Paragon Lost

by Dave Duncan

  Which would surely be more fun than having to crawl to the Old Man and tell him he had been absolutely right—son number three was a total failure, good for nothing but debauchery.

  When the handpicked brawn brought Eadigthridda down to the estuary, Plegmund hoisted sail and shipped oars. The wind was fitful, but at least the rain had stopped. Chivial melted into the horizon and an empty world rolled by in monotonous blue-greens. The thanes opened their sea chests to find warm clothing.

  The swordsman was leaning on the side, watching the following gulls, while his idiot companion sat on the deck beside him, staring at nothing. Sig wandered over to their baggage nearby and took up the sword. Now would be a good moment to throw it overboard.

  Beaumont turned to grin at him—bareheaded, smooth-shaven, bright-eyed, and smirking as if he was as stupid as his friend. “I brought a couple of practice swords in case you don’t have any, ealda.”

  “Huh?”

  “You want fencing lessons, you said. No charge on board ship.”

  “I was drunk that night. Forget it.”

  The kid pursed lips. He must know he was about to die, and yet his only visible sign of tension was the way his eyes watched what Sig was doing with his sword; his voice was steady. “They do say that the reason Athelgar hates fencing is that his father stuffed it down his throat, day in, day out for years.”

  “So?” Sig growled.

  “Of course it was King Radgar’s Ironhall training that let him survive so many challenges over the years.” Beaumont paused, as if waiting for comment, then continued. “So an atheling expressing an interest in brushing up his swordwork must have developed political ambitions. A little late in life, perhaps, but by no means unattainable.”

  Although the sea air was clearing Sig’s hangover, he now understood how Ath felt about this upstart pest. It was going to be a real pleasure watching the briny billows close over those golden curls.

  All the same…

  “Sonny, you’re smart. You must know how your sovereign lord felt about you yesterday.”

  The kid sighed. “I was trying to make on a weed.”

  “Huh?”

  “Gaming slang—I was bluffing. Of course Tasha’s unpopular just now as a foreigner and because she’s her uncle’s niece, but the moment she produces a baby prince, or even princess, then mobs will be cheering and dancing at the gates. Given time to think, your brother would have chosen to make a fast and fatal example of me and damn Grand Master from the boots up. I had to get him too mad to think.”

  “You did that very well,” Sig admitted. No, it was going to be a real shame to watch the briny billows, &c. The boy had flair—and he did not seem to be suicidal. “You know what our final agreement was, concerning you?”

  Beau arched a silver eyebrow. “Splash?”

  “Exactly. Tie your neck to an anvil, he said. I even had to promise not to sell you in the slave market, in case you’d escape somehow. I swore you would definitely not go to Skyrria and on no account will you ever return to Chivial, not even washed up on a beach. I’m a Bael, sonny. I’m ruthless and brutal and I had fifteen men to ransom. You think I refused his terms?”

  “I’m sure you did not, ealda. Were the chains part of the deal?”

  “Now you’re trying to get me mad!”

  The boy grinned. “Yes, but not at me. It’s such a shame your brother’s like that. Constipation, is it?”

  “Joking won’t save you now.”

  “No, ealda. I have to bribe you, don’t I?”

  The words seemed to echo around inside Sig’s skull like bells until he decided that he had indeed heard them correctly.

  “Bribe me? You? With what?”

  Beaumont contemplated the heaving sea for a moment. “Well…I can make you Lord of the Fire Lands. Will that do?”

  • 6 •

  Hove-to offshore, Birgit rolled with an unpredictable, drunken motion, waving her masts in complex patterns. Swithin, perched high in the crosstrees, took a childish pleasure in being swirled around the sky like that, although the bitter subarctic wind that rippled the sails was slashing at him like sabers. He could see the pilot boat coming now, a speck of white between a pewter ocean and a leaden sky. Skyrria was a dark smear along the south. It had been a long time coming and so far wasn’t worth the wait, just dunes and salt marsh braided with channels, the delta of the Dvono. He had expected Treiden to be visible, a league or so upriver, but the only landmark was a squarish tower on the shore. A fire burned on that tower by night; by day the pilots kept watch there for inbound ships in need of guidance.

