“Hot towels for aching bones,” Delaval said with a sigh, and he nodded Tademist toward the door.
But a sudden and sharp cry from outside the closed door froze Tademist in his tracks. “What are you about?” Maddie yelled, followed by a thump and a scream. Not just any scream. Delaval and Genoffrey knew such a keen quite well, the dying shriek, the final wail of a man or woman as death descends.
Tademist knew it, too, and drew his weapons as he rushed to the door. From over his shoulder Genoffrey pulled out Spinebreaker, his legendary claymore, and Delaval slid his fine blade from its scabbard and let the belt fall to the floor.
The door burst open before Tademist got to it. In rushed Maddie Macabee, though not of her own accord. She was already dead, her chest gashed open. She flew forward, tumbling before the dodging Tademist, who did well enough to ignore the shock enough to prepare for the man following Maddie into the room.
Behrenese, judging by the color of his skin, the man held a fine, slightly curved sword in both hands. He entered in a fast and steady walk, perfectly balanced all the way to Tademist, where he launched a sudden thrust, then retracted his blade with amazing precision and speed, launching it into a downward diagonal swipe that would have taken Tademist from shoulder to hip had he not been focused solely on defense.
Tademist twisted away from the thrust and backed out of the downward cut then responded fast with a sudden thrust of his own sword, a stab of his dagger as he retracted the sword, and a second thrust. He advanced as he attacked, thinking to drive the man back, for other Behrenese appeared at the doorway.
But the man was suddenly not in front of him. Luck alone saved Tademist as he happened to turn the correct way in trying to find his too-quick opponent and happened to have his sword at the proper level to barely deflect another thrust of his opponent’s fine blade.
A man went by the combatants to Tademist’s right as he squared back up with his opponent. A woman entered next, as sounds of fighting erupted in the hallway, the castle guard rushing to their leader’s aid.
Tademist faded right as the woman, a fine sword in her hand as well, moved to pass him on the left. He wanted to intercept, but his opponent kept him dancing, kept him dodging.
As the woman passed, she smiled at him, and such an awful grin it was! Tademist felt his knees go weak, as if she had just withered him to his core. In that smile he knew-somehow-that he and his beloved King Delaval were surely doomed.
Genoffrey was used to missing with his first swing. The claymore wasn’t wieldy, after all, and Genoffrey never took pains to disguise his first attack. The blade came lumbering down from on high and the warrior before him easily and gracefully leaped back and to the side.
Genoffrey hid his grin, purposely seeming to overbalance as Spinebreaker thumped against the thick carpet. He even appeared to stumble.
The warrior rushed forward to the side of him, pivoted fast, and came in with a straightforward thrust, but just as he started the turn, so too turned Genoffrey, dropping his foot back as he lifted and re-angled his blade, putting it right in line to pierce the charging warrior.
He thought he had a win, and the necessary quick one so that he could go to the side of his beloved Delaval. But the warrior leaped up high, front somersaulted above the level claymore, and landed in a run past Genoffrey. The soldier tried to turn to keep up and felt the burn in his side, felt the warmth of his blood spilling from a long and deep gash.
To his credit Genoffrey grimaced through the pain, completed the swinging turn, and would have scored a hit on the retreating man had not that man, almost as if he had long anticipated this reaction, dived into another roll, this time along the floor.
This Behrenese warrior was two plays ahead.
Well, come on then and be done with it,” Delaval said to the dark-skinned, slight woman, although he had no way of knowing if she even understood him. She just smiled and circled, her curved and decorated sword down low before her, its tip nearly cutting the threads of the carpet.
“I need not ask who sent you,” said Delaval. “Long have we known that the traitorous Ethelbert favored the beasts of Behr.”
“You leaders of Honce slaughter your people with impunity,” she answered, surprising Delaval with her command of the language. “And yet, we of Behr are the ‘beasts’? Tell me, you who would rule the world, how do you measure such a title?”
She came forward suddenly, her sword flashing left, right, and center with three separate thrusts that seemed almost as one to the Laird of Delaval. To his credit, he managed to pick off the first and back out of the reach of the second and third.
