The Righteous Blade

by Stan Nicholls

  ‘And you address us with the respect we’re due,’ the watchman added, raising his fist again.

  ‘Take your filthy hands off him.’

  A figure emerged from the fog. He was tall and dark. His flowing cloak made him look like some kind of giant winged beast.

  The watchman swung to face him. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  Forgetting their captive, they all turned their attention to the newcomer.

  ‘Stand aside,’ he said. His tone was even. Calm.

  ‘Who in damnation do you think you’re giving orders to?’ the paladin thundered.

  ‘I said stand aside.’

  ‘Who are you,’ the watchman repeated, ‘to be out in curfew and obstructing the watch?’ Stupefaction tinged his building rage, unaccustomed as he was to having his authority defied.

  ‘The boy’s coming with me.’

  ‘Is that so? Well, we’re in charge here.’ He sliced air with the sorcerer’s knife to stress his words. ‘If he’s going anywhere, it’s with us. And you with him.’

  The stranger came closer. His movements were unhurried, almost leisurely. But now that he stood in the lantern’s glow they saw that there was something disturbing about his eyes.

  ‘No we’re not,’ he said.

  The watch captain glared at him. He took in the man’s brooding features. The somewhat angular structure of his face, the slight ruddiness of complexion, his long raven hair.

  ‘Should have known,’ the captain sneered, turning his head to spit contemptuously. ‘We’ve got ourselves a real lowlife here, lads.’

  His comrades laughed again, united in bigotry, if a little uneasily this time. The paladin stayed silent, and so did the sorcerer. Bewildered, the youth’s head swung from side to side, trying to make out what was going on.

  ‘Reckons he can insult his betters,’ the watchman grandstanded. ‘We’ll show him the price of that.’

  The stranger moved forward. He only stopped when the tip of the watchman’s raised knife touched his chest. It didn’t seem to bother him.

  They locked gazes. The stranger didn’t blink, or move a muscle. The captain’s knuckles were white.

  A flock of oversized butterflies fluttered past. They were garishly coloured and appeared to be made of hammered tin. A faint squeaking emitted from their beating wings. Nobody paid them any mind.

  ‘We can settle this peacefully,’ the stranger said. ‘Give me the boy and I’ll let you go.’

  ‘Let us–?’ The captain seethed. He applied more pressure to the knife. ‘It’ll be a cold day in hell when we bow to your sort.’

  ‘I can arrange for you to check the temperature personally,’ the stranger offered, and smiled. There was nothing comforting about it.

  Perhaps there was a glimmer of realisation in the captain’s features, a suspicion of what he might be facing. The shadow of a doubt darkened his face. He half whispered, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A man who doesn’t like being on the business end of a blade.’

  There was a blur of motion, an action so quick and fluid the others couldn’t follow it.

  Now the stranger had the knife. He held it by the blade, hilt up. Dazed, empty-handed, the captain gaped at him.

  ‘I think this belongs to you,’ the stranger said, and just as swiftly lobbed it. But his target wasn’t the watch captain.

  The knife winged to the sorcerer. It punctured his chest, driving deep. Whiskered mouth in an O of surprise, the wizard gawked, bewildered, at the blade quivering in his breast. He went down in a swirl of robes.

  What had been a glacial scene instantly thawed.

  Everyone bar the stranger seemed to be shouting. There was a confusion of movement. Weapons were deployed, lanterns discarded.

  ‘What is it?’ the youth pleaded, twisting in the chaos. ‘What’s happening?’

  The stranger shoved him aside. The youth tottered, and fell.

  From beneath his billowing cloak the stranger quickly drew a pair of swords. Then the patrol moved in to engage him.

  On hands and knees, head low, the young man scurried away from the sound of ringing steel. Bumping into a wall, he huddled with his back against its coarse surface, making himself small.

  A watchman circled the stranger to seize him from behind. He met the smartly delivered backward thrust of a granite-hard elbow. There was the audible crack of a breaking nose. Palms to face, the watchman reeled clear. The stranger resumed fencing with barely a pause.

