to take the words back. He could see it in her furrowed brows and lips squished in a sour frown.

  “Tell him, Roan,” Padera said as she rubbed the horse’s nose.

  Roan glanced at the old woman, then back at him, then at the helmet still on the ground. “Plants,” she said. “Certain plants and rocks—you grind them up.” She made a pestle and mortar action with her hands. “I fed what I made to m
ice I kept in a cage. Some just made them sick. Others…” She looked at her feet. “I had to know if it would work on something bigger. So, I gave it to one of Gelston’s sheep. Mixed it in with the feed. Next morning it was dead—a froth around its mouth.”

  Gifford couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Gelston cursed the gods, but it had been me.” Roan bent down and picked up the helm. “Iver killed my mother. He beat her to death. I watched him. He wanted me to see, wanted me to remember. I did.”

  “You don’t need to justify anything to me,” Gifford told her. “Honestly, if I’d known, I would have killed him myself. I think anyone in the Dahl would have.”

  She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “But I was his slave. I was his property. He had every right to—”

  “No, he didn’t. No one has such a wight. They want you to think so. Twust me, Woan, I know about this.”

  “But he owned me. Me and my mother.”

  “How?”

  “Because he bought my mother.”

  “How?”

  “He traded wood and grain with a man in Dureya.”

  “And how did that fellow get to own anyone?”

  “My mother was Gula. She was captured in a battle. Her husband was killed; she was taken as a slave.”

  “Was that wight? Was it wight she was taken? Husband killed? Made a slave? Was that wight, Woan? And what did you do? If it was wight fo’ a man to kill a husband and make his wife a slave, how can it be wong fo’ a child of that same woman to kill a man to be fwee? The man who made a slave had no wight to do that, just the ability. You had the ability to fwee you self, Woan. You had the ability and the wight.”

  “I killed a man. I’m a murderer.”

  “You killed a fiend. You a he-wo.”

  “How do you know? How can you tell the difference? A lot of people cried at his funeral. I saw them. I watched my neighbors, my friends, weeping over his grave. I caused all that pain. It was me. Iver always told me I was a curse to everyone who cared about me. That’s what I am, a curse, an evil curse, and I deserve everything that happens to me.” She was starting to cry.

  “That’s not twue.”

  “It is!” she shouted, so loudly that the dwarfs and even Naraspur looked over. “You care. Don’t you? You—you love me, don’t you? Don’t you?”

  Gifford felt as if she’d reached into his chest, took hold of his heart, and was thumbing over it. He stood stiff and helpless under her teary gaze. He nodded slowly. “Mo’ than anything in the woold.”

  “See,” she said. “And look what it’s got you. You’re going to…you’re going to…” She clenched her teeth and wiped her eyes. “I am a curse.”

  Gifford’s arms started to rise. He wanted desperately to take her, to hold her, to hug her tight. This might be the last time he’d ever see Roan. He wanted, if nothing else, to kiss her goodbye. He saw her flinch and stopped.

  “Got food here,” Tressa said, running into the smithy with a leather satchel and a wine skin.

  “You’re optimistic,” Flood told her as he put the finishing touches on the horse, then blew on it to dry.

  Tressa shrugged. “The guy is due for a win. You can’t lose your whole life, am I right?”

  The three dwarfs looked at each other, not appearing to agree.

  “Time to go, Gifford,” Padera said.

  The old woman walked toward him, holding a sword and a scabbard. Roan wiped her eyes and sniffled. She grabbed up the weapon and thrust it out to him. “I made this for you, too.”

  Gifford looked at the most magnificent sword he’d ever seen. Like the armor, it shimmered. “I don’t understand. How—how was all this done so quickly?”

  “Not quickly,” she replied. “This sword, the armor…I was making a present. Padera said one day you would need all of it. And besides, I can’t make a fancy vase. This isn’t an amphora with a picture of you on it, but…it’s the best I’ve ever made. I poured my soul into this. It’s light, and stronger than anything; this sword is sharper than a razor, and it shines in the sun so bright it blinds.”

  “She’s not kidding,” Frost said. “This is the finest weapon I’ve ever seen.”

  Flood nodded, the two agreeing for the first time that Gifford had known them.

  Gifford took the weapon from her, surprised by how light it was. “You all weal-ize I don’t know how to use this.”

  “You weal-ize it’s the thought that counts?” Padera took the sword and buckled it around his waist. “Time to go, Gifford.”

  The dwarfs had pushed crates beside the horse, allowing him to climb onto the animal’s back. Malcolm stood in front, petting the animal’s nose and neck, whispering to it, calming it. Gifford inched his good leg over. He could feel the beast breathing beneath him, pushing his legs out with every inhale. Gifford’s hands shook as Malcolm handed him the reins.