She wasn’t done, though, quick-stepping forward and turning a complete circuit-something few warriors would ever dare try-bringing her sword in fast at Delaval’s side, then doubling the complexity of her form by changing its angle mid-swing.
Somehow, and he knew luck to be a part of it, Delaval managed to block.
“How much is he paying you?” he asked, trying hard to keep the nerves out of his voice. In just those two routines, the man feared he was outmatched. “I will double it!”
“Shallow principles,” the woman chided. “We are beasts.”
“You intervene where you do not belong!” Delaval growled at her. “You risk a war with all of Honce!”
“Idiot Delaval,” she said, and she came again, in a vicious flurry of swings and thrusts that left Delaval dizzy, that left Delaval retreating.
That left Delaval bleeding.
“You do not command all of Honce,” the woman finished.
Tademist did not hear Laird Delaval’s gasp as Affwin Wi’s blade punctured his belly. The young warrior heard nothing but the near constant ring of metal as he and his shaven-headed opponent exchanged vicious and furious flurries. Sword hit sword, dirk hit sword, and so fast was the man from Behr that even as Tademist intercepted his thrust with the dirk and perfectly executed a responding thrust with his sword, he found it fully parried.
If that weren’t impressive enough, the man from Behr then immediately launched another thrust routine, left, right, right again, and then right a third time.
Tademist blocked the first three, but his anticipation had him sliding his blade across to block a thrust angled left that never came. He felt the stab in his shoulder, felt his dirk arm go weak, and heard the weapon hit the floor.
Genoffrey did hear Delaval’s gasp, a sound he had heard only once before, in a far-off and long-ago battle in the Belt-and-Buckle mountains. He reacted with a sudden and brutal straightforward rush, stabbing his sword then slashing it, then reversing it with a powerful backhand. He didn’t get close to hitting his opponent, but he wasn’t actually trying for a kill there. He drove the man back, back, and then he turned and charged across the way, behind Tademist and toward Delaval.
He registered that Tademist was in trouble, but there was nothing he could do at that time, for before him the woman was into another wild exchange with Delaval, their blades ringing and screeching with hits and slides, and Genoffrey’s fine eye told him that his friend was too slow here, that the woman was outmatching him, strike for strike. He watched her setting Delaval up with every stride he took, and indeed, he felt as if he was running in deep mud, as if everything before him was just out of his reach. She brought Delaval’s sword to the right, then a bit farther to the right, and then again, with three short, quick stabs, then she flipped her blade across to the left, actually tossing it to her waiting left hand.
“No!” Genoffrey cried in dismay as Delaval futilely tried to re-angle his own sword. To the laird’s credit, he did manage a central thrust, but the woman stepped away from it, farther to his left, and turned as she went, rotating her hips and shoulders, lengthening her thrust and putting great force behind it.
Genoffrey felt a slug in his lower back-he knew it to be a stab from his pursuing opponent-at the same time he watched the Behrenese woman’s sword slide deep into King Delaval’s chest.
It occurred to him that it was appropriat
e that he and his dear friend would die at the same time.
He finished his charge, unable to interrupt his own momentum, slashing Spinebreaker down hard against the woman’s blade, but too late, of course, for that only jarred the impaled laird.
Genoffrey stumbled forward, taking Delaval with him hard into the far wall. The king crashed in without any attempt to cushion the blow, slammed face first into the stone, and bounced away, crumbling to the ground. Somehow Genoffrey managed to hold his footing and hold his blade, turning about with his back against the wall. He saw the woman, in obvious distress, looking down at her sword, nearly half its blade snapped off.
Whatever comfort that might have given Genoffrey, though, ended as she thrust her arm at him and launched the remaining piece of her weapon, flying spearlike, spinning sidelong in the air.
Genoffrey heard it hit the stone wall behind him.
It took him a moment to realize that it had gone through his throat.
He slid down to a sitting position. The woman approached him, while the man who had been his opponent, his sword red with Genoffrey’s blood, turned toward Tademist.