  He faced the captain and the third patrolman. His most dangerous opponent by far, the paladin, knelt beside the sorcerer. He was feeling the wizard’s neck for a pulse, but his eyes were on the fight.

  Anger rode the captain. It made him unruly. He fought with wild swings and a reckless stance. His companion was more sober. He came in with measured passes and well-aimed strokes. The stranger met both with equal vigour, his twin blades flashing smoothly from one to the other.

  The alley was lit by an eerie gleam from the cast-off lanterns. It threw enormous shadows of the duellists onto the wall behind the cowering youth. The shades of frenzied giants, performing an eccentric ballet. Until one of them stopped.

  An expression of consternation was etched on the captain’s face. A blade jutted from his chest. The stranger tugged it free in a gush of crimson. Knees buckling, the captain dropped.

  His cohort, momentarily stunned, battled on with renewed ferocity. The man with the broken nose, bloodied and ashen, recovered enough to join in. They tried to overcome their opponent with sheer force but he held them off with ease, dodging swipes, side-stepping thrusts with sure dexterity. Nothing they did slowed his attack. Then he took an opening.

  The young man, cringing at the wall, had his hands covering his bowed head, fingers splayed. Half a dozen paces to his left was a sealed window. A grey-uniformed body hurtled into it, crashing through the wooden shutters. It came to rest half in, half out, legs dangling. The youth whimpered.

  With Broken Nose out of the picture, the stranger turned to the remaining watchman and fell on him like a ravening wolf.

  A slash of glistening arterial blood sprayed across the brickwork above the youth. Flecks splashed him, warm drops spattered his head, hands and shoulders. He quailed.

  The stranger had no further interest in the downed watchman. His attention was on the paladin, still kneeling by the wizard. They stared at each other. The paladin was young, robust; his turn-out immaculate, with hair and beard neatly trimmed, in common with his kind. He slowly rose. With measured tread he advanced, drawing his sword as he came. For his part the stranger re-sheathed the flatter of his blades, leaving him with a rapier.

  The paladin asked, ‘Why do that?’

  ‘So we can meet equally.’

  ‘Gallantry from a savage?’ he scoffed. ‘Only a fool throws away an advantage.’

  They’d begun to circle each other slowly.

  ‘We’ll see,’ the stranger replied.

  They moved simultaneously, and fast. Their blades met, pealing, and for a moment locked. Disengaging, both men pulled back and commenced their duel in earnest. Exchanging stinging passes, hacking and chopping, they set up a rhythmic beat of pounding steel. The paladin was a skilful fighter, and disciplined, but no match for his opponent.

  The end came when the stranger parried a stroke and deflected his foe’s blade. The follow-through ruptured a lung and brought the paladin down.

  Rivulets of blood fed the lane’s rain gully, colouring the sluggish flow.

  The stranger looked around and saw the youth huddled at the wall. Ramming his sword into its scabbard, he swept to him, cloak flapping.

  ‘Get up,’ he said.

  The young man didn’t move, aside from trembling.

  ‘On your feet!’

  Still the youth didn’t stir. The stranger took him by the scruff and roughly hoisted him.

  ‘Now take that thing off.’

  ‘No. I can’t, I–’

  He was slammed against the wall. ‘Take
it off !’

  ‘I daren’t.’

  Brutally, the stranger ripped the mask from his face and flung it aside. The freed coins bounced across the cobbles.

  The youth kept his eyes screwed shut.

  ‘Open them,’ the stranger demanded. ‘Open them.’

  With some effort, and timorously, he did as he was told.

  ‘How is it?’

  The young man blinked and looked about sheepishly. ‘It’s…it’s all right, I think.’

  ‘There’s no need for this. It’s stupid and dangerous, and–’

  ‘No need? You know what I’ve been seeing. How can you say–’

  There was a groan close by. They turned and saw that the watch captain was feebly breathing. The stranger drew a knife.

  ‘No,’ the youth begged. ‘Can’t you just leave him?’

  ‘We don’t take prisoners. Any more than they do.’

  He moved to the dying man and quickly finished him. The youth couldn’t watch.