  Far below him the sailors were busier than usual, preparing for arrival and cursing passengers who got in the way. On the quarterdeck, Captain Magnus and the helmsman kept wary eyes on that lee shore. Dimitri, typically, was draped over the rail nearby. The slightest change in the ship’s motion made that flabby lunk seasick, and his ethics were as soft as his carcase. Yes, he could babble about his wife and child being hostage, but a man was measured by his honor and courage, and Dimitri’s did not inspire. He was not much to die for.

  Swithin had always been a very active young animal. He ran up and down the rigging many times a day just to keep his sweat glands happy. Lately he had taken to sitting up here to think about his problem. It was a long way down to that hard pine deck, but was it far enough? Bound Blades were very hard to kill.

  There were precedents.

  On winter evenings while the juniors were entertained with games and singsongs in the hall, Grand Master would gather the seniors in his study to discuss case histories. Ironhall had four centuries’ worth of such chronicles, each one referenced by its year and the name of the Blade involved. Most dealt with mistakes and failures, of course.

  YORICK, 337—should he have foreseen the possibility of a Baelish raid? One candidate would be assigned to read out the history and another to give an instant analysis, which the rest would then rip apart. Some arguments dragged on for days.

  BRUNO, 304—should he have left his ward unguarded?

  Coming soon: SWITHIN, 402.

  A hundred men in a carrack squirmed like ants. After eight weeks at sea, Swithin would give anything to be free of Birgit, and yet there was worse in store. He had waited too long. He should have gone overboard one dark night and let the freezing ocean make certain.

  HERON, 271—should the Blades have dropped their ward out the window? But second-guessing was not the purpose of Strategy Class. What-if answers were meaningless. Gradually, week by week, Grand Master would nudge each young skull around until it stopped looking for answers and studied the questions instead. Ask not, “How could they have gotten out of that mess?” but rather, “How did they get in there in the first place?” Adding good tactics to bad strategy was just polishing the brass on a sinking ship.

  Either it was the odd angle of view or some Blade instinct for the unexpected…Swithin was no sailor, but there was something…something odd about the little pilot boat. She was riding very low, almost shipping water as she rolled. Her cargo was hidden under tarpaulins, and with luck it would include water and fresh victuals for sale to deprived seamen. He would murder for a crisp apple.

  Grand Master had warned him that there was something fishy about his binding. Osric was a complete unknown and King Athelgar had never assigned a solitary Blade before. Roland had even dropped a hint that Swithin could refuse the assignment, but that meant failure, expulsion, the waste of five years’ labor, and Grand Master would just have to ask the next candidate and the next until one accepted. Swithin never turned down a challenge; he enjoyed being considered a daredevil. He had named his rapier Sudden.

  Even after the binding, when ward and Blade were cantering along the Blackwater road with Dimitri still refusing to discuss himself or his mission, Swithin had been too intoxicated by the prospect of adventure to worry. His awakening had come when his sharper eyes identified two stray horsemen approaching as Royal Guard and the news sent his ward into a near-panic.
Dimitri had galloped off over the moor on a wide detour to avoid a meeting. Swithin had necessarily followed, but he had recognized Hazard and Valiant and was sure they had recognized him.

  HERON, 392: realizing that the King’s sniffers were tracking his binding, he led the chase in the wrong direction. Was he right to desert his ward?

  BEAUMONT, 400: why didn’t he?

  The boat tacked closer. She carried only two men, one of whom must be the pilot.

  At Brimiarde Dimitri had taken his Blade to an elementary for a language conjuration before going to the harbor and Birgit. Once aboard he had admitted his identity—necessarily so, because she flew his pennant alongside the Skyrrian and Gevilian flags and her cargo was his train of servants and bodyguards, all bowing and scraping and addressing him as His Highness.

  Thus Sir Swithin had learned that he was a going-away present for the Queen’s brother. All kings of Chivial had assigned Blades to courtiers or nobles when they felt like it, and once in a while even to foreign royalty. Abandon dreams of danger and derring-do! He was only a medal, an emblem of royal favor.