Genoffrey heard Tademist’s cries, one after another, as the two men stabbed at him. Every now and then came the ring of metal as valiant Tademist managed a block, but mostly Genoffrey heard the sickly sound of metal puncturing flesh.
He didn’t see any of that desperate last stand, though, for he could not take his eyes off the slight woman walking toward him. She bent low before him, stared into his eyes, and gave that wicked smile once more, then yanked her broken sword out of his throat.
She started for Delaval, but calls from the hall turned her.
She crossed Genoffrey’s field of view, running back toward the exit. He wanted to turn to Tademist, wanted to turn away from the sight of his fallen friend, Laird Delaval.
But he couldn’t. He hadn’t the strength, and even the slightest movement sent fires of agony tearing through his body. He couldn’t even manage to close his eyes, and so was forced to watch Delaval’s lifeblood pouring from him, pooling around him as he lay so very still.
To Genoffrey, that was the cruelest trick of all.
FIVE
Six Cogs Scattered
The lines of allies couldn’t have been clearer to Dame Gwydre as she listened to Bransen relay his tale of capture, escape, and ultimate victory over Ancient Badden. Beside Bransen stood the fallen monk Cormack and the barbarian woman Milkeila, with a pair of powries behind them.
Across the way to the left side of the room sat Father De Guilbe and his entourage, including Brother Jond, who Gwydre knew was the link between these wildly disparate groups. Jond was a good man, an honorable man, who put moral duty first and foremost. Gwydre hoped that to be the case, for De Guilbe had made no secret of his loathing of Cormack.
“We had enough allies to get through the ancient’s defenses,” Bransen remarked, throwing a sour look Father De Guilbe’s way as he spoke.
Gwydre sighed inwardly. Why did things always have to be so complicated?
“It was not our place to go!” Father De Guilbe protested. “I could not know of your predicament, Dame Gwydre!”
“We have already been over this, good Father,” Gwydre calmly replied. “No one holds you or your brothers at fault for the choice you made in retreating from the glacier.”
“No one?” De Guilbe asked sharply, his glare landing on Bransen.
The man in the black silk clothing grinned, something Dame Gwydre did not miss. “And you slew Badden?” she asked Bransen.
“It would do great injustice to those around me, these four and two other powries, for me to make such a claim, Lady,” Bransen replied, managing another sly grin at De Guilbe as he did. “It was my blade that took his head, yes, but only through the sacrifice and efforts of those around me.”
“However it was done, it is appreciated,” said Dame Gwydre.
“It was done for a price,” Bransen reminded, and all in the room widened their eyes at that rather callous announcement, a reminder that stole the joy from the room. “And now, good Lady, with your generosity, I would ask that you extend that reward.”
Beside Gwydre, Dawson McKeege and another advisor began to protest, but Gwydre held up her hand to silence them and bade Bransen to continue.
“I would have my Writ of Passage,” Bransen demanded. “I will go and collect my wife and her mother and travel Honce as a free man as I was promised.”
Gwydre nodded.
“And I insist upon a similar writ for Cormack and Milkeila,” Bransen added.
“No!” shouted Father De Guilbe, leaping to his feet. Beside him, Brother Giavno tried to grab his arm, but the large, older man tugged free of his grasp and stormed toward Gwydre. “Cormack does not answer to the laws of the lairds but to that of the Order of Abelle.”
“Are you saying that Chapel Abelle will not honor my wishes?” Gwydre asked. If the cool and calm woman was shaken in the least by the sudden and violent outburst she didn’t show it.
“I beg you not to do this, Dame Gwydre!” Father De Guilbe said. “Brother Cormack betrayed us!”
Despite the heightened tension, Gwydre smiled at De Guilbe’s clever and selective use of Cormack’s title. He only called Cormack “brother” when claiming church jurisdiction, it seemed. She waited for De Guilbe to finally stop his march, just a few feet from her chair, then she turned to Cormack.
“Have you anything to say in your defense?”
“I followed my heart,” Cormack replied. “Everything I did, I did because I believed it to be the will and manner of Blessed Abelle, the calling of my order.”