  Wiping his blade on a scrap of cloth, the stranger said, ‘You think I’m cruel. But this is a war. Maybe not in name, but that’s what it amounts to.’

  The youth nodded. ‘I know.’

  ‘Come on. It won’t do to linger here.’

  They set off together through the fog.

  Something that looked like an eel swam past them. It was candy-striped and had a pair of wings far too tiny to fly with. As it made its serpentine way it left a trail of orange sparks.

  In a voice much gentler, Caldason asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m scared,’ Kutch said.

  2

  Dawn was near. The fog was clearing.

  Valdarr, titular capital of the island state of Bhealfa, began to stir. People were coming out to mingle with the magic that never slept.

  As in all great cities, areas of wealth and deprivation sat cheek by jowl. Likewise, there were districts neither prosperous nor impoverished; unassuming quarters where the dwellings and their attendant glamours were humble.

  A closed carriage travelled at speed through one such neighbourhood. It was drawn by a pair of jet-black horses, and its driver, swathed head to foot, was unrecognisable. Rattling along narrow, waking streets, it pulled up outside a row of spartan buildings. Most were private homes. Others served basic needs, with paltry wares and tawdry charms stacked outside on rickety tables.

  The carriage’s passenger alighted. He wore a tightly wrapped cloak and his expression was sombre. The driver immediately cracked his whip and the carriage moved off. As the sound of its departure faded, the passenger paused for a moment, looking up and down the deserted street before crossing to the open door of a bakery.

  Loaves, pies and sweetmeats cooled on wooden racks, waiting for customers. For now, there was only an old woman, standing at a worn counter. They exchanged nods. Without a word, he squeezed past and went to the back of the room, where he descended a stone staircase. This led to a sturdy door, which he rapped on, and once checked via a spy-hole he was let in.

  He was hit by the warmth, and the smell of baking bread. The kitchen was long and low, with a curved ceiling, all in unadorned brick. There were sacks of flour, barrels of dried fruits, bushels of salt. One wall held three ovens. Each consisted of two sets of iron doors; the oven itself and a massive grate below. Sweating men, using tongs to unlatch the doors, fed the hearths from pyramids of wood blocks. Bakers in white aprons hefted long-handled, flat paddles, bearing dough shapes to the ovens.

  The visitor was recognised and greeted. He shed his cloak, dropping it across the only chair. His appearance was distinguished, and his clothes were of good quality. He had silvering hair, overly long, and an intellect that shone through tired eyes. His age was not as great as wear made it seem.

  He walked to the last of the three huge ovens and the workers clustered around.

  ‘I’m getting too old,’ he decided, half to himself. Louder, he asked, ‘Would you be so kind?’

  ‘Glad to oblige, sir,’ the master baker replied, signalling. He was plump and sheened with perspiration.

  A man came forward and split the oven’s belly. The blast of heat was like a punch. Roaring flames erupted.

  Two muscular workers took hold of the visitor. Hands behind his knees, and at his shoulder-blades to steady him, they raised him in a chair lift. With practised ease they swung him back and forth, working up momentum.

  Then they tossed him into the furnace.

  The blaze seemed so real, and the heat was searing. He nearly cried out, despite knowing.

  Instantly he broke through. From intense light to relative dimness. From withering heat to the welcoming cool.

  He landed on a heap of sacks stuffed with yarn, but still had the breath knocked out of him. Seen from this side, the glamour he’d passed through was a window-sized square on a wall. It was filled with muted colours, gently swirling, like oil on water. There was no illusion of flames, and certainly no warmth.

  ‘On your feet, Patrician.’

  Dulian Karr looked up. A woman of middle years towered over him. She was well built, though more muscular than flabby, and she had a mordant face. As always, she toted a thick wad of documents, currently tucked under one arm. Her other hand, surprisingly callused for an administrator, was held out to him.

  ‘Goyter,’ he said, by way of greeting, and allowed her to pull him to his feet. As he rose he made a sharp little air-sucking noise through pursed lips. ‘My aching bones,’ he complained.