  It could be worse. Palaces could be dangerous, too. SIR

  WYVERN, 361: four Blades shot down around their ward by Yeomen archers. Why hadn’t they smuggled Queen Sian out of the country weeks before?

  And Skyrria was exotic, mysterious, perilous. Beaumont, of all people, who had been Swithin’s hero once, had miscarried disastrously in Skyrria less than two years ago.

  After Birgit had made her last provisioning call in Gevily and started on the long haul around the Iron Shores, Dimitri had made a more complete confession. Swithin had not been given away, he had been sold. He was Clause Four, Item One, in a secret treaty. Czar Igor wanted Blades of his own and needed a model.

  So Swithin was to be the cadaver in an anatomy class. That was when the abyss had yawned.

  BEAUMONT, 400: Although Grand Master normally knew anything any Blade knew, he conceded that the Beaumont file was incomplete, still mostly hearsay. Beaumont had at first refused to contribute, but in the spring he had sent in a report on a spectacular battle by Sir Oak, and this had opened everyone’s eyes to the nature of Czar Igor. It was fairly easy to guess from that treachery that Lord Wassail’s Blades had seen themselves as attracting danger to their ward, as in HERON, 392. Knowing their ward’s precarious health, shouldn’t they have left him behind in Kiensk and fled without him? Was the right answer for HERON, 392 the wrong one for BEAUMONT, 400? Why had they not researched their mission properly and foreseen the danger in time to prevent Lord Wassail from entering Skyrria at all?

  The long voyage was over. Today Birgit would dock at Treiden and the Temkin party would set off upriver by boat. Dimitri had admitted that from now on he would be a hostage for his Blade’s cooperation, just as his wife and children had been hostages for his while he was in Chivial.

  SWITHIN, 402: what did he do wrong?

  He swore loyalty to a faithless king, that’s what.

  Princess Yelena was not Swithin’s concern. His most obvious strategy was to prevent Dimitri Temkin from setting foot in Skyrria ever again, but one lone Blade could not take over a ship and force it to sail back to Chivial. Three or four might, but not one.

  The only remaining solution showed up in only one chronicle that he could recall—BURL, 356—although no doubt more instances lurked in the full Ironhall archives. Every time he climbed up here to the cross-trees, he meditated on that other solution. His ward was in danger because a threat to Dimitri was a command to Swithin, but Dimitri’s peril would disappear if Swithin did not exist. Far below him, the deck represented that ultimate solution. Splat. Czar Igor could have his Prince back, but he must not get his hands on the Prince’s Blade.

  The pilot boat was closing. Swithin scrambled into the rigging and began a fast descent. Swordsmen had too much need of their hands to slide down ropes.

  The pilot boat swung in alongside, dropping its sail; Gevilian hands shouted and threw lines. Treiden was officially the only Skyrrian port open to foreign traders, but Dimitri admitted that it was the only town of any size still standing along this bleak coast. It was well fortified and could be approached only by such a maze of shallow, winding channels that even wily Baels could not reach it unobserved.

  As the pilot came over the side, Swithin dropped to the deck and trotted up the steps to the quarterdeck. He almost tripped over the topmost tread when a voice at his back said, “Starkmoor!” He spun around wildly.

  The pilot was a small youth wearing salt-stained sailor garments of oiled canvas, plus, oddly, a sword with a basket hilt and a white stone pommel. Then the grin behind that flaxen fur registered.

  “Beau!” Beaumont had last been heard of serving beer in a slummy tavern in Grandon. (SWITHIN, 402: why did he faint?)

  “Good chance, brother! I swear I’m here to help both you and your ward.” Taking Swithin’s arm, Beau hastened him over to the captain. “So please play on our team if it—” around the bosun—“comes to steel. Your Highness, you had a fair voyage?”

  Dimitri made a strangled noise. The crew screamed in terror as ominous red beards appeared over the ship’s side. Arriving within reach of Captain Magnus, Beau flashed out his sword and put the point at the Gevilian’s throat.