“Betraying us to the barbarians?” rasped De Guilbe.
“Ending a needless slaughter,” Cormack corrected. “You held the men of Milkeila’s clan prisoner. You-we-had no right!”
De Guilbe started to shout back, but Dame Gwydre silenced him and bade Cormack to continue.
“The Alpinadorans of the neighboring islands would all have died at the base of our chapel before surrendering our captives to us,” the young man explained. “I could not tolerate that slaughter. There was no need for it.”
“So what did you do?” Gwydre prompted.
“I freed the four men and showed them the way out of our dungeon to rejoin their people. The Alpinadorans left our island. The battle ended, and so ended the death-the death of Alpinadorans and of monks.”
Dame Gwydre turned to De Guilbe, her expression cold.
“A simplistic review,” the monk said.
“Then do elaborate.”
“The men we held were not captured, they were rescued. Rescued from certain death and healed of grievous wounds through the power of Blessed Abelle, by the brothers of Blessed Abelle.”
“That does not give us the right to hold them as prisoner!” Cormack argued. “You cannot so coerce fealty to faith!”
Gwydre looked from Cormack back to De Guilbe, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and outrage.
“Our manner is of no concern to Dame Gwydre,” Father De Guilbe said to her. “My orders came from Father Artolivan of Chapel Abelle. To him alone do I answer.”
“True enough,” Dame Gwydre conceded. “But a writ is mine to give, and so I do, to both Cormack and this woman, Milkeila, though I would like to speak at length with you both before it is finalized.”
“Yes, Dame Gwydre,” Cormack said, and Milkeila graciously bowed.
“I would ask for writs for the other heroes of the fight,” Bransen interjected then.
“Bloody caps?” Dawson McKeege gasped behind Gwydre, and, indeed, the Lady of Vanguard, too, seemed more than a bit disconcerted at that suggestion.
To the side Father De Guilbe laughed loudly, as if mocking Gwydre and this path she now walked.
“Go back to your brothers,” Gwydre said to him and waved him away.
He complied, but continued his mocking laughter.
“Come forward,” Dame Gwydre bade the powries.
“Name’s Mcwigik,” said one. “And me friend’s Bikelbrin. Come from the Julianthes but spent a hunnerd years on that lake, Mithranidoon, with our friends.”
“And your friends are still there?”
“Yach, still on the rock.”
“You do not wish to rejoin them?”
“Seen too much o’ that smokin’ lake,” Mcwigik replied. “Not for going back, unless going back’s for taking them off with us.”
“Yach, but more than a few’re wanting off that rock,” Bikelbrin added.
Dame Gwydre sat back in her chair, and Dawson McKeege immediately began whispering in her ear, his great concern more than obvious.
“You ask much of me, Bransen Garibond,” Gwydre said a few moments later.
“I… we gave much to you,” the Highwayman replied. “At great risk.”
Gwydre frowned. “I cannot grant powries the writ to walk freely through the lands of men.”
Bransen stood up very straight and crossed his arms over his chest.
Gwydre sighed and looked at the dwarves. “Were I to grant you passage, free of battle, throughout all of Honce, would you agree to lay down your arms?” she asked.
Both Mcwigik and Bilkelbrin began shaking their arms and looking at the limbs curiously. “They’re attached to our shoulders,” Mcwigik answered. “Ye sayin’ we got to cut off our arms to stay with ye?”
Gwydre and the others, even Cormack, chuckled at that. “Your weapons,” she explained. “Were I to grant you passage, do I have your word of honor that you will not take up arms against any man or woman? That you will not do battle with any men?”
“Even them that’s deservin’ it?” asked Bikelbrin.
“Even them. No battle. Not ever. If I am even to consider giving you the writ Bransen desires, then you must promise me that you will not-not ever!-again spill human blood. Can you make such a pledge?”
“Don’t hear ye whining that we spilled Badden’s blood,” Mcwigik retorted. “Last time I looked, he was human. Headless, but human.”
“Aye, and we dipped our caps in his blood, and mines shinin’ all the better,” added Bikelbrin.
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