  ‘Rubbish,’ she snorted briskly, ‘you’re not that much older than me. I suggest you stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something useful around here; that usually improves your mood.’ Her piece said, she turned and marched away.

  Karr had to smile as he watched her bustle off to harass somebody else.

  There were plenty to choose from. This particular hideout was much bigger than the bakery he’d just left. It consisted of the cellars of several adjacent buildings, knocked through, and at least a score of people were working here. He dusted himself off and started a tour of inspection.

  One section was given over to manufacturing glamours. Men and women, wearing cotton gloves, sat at lengthy tables, gingerly tinkering with magical ordnance. Under the cautious gaze of supervising wizards, stocks of illegal munitions took shape: mirage pods, dazzlers, mendacity flares, odour grenades, stun poles, eavesdropper shields disguised as necklaces and bracelets.

  He swapped brief greetings and wandered on to look at the firing range.

  An area several hundred paces long and perhaps thirty wide had been devoted to testing occult weaponry. Given the dangerous nature of the spells involved, the zone was sealed inside a protective screen. This was almost entirely transparent, except for a faint tint of rainbow colours, not unlike a soap bubble.

  A number of dummies were propped up at one end of the range. Essentially elaborate scarecrows, they were lashed to timber frames. At the other end, a line of testers took aim.

  Energy bolts flashed from staves, decapitating their targets in explosions of straw. Other glamoured devices engulfed them in glutinous ectoplasm nets, or peppered them with ice needles. One of the testers raised a brass horn to his lips and blew. But instead of a musical note, it discharged a cloud of minute, winged lizards with barbed talons and razor teeth. The swarm soared to a dummy and began ravaging it, shredding cloth and wood.

  Another tester held a combat wand. It was snub and black, and it joined to a handgrip with leather tendrils that looped around her fingers and wrist. When she pointed, the wand belched apple-sized fireballs. The flaming orbs burst on contact, setting the manikins ablaze. Some missed and bounced around the range before detonating. Falling short of its target, a fireball glanced off the paving and ricocheted towards Karr. It struck the near-invisible shield directly in front of his face, erupting in a brilliant red and yellow flash. Instinctively, he recoiled, though he knew he couldn’t be touched.

  The tester gave him a contrite grin. He thought h
ow very young she looked.

  Goyter appeared at Karr’s side. ‘We’re working on their stability,’ she said, nodding at the wand. In a lower voice, she added, ‘It’s not like you to be so jumpy. Everything all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just…tired.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Looking unconvinced, she went back to her chores.

  Karr stood with eyes closed, massaging the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.

  In the shadows of a nearby recess, something stirred. Slowly, it dragged its bulk into the light. The creature was powerfully built, and its massive shoulders were broad. It was covered in abundant dark fur, with short, red-brown hair on its paler chest. Its face resembled old leather; its nose was flattened, its eyes black. Moving with a rolling gait, knuckles almost brushing the floor, it made for the patrician.

  Alerted by the sound of its shuffling approach, Karr turned.

  ‘What do you think?’ the gorilla said. It gave a lumbering pirouette, an unconscious parody of an arthritic matron displaying a new gown. ‘It’s a bit bulky, but much more comfortable than that little-girl persona. With a few adjustments it should–’

  ‘For the gods’ sake, spare us,’ Karr interrupted wearily.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I preferred the child.’

  ‘Oh.’ Insofar as it was possible, the gorilla looked deflated. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you keep chopping and changing. At least we knew where we were with her. Irritating as she was.’

  ‘The time seemed right for a change.’

  ‘We have enough change to cope with as it is, don’t you think?’

  ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’

  ‘You can have too much of the wrong sort. Look, I find debating with an ape a bit beyond my present mood. So, if you wouldn’t mind…’

  The gorilla held up its palms in a mollifying gesture. ‘Point taken.’ It swung around and loped back to its nook, arms dangling, legs bowed.

  There was a commotion in the half light of the alcove; a flickering of intense radiance, a honey-coloured haze and the whiff of a pungent, sulphurous odour. A moment passed, the furore died down. Then a lanky man emerged from the cranny.