  “Tie the ends together so they don’t fall,” Malcolm told him. “Gifford, Naraspur is a smart horse. She can sense you’re frightened. That fear scares her. She’ll try and throw you off her back. So don’t be scared.”

  “How can I do that?”

  Malcolm smiled. “You’re about to ride through an army camp of the Fhrey, who will attack you with swords, spears, and magic. Given that, do you really think you ought to be afraid of falling off a horse’s back? Naraspur is a good horse, a brave horse. She’ll help you if you let her. Hang on. Trust her. Trust her, and she’ll trust you.”

  Gifford lay across the horse’s back, holding on to the mane and the leather straps of the bridle as he listened to Malcolm explain how to get to Perdif. When Gifford could recite the directions back without error, Malcolm smiled, clapped him on the leg, and said, “You’ll do fine. Now remember, stay to the dark areas and the mist. There’s always mist this time of year. And don’t stop. As soon as you cross the bridge, ride up the bank of the Bern to the north. Then when you see the sun, ride toward it.”

  “Good luck, Gifford,” Tressa said. “And…” She hesitated and sniffled. “Thanks for being a friend when no one else was.”

  “Your mother is proud of you, my boy,” Padera told him, her voice still abrasive enough to sand wood. She mushed her lips around, her eyes all but disappearing in that pile of wrinkles that some called a face. “I misjudged you. I’ll admit that, and I’m sorry. Go be the hero your parents always knew you’d be.”

  Roan handed up the helmet, and he put it on, feeling the leather sit perfectly on his brow.

  “Gifford, I…” Roan faltered. “I…”

  “Just let me imagine the west of that sentence, okay?”

  Malcolm took hold of the bridle and led the horse. When he was clear of the smithy, Malcolm gave Gifford one last smile and then made a clicking noise. The animal began to trot.

  * * *

  —

  Staying on the horse’s back wasn’t easy. Gifford bounced and banged, slamming hard against the spine of the animal. It wasn’t only difficult to stay on, it hurt. There was no padding where he needed it the most. Clapping as he was against the horse’s back, only his tight grip kept him up. On the positive side, he wasn’t afraid of the horse anymore. Having sat on her for so long, he’d gotten used to the animal. Even so, he nearly fell twice when the hammering caused him to drift too far to one side. What’s more, Gifford knew the horse wasn’t at top speed. Not yet. What will happen when she runs? How fast is she? Are my arms that strong? Will I just fly off? And if she isn’t fast…

  He hoped she was very fast.

  Gifford caught many a strange look from the few people out in the courtyard and through the city streets as he traveled down through the tiers, but no one said anything until he reached the front gate.

  “Where are you going?” the soldier there asked.

  “To Pewdif. I’m gonna bwing back help.”

&nbs
p; The guard, a Fhrey in full armor, which included a plumed helm, looked at him with a smirk. “Is that a joke?”

  He shook his head. “The Fhwey blew out the signal light. No way to light it.”

  The guard narrowed his eyes at him, then pointed at the gate with his thumb. “There’s an army out there. You don’t stand a chance. They’ll kill you.”

  Gifford nodded. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” While the soldier was puzzling this out, he added, “Open the gate.”

  The guard shrugged. “Your funeral.”

  Yes—yes, it is. This is my funeral.

  Gifford had spent his whole life on a dirt floor, alone in a small home. He lived each day digging in the dirt, looking for clay, and occasionally working it into pots and cups. The nice people ignored him, avoided him as if his twisted back, gimp leg, and dead face were a disease they might catch. The others—the not-so-nice—insulted and belittled. Even the few very nice people, the ones he dared call friends, still made him feel useless. They didn’t mean to. They thought they were being kind when they made a big deal of his pottery. Look what the cripple managed to do! Maybe they didn’t mean it like that, but that’s what he always heard. He was cursed. He was damned. The gods hated him, and he knew with absolute certainty that he would continue to invisibly dig in the dirt until one day he died covered in a slurry of silt. That was all he could ever hope for, that was the best, and he also knew he should be grateful. Anyone other than Aria’s son would have been abandoned to the forest when an infant. That didn’t happen to him—this did.

  As the gate opened, Gifford, dressed in shining armor and wearing a gleaming sword on his side, sat on a beautiful white horse and looked out across the Grandford Bridge at the great pillars flying the Instarya banners. Beyond them, he saw the campfires of a vast army—the army he was about to single-handedly challenge on behalf of…of his lady.

  I’m a hero like in a story or an old song. Me—Gifford the Cripple, also known as the troll boy—but not tonight. Tonight I’m a warrior, riding out of wondrous gates to do battle with gods.

  He smiled then.