  Prospects of rescue struck Swithin like a hundred thunderbolts. Baels were swarming aboard now, all bare-chested and some stark naked. The mast of the pilot’s boat swung madly from side to side as its crew heaved one another up. Dimitri began to move. Swithin slammed into him, bouncing him back into a corner of the rail, out of harm’s way. The bosun jumped to help Magnus. Swithin kicked him hard at the back of his knee, sending him sprawling, then stepped in front of his ward with Sudden in hand.

  “Surrender!” Beau shouted at the Captain. “Surrender and we will spare your ship!” The Gevilian grabbed at the sword. Against a rapier that would have been an excellent move—he was twice Beau’s size and could have disarmed him easily—but a schiavona was two-edged. He screamed.

  Beau said, “Damn!” and killed him with a quick upward stab.

  It was already too late for a bloodless surrender. The rest of the ship was a howling riot with an army of Baels still boarding and crew scrambling for weapons, any weapons: pins, axes, daggers, cutlasses. The helmsman, starting out of his paralysis, drew a knife from his belt. Beau, as if he had eyes behind his ears, pivoted on a heel and delivered a slash that almost severed the man’s arm. The bosun scrambled to his feet. He was a big man and had a dagger, so Swithin sadly ran him through from behind—a poor way to begin a career.

  Then Swithin himself was taken from behind by his ward, grabbed in a clumsy two-armed hug.

  “Idiot!” Dimitri roared in his Blade’s ear. “They’re pirates!”

  (SWITHIN, 402: why did he help Baels kidnap his ward?)

  Fortunately, Dimitri’s bulk was all dough. Swithin slammed a foot down on his instep to distract him, then buried an elbow in the man’s solar plexus. He dodged clear as Dimitri toppled to the planks.

  That had felt quite refreshing.

  Despite their nudity and bestial war cries, the Baels were well-drilled professionals, expertly wielding axes in the cramped melee. They had already seized the main deck, dividing the defenders. Twenty or so Gevilians, mostly unarmed, were being herded into the bow, while the rest made a fighting withdrawal aft, toward the quarterdeck and also the companionway, from which all hands below decks were now trying to emerge, greatly adding to the confusion. These newcomers were armed. So were Dimitri’s four men-at-arms, who were heading to his rescue.

  “Take the stair!” Beau yelled, and ran forward. Swithin snatched up the bosun’s dagger and followed.

  (SWITHIN, 402—did he not remember that a Blade unbound is no more trustworthy than any other man?)

  Already a sailor armed with a heavy pin was coming up to the quarterdeck. He stopped when he saw Sudden pointed at him, and for a moment nothing happened. Swithin feinted, the man tried to deflect wit
h the pin, but a rapier was far too fast for that. Swithin jabbed him in the arm. “Back!” But others were pushing the Gevilian forward; he swung again and tried to rush the deck. Swithin stabbed him in the eye, sending him tumbling back on his friends.

  “Next?”

  He had only the stair to guard, while Beau had taken on the entire rail, almost the full width of the ship. The balustrade was no more than head-height for the sailors, and they could have come over it ten abreast if anyone had organized the chaos into a mass assault. Unlike Sudden, Beau’s sword had a sharp edge he could use to chop off fingers gripping the rail itself. Grips on the posts were harder for him to get at, but men who pulled themselves up to his level got slashed across the face. Meanwhile he must watch out for attempts to grab his ankles or cut off his feet.

  Had Beau taken the companionway for himself and assigned Swithin the rail, Sudden would have been useless for slashing at fingers and would have been snatched from Swithin’s grasp by the myriad hands of the mob. The rapier was the perfect weapon for one-on-one confrontations at the stair head, providing an unbeatable advantage in reach that a schiavona lacked. Beau had foreseen all that.

  A man with a cutlass charged the steps, swinging up his arm to make a downward slash. Before he came within range, Swithin ran Sudden into his armpit. Two down. A thrown knife hissed past his ear like a mosquito, and he yelped. A man tried coming over the rail alongside him; Swithin swung a slash at him. A rapier was little better than a fingernail for cutting, but the threat to his eyes made him let go and fall back. Then another one on the steps—

  Death and violence, screams of pain, not much blood. The ship rolled drunkenly, her sails flapping like thunder.